In its final week of deliberations, the Supreme Court gifted the American public a historically consequential series of decisions. The end of affirmative action, student loan forgiveness and legalized discrimination toward LGBTQ+ people will no doubt be conversation starters. But for North Carolinians, Moore v. Harper’s ruling should provide a brief respite from the confounding decisions of this kangaroo court.
Both parties have overwhelmingly gerrymandered North Carolina for decades. Since taking power in 2010, state Republicans have perfected the art of gerrymandering, a practice where congressional districts are drawn specifically to promote one group over others.
Gerrymandering is illegal on the basis of race via the equal protection clause of the XIV Amendment and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. But proving racial gerrymandering can be difficult, especially when many minorities vote in large blocks for Democrats.
However, it’s not impossible to detect. The 1993 ruling in Shaw v. Reno rejected a North Carolina map that had “finger-like extensions” and “looked like a ‘Rorschach ink-blot test.” Funny shapes don’t always provide sufficient evidence for racial gerrymandering though, making adjudicating on them extremely difficult.
This takes us to Rucho v. Common Cause in 2019, another challenge to NC congressional maps that seriously restricted how effectively partisan maps are rejected in the courts. In this case, SCOTUS decided federal courts don’t have the jurisdiction to decide when maps are too partisan to be considered fair.
With Rucho in place, the only court left that could reject gerrymandered maps was the state Supreme Court, leading us to Moore v. Harper. The case was posed to challenge whether state Supreme Courts had the right to reject maps, pushing what is known as the independent legislature theory.
The theory posits that the federal Constitution only grants state legislatures the role of map-making. For its proponents, no executive or judicial authority is granted oversight in the Constitution to reject maps unless the legislature expressly grants them that right.
In effect, North Carolina Republicans’ only check is the state Supreme Court and the Governor, both of which are put to a statewide, rather than district-wide, vote. With a supermajority in the legislature, the Governor can be circumvented but the state Supreme Court is unaffected by gerrymandering.
In 2021, Republican-drawn maps were devised so ten of the fourteen congressional districts available were either solidly Republican or Republican-leaning, while four were Democrat or Democrat-leaning. Meanwhile, the state’s partisan demographics were nearly split 50-50, slightly favoring Democrats.
The maps were challenged in the state Supreme Court, which was controlled by Democrats at the time. In their ruling, they stated, “The General Assembly infringes upon voters’ fundamental rights when, on the basis of partisan affiliation, it deprives a voter of his or her right to substantially equal voting power as established by the … Declaration of Rights.”
Their ruling shot down the partisan maps and commissioned a third party to draw new, non-partisan maps for the congressional elections. In 2022, the state was split 7-7 in the U.S. House of Representatives using the new map.
Republicans have struggled with the popular vote in recent years, and their influence in traditionally red states has been on the decline nationally and in certain places like Texas, Wisconsin and most recently Georgia.
Their plan for winning has, since 2010, been to use political maneuvering rather than favorability. Republicans focused heavily on gaining control of state legislatures and pushing through gerrymandered maps to retain control for as long as possible. Democrats have gerrymandered too, but Republicans have made it their lifeblood for gaining power.
SCOTUS thankfully rejected NC Republicans’ efforts to circumvent popular opinion in a bipartisan 6-3 ruling. While they have not rejected the concept of partisan gerrymandering entirely, they have recognized that partisan maps can reach a point of incredulity that violates the Constitution.
In addition, the court has ruled that, at the very minimum, maps drawn by the legislature of a state are subject to the same standard of review as any other bill, leaving the check state Supreme Courts have in place.
We can’t be too relieved though, as federal courts still cannot review partisan gerrymanders and partisan gerrymandering is still legal to a certain degree. If a partisan state Supreme Court is in line with the majority party in the legislature, volatile gerrymandering is still very possible and will most likely occur here in North Carolina by the end of the session.
Nonetheless, the bipartisan ruling in Moore v. Harper still presents a glimpse of reason in a court marred by extremely controversial and retrogressive actions that have limited the ability for people to protect their rights from infringing governments at all levels.
