Federal Panel Throws a Curve To North Carolina With Remap
By Geoff Earle, CQ Staff Writer
(CQ, April 11) -- Caught between a federal government demanding fidelity to the Voting Rights Act and a court suspicious of race-dominated remedies, state lawmakers charged with drawing congressional districts must feel like a child of divorced parents: Currying favor with one often antagonizes the other.
One parent has come down hard on the North Carolina General Assembly, which just last year finished redrawing its congressional districts to comply with a Supreme Court ruling. A three-judge federal panel ruled 2-1 on April 3 that the state's black majority 12th District was unconstitutional, even though it was redrawn and had been approved by a different federal judicial panel.
The ruling immediately threw the state's election schedule and its election-year politics into turmoil. Candidate filing deadlines had already closed, and the primary elections were to be held May 5.
Districts now must be redrawn, filing could be reopened and election dates will have to be moved. It left Roy Cooper, the state's Democratic Senate majority leader, scratching his head.
"We have the task of proving to the Justice Department that we paid attention to race," he said. "Then we have to run around and prove to the Supreme Court that we did not pay too much attention to race. That is a very narrow margin of error."
The mixed messages have contributed to the drawn-out court fights. "North Carolina will be the winner in terms of the longest protracted litigation," said redistricting expert Jeff Wice, "surpassing the California plan from the 1980s."
In ruling against the 12th District, the court asked the General Assembly to come up with a timetable for another round of redistricting and a schedule for elections based on the new map. If the Democrats who control the state Senate and the Republicans who control the state House cannot agree on a new map, the court said it would draw new districts itself.
That was a tall order on only a few days' notice, and the General Assembly asked for more time. On April 6, Democratic state Attorney General Mike Easley asked Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who hears time-sensitive cases from the 4th U.S. Circuit, to stay the ruling pending an appeal to the Supreme Court.
Judicial back-and-forth is not new in North Carolina's redistricting case.
Its map is one of many drawn after the 1990 census with the intent of electing more minority lawmakers. Under orders from the Bush administration to maximize its black districts, the state produced a map with two majority black districts which elected the first blacks from North Carolina this century: Democrats Melvin Watt in the 12th and Eva Clayton in the 1st.
Enter Duke University law professor Robinson Everett, a seasoned attorney who was once chief justice of the U.S. Military Court of Appeals. Everett filed suit against the map in 1992, and the case made it to the Supreme Court, which in 1996 struck down the map as a racial gerrymander.
In response, the state General Assembly drew new districts, which were approved by a three-judge federal panel. The new map includes a more compact version of the 12th District, but Everett argued that the 1st and 12th districts were still unconstitutional, only "more carefully disguised."
With new plaintiffs who lived in the affected districts, Everett filed a new lawsuit. This allowed a new three-judge panel, with two Republican-appointed judges, to hear the case. U.S. District Judge Richard Voorhees also served on the three-judge panel which heard the initial challenge, where he was sometimes at odds with his two colleagues. U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle formerly served on the staff of Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C.
Left untouched for the moment is North Carolina's primary for the seat held by GOP Sen. Lauch Faircloth, although the General Assembly may decide to postpone the primary to coincide with the congressional elections.
The current remap represents a delicate balance between the two parties; each holds six congressional seats. At present, 47 percent of the 12th District's voters are black. If that number drops, it could begin to threaten the incumbent Watt, while also affecting adjoining districts. Watt could even be paired against another incumbent. Such changes could threaten the bipartisan consent needed to pass a redistricting plan.
Any failure to do so would send the issue back to the court.
© 1998 Congressional Quarterly Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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