No time for new North Carolina voting
maps, groups tell court
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[September 01, 2018]
By Jon Herskovitz
(Reuters) - Groups who successfully sued
North Carolina over Republican-constructed congressional maps that a
court ruled to be illegally drawn for partisan purposes said on Friday
there is not enough time to put in place new lines ahead of the November
elections.
The groups' filing in federal court in North Carolina complicates an
already difficult situation over maps that have been contested for years
and could affect a Democratic push to wrest control of the U.S. House of
Representatives from Republicans.
"Plaintiffs have concluded that a statewide redistricting just weeks
before Election Day would not be a good-government solution," the North
Carolina Democratic Party, Common Cause, and League of Women Voters said
in their filing.
On Monday, a three-judge panel for the U.S. District Court for the
Middle District of North Carolina ruled that Republican legislators
responsible for the map conducted unconstitutional partisan
gerrymandering to dilute the impact of Democratic votes. They gave
parties until Friday to present fixes.
Defendants, who included state Republican leaders, did not offer any
remedy in their own filing and instead laid out the logistical
difficulties in making changes.
In their decision, the judges did not rule out allowing the current maps
to be used in the election.
The North Carolina dispute centered on a congressional redistricting
plan adopted by the Republican-led legislature in 2016 after a court
found that Republican lawmakers improperly used race as a factor when
redrawing certain U.S. House districts after the 2010 census.
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Visitors wait to enter the U.S. Supreme Court, as the Court sent
back to a lower court a decision that Republicans in North Carolina
had drawn congressional district boundaries to give their party an
unfair advantage, in Washington, U.S., June 25, 2018. REUTERS/Toya
Sarno Jordan/File Photo
The Republican lawmaker in charge of the plan said it was crafted to
maintain Republican dominance because "electing Republicans is
better than electing Democrats."
Republicans in 2016 won 10 of the 13 House districts - 77 percent -
despite getting just 53 percent of the statewide vote, nearly the
same result as in 2014.
Nationally, Democrats need to pick up 23 seats to gain a majority in
the U.S. House of Representatives that could thwart Republican
President Donald Trump's legislative agenda.
North Carolina State House Rules Chairman David Lewis, a Republican,
called on the court to put its ruling on hold.
Among the suggestions from the judges was holding state nominating
primaries in November with new district lines that remove illegal
partisan bias and then holding a general election before the new
U.S. Congress is seated in January.
(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; editing by Bill Tarrant and Leslie
Adler)
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