October 2023 - NC Legislative Update

Gerrymandering in North Carolina

By: Andy Perrigo
2023-Sept-28

Why is NC going through redistricting again, when we are not coming out of a "year that ends in zero" (aka census year)?  The answer is: because the previous NC Supreme Court didn't like the maps which were drawn with the criteria listed below.  That Court ordered the Congressional map to be drawn by three Democrat masters, and then ordered that map to be used for the 2022 election only.  The NC Senate map was ordered by the Court to be redrawn.  The NC House map was considered acceptable.  After the Court was reconstituted due to the 2022 election, it set aside the ruling of the previous activist Court, but left the order to redraw the Congressional map in place.  This Court agrees with the legislative leaders that it is the legislature's duty to draw the voting maps.  Now, there are federal civil rights rules found in the Voting Rights Act (VRA) that the state must follow; although the US Supreme Court has ruled that North Carolina is no longer bound by the strictest rules of the VRA.  In addition, there is an old NC Court decision which says the NC House and Senate maps must avoid splitting counties; that it is only acceptable to do so in trying to come up with equally populated districts.

In 2021, the North Carolina General Assembly implemented new district plans for the U.S. House of Representatives, NC House of Representatives, and NC Senate.1  The redistricting process was initiated after the return of the federal decennial census counts in August 2021.1  The new rules adopted by state legislators included the following criteria:

  1. Nearly Equal Population: Each district should be drawn to contain nearly equal population.2
  2. Geographically Contiguous Boundaries: Districts should be geographically contiguous, meaning that they should form a single, unbroken shape.2
  3. Minimal Splitting of Counties: The redistricting maps should aim to minimize the splitting of counties.2
  4. No Use of Voting Information or Racial Data: The maps should not use voting information or racial data.2

These criteria were agreed upon by state legislators to ensure a nonpartisan approach to redistricting in North Carolina.2  For more information, you can visit the official website of the North Carolina General Assembly.1
Please note that subsequent legal challenges resulted in the enactment of new district plans in February 2022.1  The new plans were formulated to address these legal concerns.

Legislative and Congressional Redistricting.  Redistricting is the process of defining the districts from which public officials are elected.  Members of the United States House of Representatives, the North Carolina Senate, and the North Carolina House of Representatives are elected by district.3

To have a starting place, the Committee randomly chose a map from the hundreds that the Duke University Redistricting project researchers provided.  The county groupings on the maps were the basis for the final maps that come out of the committee.

Legislators had the opportunity to sit at computer terminals for the purpose of drawing maps that could be submitted to the Committee as an amendment.

The public could also sign up to use a terminal at the General Assembly to draw maps that could be given to a legislator for submission to the committee.  What was not allowed was the submission of a map created on any other computer than what was provided to legislators and the public by the General Assembly's Information Systems Division.

Legislators were not allowed to take any materials with them into the map drawing room.  No secret map drawings/submissions were allowed.  One famous controversy is the infamous 9-11 fiasco where Speaker Moore brought up an override vote, when he noticed hardly any Democrats in the House Chamber.  The claim was that legislators were at 9-11 memorials and the Speaker was taking advantage of that "fact."  During a heated floor debate, Rep. Butler let it slip that her caucus was actually in the basement of the legislative building working on maps in secret.  In fact, only one legislator was verified to have been at a 9-11 memorial service that morning.

I suspect that the same criteria will be used again this year.

Person County's current NC Senate D23 and House D2:

NC District #23 NC District #2

Redistricting is like squeezing a toothpaste tube or a tube of jello.  Because of the VRA, the Committee usually considers the Eastern county clusters first.  The committee will attempt to come up with acceptable districts that do not "pack" black voters into districts, or "crack" groups of black voters so that their voting power is diluted.  In other words, the purpose of the VRA is to elect more black representation.  The grouping of the eastern counties is a hotly debated task.  The rural nature of the counties – coupled with the lower population numbers – requires some crazy-looking districts that are very difficult to travel through in one day.  Here is how the current grouping looks:

eastern NC Districts

It is impossible to create competitive districts without severely gerrymandering the maps.  The map drawing will begin soon.  You can follow all the redistricting work at "www.ncleg.gov/redistricting".  You can even dig into the "stat pack" to find out the compactness and population distributions.  The population deviation can only be 5%.  Our House District #2 was drawn to benefit a Democrat in the hopes that the NC Supreme Court would accept the map as a compromise map.  Before the map was amended on the House floor, House District #2 actually had fewer Durham County precincts, making the district more competitive.  However, a small part of Durham County would have been linked to Chatham County.  The map ended up splitting Durham County enough times in order to make House District #2 easier to win for a Democratic candidate.

Confused?  Most of the people that speak for "fair maps" and opine that "every district should be competitive", are also confused about the process.  For a Republican to win in Durham, there would have to be egregious gerrymandering to figure out how to put a sliver of Durham with enough rural counties to make up the necessary population.  The chart below shows what the population target is, 86,995.  That number is found by dividing the entire voting population by 120, the number of seats in the NC House.  You can see that the 2021 population of District #2 was actually 3,756 more persons than the target number.  Why not shave off a few and add them to the Granville district???  Because other criteria would likely be violated.

Table 1

Sources:
1. https://www.ncleg.gov/Redistricting/Process2021
2. https://today.duke.edu/2021/10/five-things-know-about-redistricting-north-carolina
3. https://www.ncleg.gov/redistricting/
4. https://lrs.sog.unc.edu/bill/redistricting-criteria-2021
5. https://www.wunc.org/politics/2023-09-28/redistricting-north-carolina-2023-gop