gerrymandering
May 23, 2017 -
This week the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that congressional districts drawn by North Carolina's GOP-controlled legislature back in 2011 involved unconstitutional racial gerrymanders. The decision connected racial and partisan gerrymandering in a way that experts say will lead to many more successful racial gerrymandering cases in the South and elsewhere.
February 15, 2017 -
Gerrymandering voting district lines is one way to rob political power from people of color, but another is not drawing any lines at all. A lawsuit filed last week is challenging such an at-large voting system in one Eastern North Carolina county — and history suggests the plaintiffs stand a good chance of winning.
December 9, 2016 -
This week the U.S. Supreme Court took up cases involving potentially racially gerrymandered voting districts in North Carolina and Virginia. The rulings are expected to define for the first time what constitutes excessive reliance on race when drawing district lines.
November 11, 2016 -
Because of district lines drawn by Republicans, Democrats continue to be underrepresented in relation to their votes in Southern states' congressional delegations.
April 6, 2016 -
In a major voting rights case, the Supreme Court affirmed Texas' right to draw state legislative districts based on total population rather than eligible voters. But whether states can choose to use voter population instead — and tip the balance of political power— remains an open question.
February 12, 2016 -
The court battle over North Carolina's congressional and legislative districts highlights the role of well-funded interests in shaping political maps. A Washington, D.C.-based super PAC not only helped draw up the congressional districts that were recently ruled unconstitutional, but also helped elect legislators and an N.C. Supreme Court justice who approved the maps.
February 12, 2016 -
North Carolina's Republican-controlled legislature redrew congressional districts to make two of them majority-black — and then moved this year's primary up two months. Now, with absentee voting already underway, those districts have been ruled unconstitutional and the legislature ordered to draw new ones.
