Paul Eggers

paul@newsrecordandsentinel.com

While not at the top of most voter’s agendas, partisan gerrymandering, or the practice of drawing electoral district maps to favor one party versus the other, is an issue gaining traction both in North Carolina and across the country.

Common Cause, a nonpartisan government watchdog group, brought that issue to the forefront in Madison and Buncombe counties in a series of events last week. The group organized showings of a CNN documentary that highlighted negative effects of gerrymandering. Brent Laurenz, the outreach and special projects director for Common Cause, led a discussion following the film with former legislators to educate and raise awareness among the audience on the issue.

Voters in Madison County experienced some of the effects of gerrymandering earlier this month with a hastily scheduled June primary that featured just two races. One of those, a Democratic race for the state’s 11th U.S. Congressional district, had to be moved off the March ballot after a federal court threw out the state’s congressional map due to racial gerrymandering in February. Seven percent of eligible voters cast ballots in the recent primary, or just one-fifth the turnout in March.

While a Republican drawn map was the center of the most recent case, complaints of gerrymandering also persisted while Democrats dominated the state legislature. The February ruling was just one of more than 30 instances of court interventions in North Carolina redistricting cases since 1980, according to Common Cause.

Judicial involvement and associated legal expenses in redistricting cases has cost North Carolina big bucks. The creative mapping of state legislative districts has also virtually eliminated competitive districts at both the state and local level: the closest spread for a U.S. congressional seat in North Carolina in 2014 was still over 17-percent and just 12-percent of state legislative races were decided by less than 10 percentage points. 40% of state legislative candidates ran with no opposition, according to Common Cause.

The partisan nature of map-making is not a secret. Rep. David Lewis, a Republican state representative and chairman of the redistricting committee, described his motivation behind the state’s newest map simply. “I think electing Republicans is better than electing Democrats,” he said on the floor of the State House. “So I drew this map in a way to help foster what I think is better for the country.”

Common Cause has made the elimination of gerrymandering its number one priority in the state. The group has united 63 state house members in both parties to sponsor a bill to take partisan politics out of the map-making process.

Governor McCrory is also on the record against partisanship when drawing district maps, telling the Citizen-Times in February, “We need to revisit the whole concept of how to draw districts, not only in North Carolina but throughout the nation.”

Redistricting reform has occurred in other states. In Iowa, for example, three bureaucrats draw lines independent of an incumbent’s address, past election results and voter registration figures. For politicians to adopt a similar similar process in North Carolina, more citizen involvement in efforts like those led by Common Cause will be required.