Courts Strike Down North Carolina Racial Gerrymandering, Legislature Redraws With Explicit Partisan Intent

Federal courts strike down North Carolina’s 2011 legislative redistricting as unconstitutional racial gerrymandering, finding that Republican lawmakers illegally packed African American voters into 28 districts. In response, the Republican-controlled legislature redraws the maps with explicit partisan rather than racial criteria—openly admitting the goal is to maximize Republican seats regardless of voter preferences.

Court Rulings on Racial Gerrymandering

The Supreme Court affirms lower court rulings that North Carolina Republicans relied too heavily on race when drawing district boundaries in 2011. The courts find that 28 districts—19 in the state House and 9 in the Senate—were drawn to dilute the power of Black voters by packing them into supermajority districts unnecessarily.

The rulings conclude that Republican lawmakers used race as the predominant factor in redistricting, exceeding what the Voting Rights Act requires or permits. In districts where Black voters had historically been able to elect their preferred candidates, Republicans increased the percentage of Black voters to 60-70%, thereby reducing Black electoral influence in surrounding districts.

Partisan Redraw With Explicit Intent

Ordered to redraw the maps, Republican state Representative David Lewis makes a stunning public admission during the redistricting process. Lewis openly states: “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.” He acknowledges drawing maps to create a 10-3 Republican advantage in congressional districts, explaining “I do not believe it’s possible to draw a map with 11 Republicans and two Democrats.”

This represents a shift from racial gerrymandering (now illegal) to partisan gerrymandering (which courts have struggled to remedy). By openly acknowledging partisan intent rather than racial intent, Republicans attempt to insulate the maps from legal challenge following recent Supreme Court precedents that make partisan gerrymandering difficult to litigate.

Representative Robert Rucho similarly defends the partisan gerrymander, arguing that the maps simply reflect Republican control of the legislature and therefore Republican authority to draw favorable maps. The candor is extraordinary—lawmakers publicly admit to manipulating district lines for partisan advantage rather than representing voter preferences.

New Maps, Same Result

Despite being redrawn to address racial gerrymandering, the new maps preserve Republican structural advantages. The explicit partisan criteria produce similar outcomes to the racial gerrymander: concentrated Democratic voters and dispersed Republican voters create durable Republican majorities even when Democrats win more total votes.

The redistricting demonstrates how racial and partisan gerrymandering intersect. Because Black voters overwhelmingly support Democrats, any strategy to minimize Democratic representation necessarily impacts Black voters. By switching from racial to partisan justifications, Republicans achieve similar discriminatory effects while attempting to avoid constitutional scrutiny.

Legal and Political Context

The redraw occurs against the backdrop of increasing Supreme Court skepticism toward claims of partisan gerrymandering. Republicans time their explicit partisan admissions to coincide with legal developments suggesting courts may decline to intervene in partisan redistricting disputes. The strategy proves prescient: in 2019’s Rucho v. Common Cause, the Supreme Court will rule that partisan gerrymandering claims are nonjusticiable political questions.

The North Carolina case becomes central to Rucho, with Representative Rucho as the named defendant. The Supreme Court’s eventual ruling that federal courts cannot remedy partisan gerrymandering validates the Republican strategy of replacing racial criteria with partisan criteria to achieve similar discriminatory effects.

Significance

The North Carolina redistricting saga demonstrates the sophistication of modern gerrymandering strategies and the challenges courts face in remedying electoral manipulation. When racial gerrymandering is struck down, Republicans simply redraw maps using explicit partisan criteria to achieve similar results. The candid acknowledgment of partisan intent—drawing maps to elect Republicans rather than represent voters—exposes the fundamental corruption of letting legislators choose their voters.

Representative Lewis’s public statement that he drew maps “to help foster what I think is better for the country” encapsulates the antidemocratic logic of gerrymandering: legislators claiming authority to override voter preferences based on their own partisan judgments. This represents a fundamental inversion of democratic accountability.

The case also illustrates how gerrymandering exploits the intersection of race and partisanship. In a racially polarized political environment, partisan gerrymandering inevitably has racial effects. By switching justifications from race to partisanship, Republicans maintain discriminatory impacts while attempting to place their maps beyond judicial remedy.

The North Carolina experience becomes a cautionary tale about the limits of legal interventions against gerrymandering. Despite multiple court victories for voting rights advocates, Republican maps continue to produce grossly disproportionate outcomes, demonstrating how sophisticated legal strategies can preserve minority rule even in the face of judicial oversight.