Gerrymandering/Redistricting

Recent NC Supreme Court Actions Do Not Change Jurisdiction

“It’s a radical departure…a 180-degree change in how we have considered our system of government and the role of courts,” said Hilary Harris Klein, senior counsel for voting rights for a coalition of Southern-based groups, including Common Cause.

Lawsuits challenging the state’s legislative and congressional district lines “will most definitely” be filed, Wisconsin Common Cause Executive Director Jay Heck said after progressives won majority control of the state Supreme Court in an election last month. Justice-elect Janet Protasiewicz, who was backed by Democratic groups, will take her seat on the court Aug. 1.

"I think it's the worst decision the North Carolina Supreme Court perhaps has ever made," Bob Phillips, executive director of Common Cause North Carolina, told reporters.

However, Neal Katyal, who argued against the map on behalf of Common Cause in December, said he believes the high court still has jurisdiction. “It’s a pretty dangerous thing to allow state supreme courts to essentially test drive their opinion and go through oral argument at the U.S. Supreme Court and then pull it back,” Katyal, a partner at Hogan Lovells, said in an interview for Bloomberg’s “Cases and Controversies” podcast.

One of the voting rights groups that brought the original challenge to the GOP-drawn map said Friday’s ruling was “one of the gravest assaults on democracy ever in North Carolina.” “Now, extreme partisan gerrymandering has been legalized and it will be weaponized against voters. That’s wrong,” said Bob Phillips, executive director of Common Cause North Carolina. “Undoubtedly, the justices who wrote this shameful decision know it’s wrong, as do the self-serving legislators who embrace gerrymandering.”