The Republican-controlled North Carolina Supreme Court – reversing previous rulings that were handed down when the state Supreme Court leaned Democratic – said Friday that North Carolina’s constitution gave state courts no role to play in policing partisan gerrymanders.
The ruling is a victory for the GOP state legislature, which brought the case back to the state Supreme Court after Republicans flipped seats on the court in the midterms, giving them the majority. The GOP legislature had also taken the case to the US Supreme Court – where Republicans were pushing an aggressive theory that would limit the role state courts can play in election disputes – and it is unclear whether Friday’s ruling prompts the US Supreme Court to dismiss the case that is before it.
“Our constitution expressly assigns the redistricting authority to the General Assembly subject to explicit limitations in the text,” the new opinion from the North Carolina court said. “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. Furthermore, were this Court to create such a limitation, there is no judicially discoverable or manageable standard for adjudicating such claims.”
The 5-2 opinion was written by Chief Justice Paul Newby, who was joined by the four other Republican members of the court. Democratic Justice Anita Earls wrote a dissent joined by Justice Michael Morgan, a fellow Democrat.
The ruling is a major loss for the voting rights groups that had challenged the congressional plan that had been drawn by the Republican legislature after the 2020 census, as the ruling will prevent them from going to state court in the future bring claims of extreme partisan gerrymandering against North Carolina maps.
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