On November 29, a 3-judge U.S. District Court ordered North Carolina to hold special elections for all legislative seats in November 2017. The primary for such special elections will be in late August or early September 2017. Here is the court order in Covington v State.
All state legislators in North Carolina normally have two-year terms, and all districts held elections earlier this month. But the winners of this month’s election, under the terms of the court order, last only one year, not two years. The basis for the order is that the current districts, drawn up in 2011, are an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The new court order gives the legislature until March 15, 2017, to draw new districts. If the legislature does not do that, the court will draw new districts. Thanks to the Election Law Blog for the link.
The state may ask the U.S. Supreme Court to countermand this order, but the U.S. Supreme Court has already had a chance to intervene in this case earlier, and it chose not to do so. Normally independent candidates and newly-qualifying parties have several years to complete ballot access petitions. The Fourth Circuit ruled in 1981 in Mathers v Morris that in special elections, the number of signatures must be reduced, or the petition deadlines must be extended. So, it is likely that ballot access for the 2017 special legislative elections will be easier in 2017 than it normally is.
How does this make sense? The legislative redistricting plan was approved by the U.S. Department of Justice?
Here’s a quick fix. I seem to recall that some years ago when the districts for the Ohio legislature were thrown out, they elected the entire legislature at-large. Maybe North Carolina can offer to elect the legislature at-large, with approval voting. Each voter can voter for as many or as few candidates as they wish. They might just get a better demographic balance that way, than by drawing up spaghetti shaped districts.
P.R. NOW — before Civil WAR II starts — possibly due to the math MORONS in the Fed courts.
See the infamous 1857 Dred Scott case by the SCOTUS MORONS — Result — Civil WAR I with about 750,000 DEAD on both sides.
The 1865 winning monsters kept the various gerrymander systems — even though P.R. had been around since the 1840s – repeat 1840s.
The court ordered 19 (of 120) House districts to be redrawn, with the special elections to be held in those districts and any adjacent districts that are changed. North Carolina requires legislative districts to conform to county boundaries, subject only to OMOV and race-based gerrymandering requirements. Traditionally, they grouped counties together to contain a whole number of districts, and then drew the districts.
This time they drew the black-majority districts and then drew the other districts around them and then sometimes created the county groupings. But in some cases, they ended up with county groupings, or even single counties. This is particularly true of Mecklenburg (Charlotte), Guilford (Greensboro), and Wake (Raleigh) counties.
I suspect between 40 and 60 districts will be redrawn. It will have minimal partisan effect.
The black Donkeys are trying to get the MAX number of gerrymander districts with 50-55 percent black Donkey voters.
White Elephants are trying for the reverse. Thus the chaos.
Basically ALL of the States with large black minorities should be split into more States — to see the survival of the fittest States.
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
@Brian Irving,
The USDOJ never approves districts. They just don’t disapprove. So the prudent thing for a legislature is to go out of their way to create minority-majority districts, so that the USDOJ doesn’t disapprove. But this may tend to indemnify the state from a private law suit. North Carolina could not hold elections without the USDOJ not disapproving. So it is a rational state policy to do things that get past the USDOJ. A court might tend to be skeptical of a private claim of discrimination.
After Shelby County, when preclearance authority was taken away from the USDOJ, private lawsuits began to proceed. That is the reason that this is just coming up after 3 elections have been held. The legislative districts had also been approved by North Carolina courts. There was a delay as the plaintiffs in the federal case, had to prove they weren’t the same as in the state case, since their lawyers were the same.
“How does this make sense?”
The premise of your question is that it should make sense.
Bad ruling. I hope the state appeals. McCrory will; Cooper won’t.