North Carolina Supreme Court overturns ruling that disallowed partisan gerrymandering
Kaelan Deese
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The North Carolina Supreme Court overturned a previous ruling that disallowed partisan gerrymandering, allowing Republicans in the state to redraw the state’s congressional lines that heavily favored the GOP.
The decision throws into question the status of a case at the U.S. Supreme Court and whether that court’s 6-3 Republican-appointed majority will rule on a contentious theory known as the “independent state legislature theory.”
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The North Carolina court held that there is “no judicially manageable standard by which to adjudicate partisan gerrymandering claims” and that courts “are not intended to meddle in policy matters,” according to its 218-page decision.
“This case is not about partisan politics but rather about realigning the proper roles of the judicial and legislative branches. Today we begin to correct course, returning the judiciary to its designated lane,” said the majority opinion, which was authored by North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Newby, a Republican.
The case, known at the state level as Harper v. Hall, focuses on a widely criticized ISL theory, which claims that under the U.S. Constitution, state legislatures are granted the ability to determine how federal elections are managed without any checks and balances from state constitutions or state courts.
Marc Elias, an attorney who decried the state Supreme Court’s 5-2 decision on Friday as “shameful,” said the gerrymandering reversal “will almost certainly mean SCOTUS will not decide the controversial ISL theory this term.”
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North Carolina’s top court previously ruled against a congressional map drawn by Republican state lawmakers for violating the state’s constitution. That court gained a Republican majority last year and prompted the court to reconsider the previous ruling after last year’s midterm elections.
For the state-level impact, North Carolina Democrats stand to lose up to four seats in Congress through the maps drawn by the state GOP lawmakers.