By Aldgra Fredly
Federal judges ruled on Nov. 20 that North Carolina’s Republican lawmakers did not violate federal voting law in redrawing the state’s congressional map in 2023.
In an 181-page ruling, Appeals Judge Allison Rushing and District Judges Thomas Schroeder and Richard Myers said they found no evidence of discriminatory intent in the 2023 drawing of the congressional map.
The ruling stems from two lawsuits filed by individual voters, the NAACP North Carolina State Conference, and Common Cause, alleging that state lawmakers “racially gerrymandered” North Carolina’s federal and state legislative districts in 2023 in violation of the 14th Amendment.
“After considering all the evidence, we find that plaintiffs have failed to prove that the North Carolina General Assembly drew state Senate or federal congressional districts with the discriminatory purpose of minimizing or canceling out the voting potential of black North Carolinians,” the judges stated.
The judges noted that state legislators did not rely on the racial data that would have been necessary to carry out the “discriminatory purpose” alleged by the plaintiffs when drafting the 2023 Senate or congressional plans.
The plaintiffs also failed to show that such racial data was available to the mapmakers when they drew the districts, according to the judges.
“The circumstances surrounding the plans’ enactment and the resulting district configurations and composition are consistent with the General Assembly’s non-racial motivations, which included traditional districting criteria, North Carolina law, and partisan performance,” they said.
The decision, which followed a six-day bench trial held in late June and early July, focused on five congressional districts: three in the Greensboro region and two in and around Charlotte, as well as three state Senate districts. The judges also upheld the Senate districts.
The plaintiffs argued Republicans split and weakened the Greensboro region’s concentrated black voting population within multiple U.S. House districts. They also cited what they called packing black voting-age residents into a Charlotte-area congressional district.
Attorneys for Republican leaders had argued that the 2023 redrawing of the congressional map was based on lawfully partisan considerations and not racial motives. They stated that no information on the racial makeup of regions was used in drawing the lines.
The judges did not rule on the plaintiffs’ supplemental complaints about recent revisions to congressional districts 1 and 3, which North Carolina Republicans drew last month, according to court documents.
The Epoch Times reached out to North Carolina House Speaker Destin Hall, a defendant in the case, as well as NAACP and Common Cause, for comment, but did not receive a response by publication time.
