Supreme Court rejects some redrawn North Carolina districts
Source: Star Tribune
RALEIGH, N.C. The U.S. Supreme Court late Tuesday rejected some but not all of the North Carolina legislative districts that federal judges redrew for this year's elections.
The justices partially granted the request of Republican lawmakers who contend the House and Senate maps they voted for last summer were legal and didn't need to be altered.
A three-judge panel determined those GOP-approved boundaries contained racial bias left over from maps originally approved in 2011 and violated the state constitution. So the judges hired a special master who changed about two dozen districts in all. The judges approved them last month.
The Supreme Court's order means more than half of those districts redrawn by Stanford University law professor Nathaniel Persily will revert to their shapes from last summer. The order said House district changes made in the counties that include Charlotte and Raleigh because of state constitutional concerns are blocked while the full case is appealed, but changes made elsewhere to alleviate racial bias must be used.
Read more: http://www.startribune.com/supreme-court-rejects-some-redrawn-north-carolina-districts/473033663/
The wording of this discussion about "changes" made this somewhat difficult for me to follow, but the bottom line appears to be: "Tuesday's ruling means Democrats could find it harder to win more House districts than they hoped."
Here is another take on the ruling by a different outlet:
https://www.local10.com/news/politics/supreme-court-grants-north-carolina-republicans-partial-victory-in-gerrymander-case
(CNN) - A divided Supreme Court tonight handed a partial victory to Republican legislators in North Carolina.
The justices granted a request to put on hold state legislative remedial maps in Wake County and Mecklenburg County. Those maps were drawn by a court-appointed special master earlier this year after a lower court held that some of the districts in earlier maps amounted to a racial gerrymander.
The Supreme Court's ruling means that maps drawn by Republicans for those counties in 2017 are likely to be used in the next election.
The ruling is a only a partial victory for the lawmakers, however, because the justices declined a request to put on hold maps for four other districts.
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