RALEIGH, N.C. (CN) - North Carolina lawmakers did not violate federal voting law with their 2023 congressional map, a conservative panel ruled Thursday evening.
The federal panel dismissed all claims that Republican lawmakers violated the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act, but has yet to make any decisions over North Carolina's 2025 congressional map.
The state's freshly passed October map - which is expected to flip a U.S. House seat from Democrat to Republican - is challenged by the same voting advocates who tackled the 2023 map. The voters have asked for the court to prevent the 2025 map from being used in the upcoming midterms, but the panel, which held arguments Wednesday, appear likely to uphold its use.
The panel, which included Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Allison Rushing, a Donald Trump appointee, and U.S. District Court Judges Thomas Schroeder and Richard Myers - George W. Bush and Trump appointees - held in their 181-page order and opinion that the plaintiffs failed to prove that the legislature acted to disadvantage Black voters.
The plaintiffs didn't prove the state acted with "discriminatory purpose" as said in their 14th and 15th Amendment claims, the panel found, and showing that a group is disparately impacted by the map fails to meet the necessary standard.
The voters also lacked proof that state lawmakers intentionally acted to dilute votes, the panel found, which is necessary to secure success under the Voting Rights Act.
State lawmakers did not use racial data in drafting the 2023 state Senate map or the congressional maps, the panel found, adding they were unconvinced a lawmaker's knowledge of the state's racial makeup could be used to discriminate against Black voters when drawing district lines.
Politics, not race, explains polarized voting in the state, they wrote.
Lawmakers only compiled racial data about each plan after they made the maps public. And just because the redistricting process was swift doesn't mean lawmakers acted with a plan to discriminate against Black voters, the panel found.
"Using statistical analyses to distinguish between a map drawn to maximize partisan advantage and a map drawn to discriminate based on race is a difficult task considering that the overwhelming number of Black voters in North Carolina are Democrats," the panel wrote. "Nearly any map that moves Democrats in or out of a district will disproportionately affect Black North Carolinians, but that does not prove that the legislature acted with discriminatory intent.
"Plaintiffs have not proven that racial data was even available to the mapmakers when they drew the districts, much less that the mapmakers used racial data in drawing districts, much less that they used racial data to discriminate against Black voters," the panel wrote.
The voters' challenge to the state Senate map also fails because the panel found no evidence of discriminatory intent in the creation of the new election districts.
"We are disappointed with the ruling and currently reviewing the decision to inform next steps," Melissa Boughton, communications director for the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, said after the ruling. The advocacy group represents the North Carolina Division of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and their voter plaintiffs.
The case began as two challenges over 2023 maps that were consolidated. The first, filed by Black and Latino voters, involved the congressional plan; the second, filed by voters and voting advocates, claimed the congressional and state Senate maps targeted Black voting precincts to hinder Black voters' ability to elect candidates of their choice. The changes violated the 14th and 15th amendments and the Voting Rights Act, the groups said, by diluting and suppressing Black votes.
The General Assembly acted with the intent to dilute Black voting power, they argued, not just Democratic voters.
During trial over the 2023 maps, the groups presented witnesses who testified there were high degrees of racial polarization in counties that made up the challenged districts, and that Black voters were cohesive in voting as a bloc.
The changes are not due to racial motivations, but political ones, legislative defendants Speaker of the House Destin Hall and Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger argued, as lawmakers did not include racial data in drawing the maps. The legislature is allowed to engage in political gerrymandering, they said, and there is no evidence that lawmakers acted with a racial motive.
Attorneys for the voters and advocate groups asked the panel Wednesday to prevent the 2025 congressional map from being used in the upcoming midterm elections and instead temporarily use the 2023 map, which they still maintained that they wanted overturned. The panel has yet to rule on their request, but appeared poised to decide against it, grilling attorneys to produce any evidence that the 2025 redistricting would hurt voters and was in retaliation for the first suit.
The panel said it planned to swiftly issue its order. The state's election board has indicated it would need to confirm the map used for 2026 by Dec. 1.
Representatives for the legislative defendants did not reply to a request for comment made outside of normal business hours.
Source: Courthouse News Service
