Three N.C. Congressmen add Voices to Fight Against 'Extreme' Partisan Gerrymandering | Eastern NC Now

    Publisher's note: This post was created by the staff for the Carolina Journal, John Hood Publisher.

    Two Republicans and one Democrat in North Carolina's congressional delegation have signed on to a legal brief challenging "extreme" partisan gerrymandering at the U.S. Supreme Court.

    Reps. Walter Jones, R-3rd District; Mark Meadows, R-11th District; and David Price, D-4th District, are listed among 36 current and former members of Congress who have signed a friend-of-the-court brief filed Tuesday in Gill v. Whitford. That Wisconsin case could decide the fate of partisan gerrymandering. The Supreme Court will address the case this fall.

    The 18 Democrats and 18 Republicans signing the brief want the Supreme Court to affirm a lower-court ruling. The earlier ruling threw out Wisconsin's election maps because of partisan gerrymandering.

    "[I]n light of the constitutional principles that animate our role as Members of the House, and the grave threat that hyper-partisanship poses to our Republic, we need constitutional ground rules that ensure basic standards of fairness and broad-based competition, without subjecting the districting process to free-form judicial second-guessing," the brief states.

    "What our political system needs now - what the problem of extreme partisan gerrymandering needs now - are basic boundaries, so that our parties may begin to correct course and mend the broken parts of our political process," the brief continues. "This Court should give the Nation that chance."

    The 36 signers take no position on a key portion of the Gill v. Whitford case: the efficiency gap analysis used to throw out the Wisconsin maps.

    "[W]hile all amici agree that some constitutional boundaries are essential to police the growing negative effects of partisan gerrymandering, amici take no position on the effectiveness of the different methods, such as the efficiency gap, that can be used for enforcing such boundaries," a footnote at the end of the brief explains.

    The brief quotes both Meadows and Price.

    Meadows, leader of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, discusses the pressure from party leaders to take positions on legislation that are inconsistent with those of his constituents. "I didn't run for Congress to be a yes vote for House Republican leadership. ... I came to Congress to make the voices of the people of Western North Carolina heard."

    Price laments that "some guys say they might be more moderate, but they just can't be" because of their need to appeal to "party insiders and/or highly partisan primary voters."