U.S. Supreme Court Refuses to Change N.C. Legislative Voting Maps | Eastern North Carolina Now

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

    The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to make any more changes to election maps for North Carolina's 2018 legislative elections. An unsigned 8-1 ruling from the nation's highest court means the legislative districts in place today will be the ones in place when voters head to the polls in the fall.

    Justices rejected a plea from N.C. legislative leaders to set aside districts drawn by an outside "special master" for state Senate races in Hoke, Cumberland, and Guilford counties and House races in Sampson, Wayne, and Guilford counties.

    The General Assembly's lawyers had argued to have those districts thrown out in light of the Supreme Court's latest ruling in a Texas redistricting case. Like North Carolina's legislative district dispute, the Texas case hinged on claims of racial gerrymandering.

    The justices rejected the General Assembly's argument that its 2017 legislative election maps could not have created a case of racial gerrymandering. "While it may be undisputed that the 2017 legislature instructed its map drawers not to look at race when crafting a remedial map, what is also undisputed - because the defendants do not attempt to rebut it in their jurisdictional statement or in their brief opposing the plaintiffs' motion to affirm - is the District Court's detailed, district-by-district factfinding respecting the legislature's remedial Senate Districts 21 and 28 and House 21 and 57," the unsigned opinion states.

    "That factfinding, as discussed above, turned up sufficient circumstantial evidence that race was the predominant factor governing the shape of those four districts," the opinion continues.

    While justices disagreed with lawmakers on that issue, the high court also officially rejected a decision from a theee-judge District Court panel to use the special master's districts for races in Wake and Mecklenburg counties. The Supreme Court already had blocked those districts in February. The latest ruling officially throws those districts out.

    "There the District Court proceeded from a mistaken view of its adjudicative role and its relationship to the North Carolina General Assembly," the new Supreme Court order states.

    The justices labeled the three-judge panel's actions in Wake and Mecklenburg counties as "clear error."

    Only Justice Clarence Thomas dissented from the latest ruling. "I do not think the complicated factual and legal issues in this case should be disposed of summarily," Thomas wrote. "I would have set this case for briefing and oral argument."