Republicans Win Massive Victory in Court
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Voting rights activists rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court during oral arguments in the Moore v. Harper case December 7, 2022 in Washington, DC. The Moore v. Harper case stems from the redrawing of congressional maps by the North Carolina GOP-led state legislature following the 2020 Census. The map was struck down by the state supreme court for partisan gerrymandering that violated the state constitution. Also at issue in the case is the independent state legislature theory, a theory that declares state legislatures should have primary authority for setting rules of federal elections with few checks and balances.
A conservative majority in the North Carolina Supreme Court may have just ensured a decade of Republican dominance in the increasingly purple state.
On Friday, the court's 5-2 majority ruled overturned its own past ruling banning partisan gerrymandering, clearing a route for the Republican-controlled state legislature to redraw the lines of the state's congressional map in a way that greatly benefits the GOP.
The ruling was also considered the first test of the court's new Republican majority on the court, whom voters elected to replace the state's previous 4-3 liberal majority by fewer than five points in the 2022 elections. Entering the 2020 elections, the court had a 6-1 liberal majority.
"Today is a great day for North Carolina and the Rule of Law," NCGOP Chairman Michael Whatley said in a statement after the ruling. "The People of North Carolina rejected the blatant activism of the progressive judges by electing a strong majority of conservative Justices. These rulings are a big step toward restoring respect for the Constitution and taking politics out of the courtroom."
The ruling could potentially have significant ramifications for Democrats to regain control of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2024, and will likely clear room to strengthen Republicans' influence over state policy.
While North Carolina is considered a "purple" state—its governor, Roy Cooper, is a Democrat, and former President Donald Trump only carried it by 1.34 points in 2020—Republicans have gained increasing influence in state legislative seats since control of both chambers flipped after the 2008 elections.
That majority comes with an asterisk, however. During a "blue wave" election in 2018, the Republican majority there was allowed to run for re-election using a map gerrymandered to their advantage, even after the U.S. Supreme Court has "conclusively determined" in a previous ruling that a substantial share of those lawmakers were elected from gerrymandered districts.
While the GOP has tried to broaden its majority even further through the redistricting process, previous efforts by Republicans to expand their power have met resistance from the previously intact 4-3 liberal majority on the court, which ruled late last year that legislative district lines drawn by North Carolina Republican lawmakers were "unconstitutionally racially gerrymandered" against voters of color.
The previously drawn maps, they concluded, were "designed to systematically prevent Democrats from gaining a tie or a majority in the House" while, in close elections, the enacted House plan "always gives Republicans a substantial House majority.
"That Republican majority...persists even when voters clearly express a preference for Democratic candidates," they concluded.
Conservatives on the court, however, took a different route.
After the midterm elections returned a new conservative majority, the state supreme court took the unusual step of reviving the case, ultimately overturning a decision the same court had reached less than half a year earlier.
Ultimately, they ruled the decision on whether a map is fair rested not with the court, but with the people who drew the maps, all based on the rationale that the voters who elected them knew what they were getting.
"Our constitution expressly assigns the redistricting authority to the General Assembly subject to explicit limitations in the text," Chief Justice Paul Martin Newby wrote for the majority. "Those limitations do not address partisan gerrymandering. It is not within the authority of this Court to amend the constitution to create such limitations on a responsibility that is textually assigned to another branch."
The decision could have significant implications not just for the state, but for control of Congress as well—especially given Republicans' narrow nine-seat majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.
According to the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, North Carolina's statehouse districts all received 'A' grades for fairness under the lines in place as of 2022, while its congressional maps received a 'B' rating for being fair, but overly advantageous to incumbents.
Friday's ruling threatens to upend that.
Where today the state's 14 congressional seats are split evenly among Democrats and Republicans, the court's ruling Friday could allow the court to redraw the maps to disproportionately favor Republicans, allowing them to win elections by large margins even if statewide races favor Democrats—a move Cooper said Friday was a move to invalidate the voices of large numbers of the state's voters.
"The Republican State Supreme Court has ignored the constitution and followed the marching orders of the Republican state legislature by declaring open season for their extreme partisan gerrymandering and has destroyed the court's reputation for independence," Cooper said in a statement. "Republican legislators wanted a partisan court that would issue partisan opinions and that's exactly what this is."
There was a bright spot for liberals, however. Some have speculated the North Carolina State Supreme Court's ruling could result in the U.S. Supreme Court abandoning its own evaluation of North Carolina's Congressional maps in a case that could strip state courts' ability to review election laws passed by state lawmakers—thereby maintaining courts' ability to provide checks and balances to election changes passed by partisan legislatures.
While the ruling was "bad news for voters of North Carolina," liberal election lawyer Marc Elias wrote after the ruling, it would "very likely prevent (or at least delay) the possible limiting of state court review of voter suppression laws elsewhere."
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