MADISON, Wis. (AP) Democrats hoped a Wisconsin case would be the vehicle the U.S. Supreme Court would use to strike down highly partisan gerrymandering of electoral maps.
When those hopes fizzled Monday, attention turned to North Carolina. A case challenging that battleground states congressional districts appears to offer stronger evidence of harm.
At issue is whether opponents can identify specific voters who say they have been hurt by gerrymandering the process of a political party drawing state legislative and congressional maps to maintain or expand their hold on power.
The Wisconsin case didnt do that, but the North Carolina case tries to. It includes a plaintiff from each of the states 13 congressional districts.
Allison Riggs, an attorney representing the League of Women Voters of North Carolina and other voters who sued, said the states congressional map provides the most crystal clear example of why a rule creating limits on partisan gerrymandering is so necessary.
Like Wisconsin, North Carolina is closely divided between Democrats and Republicans, yet Republicans hold a 10-3 edge in congressional seats after the GOPdominated Legislature created the maps.
They were forced to redraw the congressional map in 2016 after federal courts determined two of the states districts to be illegal racial gerrymanders. During the latest redrawing, Republicans said they didnt use racial data in forming the maps. Instead, they said maintaining the GOPs 10-3 seat advantage in the states congressional delegation was one of their guiding standards.
I think electing Republicans is better than electing Democrats. So I drew this map to help foster what I think is better for the country, one of the mapmakers, Republican state Rep. David Lewis, said during a legislative debate to justify the criteria.
Lewis and other Republican lawmakers have defended their congressional map by saying it splits fewer counties and avoids the severely contorted boundaries that were common under maps drawn since the 1990s by both Democrats and Republicans.
As an example of extreme gerrymandering, the maps critics point to one boundary that splits the historically black and heavily Democratic North Carolina A&T State University campus in Greensboro into two Republican-leaning districts.
The Supreme Court is expected to decide by the end of June whether to hear that case and another one from North Carolina that challenges gerrymandered state legislative boundaries.
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a pair of largely procedural rulings in two other redistricting cases.
It agreed that a Maryland congressional district can remain in use while Republicans pursue allegations of unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering by the Democratic governor and legislature.
