North Carolina is waiting for the U.S. Supreme Court to decide if the entire state legislature will be up for election in November 2017. Normally North Carolina, like 45 other states, elects all its legislators in even years. But on November 29, 2016, a 3-judge U.S. District Court had told the state to redraw all its legislative districts by March 15, 2017, and then to hold legislative elections in those new districts later that year.
The state hopes the U.S. Supreme Court will cancel the order. The Court has this case on its January 19, 2017 conference. The case is North Carolina v Covington, 16-649.
The federal court ordered certain districts to be redrawn. Only districts that are changed would have new elections.
In North Carolina, districts are drawn within counties or groups of counties. Part of finding of the court is that the legislature grouped the counties after drawing the districts, rather than the other way around.
It is inaccurate to claim that the entire legislature would be up for election, or that North Carolina told the state to redraw all its legislative districts.
But see Jim, most of the ordered districts can’t be re-drawn without also modifying districts NOT ordered to be re-drawn. House District 5 for example encompasses the counties of Bertie, Gates, Hertford, Pasquotank (part), the only way to modify District 5 would be to change the portion of Pasquotank county, the only other district that contains part of Pasquotank county is district 1; according to the court order, this is NOT a district that needs to be modified. The only other districts surrounding district 5 are 23, 27, and 6…. none of those were required to be re-drawn either. How do you re-draw district 5 without modifying the surrounding distrcts?
Map: http://www.ncleg.net/GIS/Download/District_Plans/DB_2011/House/Lewis-Dollar-Dockham_4/mapMain.png
A much simpler solution would be combining districts together that elect multiple representatives from them. 24 districts that elect five representatives each would solve the problem almost entirely without changing any seats or having any special elections. See my website for the fix on the electoral college. http://waunakeegan.weebly.com/waunakeegan-news
AMcCarrick,
Persons who do not have straw for brains recognize that only 19 of 120 House districts were ordered to be redrawn. Even if every one of those required a modification of an adjacent district, that would only be 38 districts. 38 is NOT all of 120.