In a big victory for anti-gerrymandering activists, a panel of three judges ordered North Carolina’s state legislature on Monday to draw up new U.S. congressional maps in time for the 2020 elections.
The ruling was decided by the same panel that had struck down Republican-drawn state legislative maps for North Carolina’s Senate and General Assembly last month.
Though the judges didn’t establish a hard deadline, the panel warned that it would delay the 2020 primaries if new maps haven’t been drawn up by then.
Reading the court ruling below:
Good luck with that. GOP loses nothing by dragging its feet.
How many times has a court thrown out NC’s district map? When are they (the courts) going to say "hey you guys seem to be incapable of doing this so we’re hiring an outside non-partisan group to do for you.
Really how many bites of the apple do NC Republicans get?
When ya got nothing? Gerrymander…
Spanking-machine? Then again, some of those GOPervs would probably like it…
The court relies on the papers released by the estranged daughter of the GOP op who did the last reapportioning. They showed without doubt that the motives for his approach were entirely partisan. All that information had been hidden from the courts previously with sanctimonious denials of plans to engage in partisan gerrymandering once again after the first maps from 2011 were tossed. If the Reps try to play around more, I would anticipate that the court might hold them in contempt, especially after pointing to another recent and efficient remap done by the governing SC body as a demonstration that the required remap can be done quickly. If the GOP fails to act expeditiously, the court may well be able to appoint a committee with directions. That was done in CA in the 80s. I think the message being sent was a quiet but definitive ‘don’t screw around’ to the GOP. The defendant Republicans and friends lied to the court. Courts typically don’t take that well.