CBC Editorial: Friday, June 29, 2918; Editorial #8317

The following is the opinion of Capitol Broadcasting Company

Amid the torrent of decisions coming from the U.S. Supreme Court the last few days, several concerned political and racial gerrymandering.

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The court’s decisions earlier this week seemed to signal plaintiffs would need to overcome a high bar to sustain claims of political or racial gerrymandering.

So, it really says something when that court tells North Carolina Republicans they’ve gone too far in gerrymandering, as it did in Thursday’s ruling largely upholding state legislative districts drawn by a court-designated expert.

Legislators should heed the high court’s message and immediately embark on enacting a truly nonpartisan system for drawing congressional and legislative districts.

This shouldn’t be a challenging assignment, given the speed the legislature’s shown for nearly everything else it has done, particularly in recent days.

Republican legislative leaders – at every turn and at very significant taxpayer expense – have fought the repeated directives by the courts that at nearly every opportunity found their actions racially discriminatory and illegal.

Powerful House Rules Committee Chairman David Lewis of Harnett County offered a sheepish and disingenuous response to the high court’s latest ruling.

“We hope this stops the plaintiffs’ continued gamesmanship and overtly political litigation," he said.

GAMESMANSHIP? Rep Lewis has been a leader of the mob that installed extreme partisan and racial gerrymandering, passed laws to reduce voter turnout, and then conducted their business in secret. That’s a complete lack of confidence in their policies. The only way they can govern is by cooking the election book and conducting their business in secret!

Allison Riggs, a lawyer who represented the plaintiffs in the case, rightly summed up the court’s order: “Discrimination, even if hidden under a self-proclaimed veil of ignorance, will not be tolerated in the redistricting process."

For nearly a decade the legislative leadership manipulated the courts to hold onto their illegal veto-proof majority. It’s worked. If you don’t think that’s significant, consider that over the last 10 days, Republicans have over ridden the nine bills Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed – some by just a single-vote margin. Similar close votes are putting a half-dozen turnout related, largely unnecessary amendments to the State Constitution before voters this fall.

Gerrymandering makes all that possible. In the last election Democrats running for the state House of Representatives captured 45 percent of the votes cast. That should translate into as many as 54 seats for Democrats to 66 for the Republicans. Yet, because of gerrymandering, Democrats hold just 38 percent of the seats. It takes 72 votes to override a governor’s veto – and with 75 Republican seats, the party has a “super majority” with three votes to spare.

With its ruling Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court has sent a clear message to the North Carolina General Assembly that its gerrymandering ways are extremely out of step.

Nonpartisan redistricting isn’t a mystery nor is it exotic. Just two years ago, through Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy, a nonpartisan coalition brought together retired state justices and judges (led by former state Supreme Court Justices Rhoda Billings, a Republican, and Henry Frye, a Democrat) who in just a few months, produced a congressional redistricting plan that didn’t look at political data – but rather at the law.

They came up with 13 geographically compact districts without considering political party registration or voting history. They offered up districts with equal populations, while complying with the federal Voting Rights Act.

Stop the games. This isn’t rocket science. It’s just the will to do the right thing.

As the athletic shoe company says, “Just do it."

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