Supreme Court strikes down more North Carolina election districts

Richard Wolf | USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday struck down dozens of state legislative districts in North Carolina because they disadvantaged black voters, but the justices said special elections this year might not be necessary.

The decision was a mixed bag for the state, which now has seen both legislative and congressional districts rejected because of their emphasis on racial demographics and faces a potential Supreme Court review over excessive partisanship. Last month, the justices refused to reconsider a lower court's ruling that a North Carolina photo-ID law discriminated against black voters "with almost surgical precision."

While the court vacated a federal district court order mandating special elections this year for one-year terms, opponents of the redistricting plan vowed to fight that battle again in the lower court. Elections this fall would would give Democrats a chance to reduce Republicans' veto-proof majorities, which in turn could help newly elected Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.

“The U.S. Supreme Court has finally and emphatically confirmed what we've known for years — that many of North Carolina's state legislative districts are unconstitutional racial gerrymanders," said Anita Earls, executive director of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice. "The order reaffirms that our clients, and the voters of this state, are entitled to have fair legislative districts that do not discriminate against voters based on their race."

A three-judge trial court ruled last summer that 28 state legislature districts in question were improperly drawn with too much of an emphasis on race. Then the lower court ruled that special elections must be held this year — a process the state called "the most extreme and intrusive remedy possible: partial invalidation of an election and imposition of a special election that overrides multiple provisions of the North Carolina Constitution."

The Supreme Court's dual opinions Monday upheld the original district court ruling but questioned the need for special elections. The lower court's reasoning, the justices said, "would appear to justify a special election in every racial-gerrymandering case -- a result clearly at odds with our demand for careful, case-specific analysis."

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