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Court fight starts over North Carolina districts
Court fight starts over North Carolina districtsAssociated Press
RALEIGH, N.C. -- Did Republicans illegally draw new boundary lines for General Assembly and congressional seats in late 2011 to gain more power?
Critics say they did. Now, they're making their case in court. Two days of court hearings on a pair of redistricting lawsuits began Monday in Raleigh.
Democratic voters and civil rights and election advocates want three judges hearing the case to declare the maps unconstitutional. They say Republican lawmakers illegally packed black voters into districts, split voting precincts and failed to keep whole counties within districts.
Attorneys for GOP legislative leaders and the state want the lawsuits thrown out. They say federal laws and court cases require majority-black districts whenever feasible ...
Critics say they did. Now, they're making their case in court. Two days of court hearings on a pair of redistricting lawsuits began Monday in Raleigh.
Democratic voters and civil rights and election advocates want three judges hearing the case to declare the maps unconstitutional. They say Republican lawmakers illegally packed black voters into districts, split voting precincts and failed to keep whole counties within districts.
Attorneys for GOP legislative leaders and the state want the lawsuits thrown out. They say federal laws and court cases require majority-black districts whenever feasible ...
Judges hearing arguments over NC district maps
By GARY D. ROBERTSON, Associated Press
Updated 9:56 am, Monday, February 25, 2013
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — ... Democratic voters and civil rights and election advocates want a three-judge panel hearing the case to declare the maps unconstitutional — even while the maps increased black representation in the legislature. Their attorneys argued Republican lawmakers illegally packed black voters into sprawling districts, split voting precincts and failed to keep whole counties within districts.
The latest once-a-decade rewrite of the boundaries, done by legislators based on U.S. census, data turns back "substantial but incomplete progress" in eliminating racial animosity in North Carolina, said Anita Earls, a Durham attorney representing the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and other groups.
Republicans have argued in court documents and the 2011 redistricting debate that federal laws and recent court cases require majority-black districts whenever feasible and protect against legal challenges. But Earls said mapmakers broke the law by making race the predominant factor in their decision-making, segregating voters on a block-by-block basis.
"The overwhelming and uncontested evidence in this case demonstrates that race did predominate the decision about where to draw the district lines," Earls said ...
The latest once-a-decade rewrite of the boundaries, done by legislators based on U.S. census, data turns back "substantial but incomplete progress" in eliminating racial animosity in North Carolina, said Anita Earls, a Durham attorney representing the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and other groups.
Republicans have argued in court documents and the 2011 redistricting debate that federal laws and recent court cases require majority-black districts whenever feasible and protect against legal challenges. But Earls said mapmakers broke the law by making race the predominant factor in their decision-making, segregating voters on a block-by-block basis.
"The overwhelming and uncontested evidence in this case demonstrates that race did predominate the decision about where to draw the district lines," Earls said ...