Supreme Court rejects GOP in North Carolina case that could have reshaped elections beyond the state
The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that state courts can curtail the actions of their legislatures when it comes to federal redistricting and elections, rejecting arguments by North Carolina Republicans that could have dramatically altered races for Congress and president in that state and beyond. The justices, by a 6-3 vote, upheld a decision by North Carolina’s top court that struck down a congressional districting plan as excessively partisan under state law. The high court did, though, indicate there could be limits on state court efforts to police elections for Congress and president, suggesting that more election-related court cases over the issue are likely. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court that “state courts retain the authority to apply state constitutional restraints when legislatures act under the power conferred upon them by the Elections Clause. But federal courts must not abandon their own duty to exercise judicial review.” The decision was the fourth major case of the term in which conservative and liberal justices joined to reject the most aggressive legal arguments put forth by conservative state elected officials and advocacy groups. Earlier decisions on voting rights, a Native American child welfare law, and a Biden administration immigration policy also unexpectedly cut across ideological lines on the court. Major rulings are expected by Friday on the future of affirmative action in higher education, the administration’s $400 billion student loan forgiveness plan, and a clash of religious and LGBTQ rights. The practical effect of Tuesday’s decision is minimal in North Carolina, where the state Supreme Court, under a new Republican majority, already has undone its redistricting ruling. Another redistricting case from Ohio is pending, if the justices want to say more about the issue before next year’s elections. Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch would have dismissed the North Carolina case because of the intervening state court action. Vice President Kamala Harris said in a statement that the decision “preserves state courts’ critical role in safeguarding elections and protecting the voice and the will of the American people.” The Democratic administration defended the power of state courts in the case. Former President Barack Obama, in a rare public comment on a court decision, applauded the outcome as “a resounding rejection of the far-right theory that has been peddled by election deniers and extremists seeking to undermine our democracy.” At the same time, the leader of a Republican redistricting group said he was pleased the court made clear there are limits on state courts. The decision “should serve as a warning to state courts inclined to reach beyond the constitutional bounds of judicial review. This is a first, positive step toward reining in recent overreaches of state courts,” Adam Kincaid, president and executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, said in a statement. Derek Muller, a University of Iowa law professor and elections expert, said Tuesday’s decision leaves some room to challenge state court rulings on federal election issues, “but these are likely to be rare cases.” “The vast majority of state court decisions that could affect federal elections will likely continue without any change,” Muller said. The North Carolina case attracted outsized attention because four conservative justices had suggested that the Supreme Court should curb state courts’ power in elections for president and Congress. Opponents of the idea, known as the independent legislature theory, had argued that the effects of a robust ruling for North Carolina Republicans could be reached much further than just that one state’s redistricting. Potentially at stake were more than 170 state constitutional provisions, over 650 state laws delegating authority to make election policies to state and local officials, and thousands of regulations down to the location of polling places, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law. The justices heard arguments in December in an appeal by Republican leaders in the North Carolina Legislature. Their efforts to draw congressional districts heavily in their favor were blocked by a Democratic majority on the state Supreme Court on grounds that the GOP map violated the state Constitution. A court-drawn map produced seven seats for each party in last year’s midterm elections in the highly competitive state. The question for the justices was whether the U.S. Constitution’s provision giving state legislatures the power to make the rules about the “times, places and manner” of congressional elections cuts state courts out of the process. Former federal appeals court judge Michael Luttig, a prominent conservative who has joined the legal team defending the North Carolina court decision, said in the fall that the outcome could have transformative effects on American elections. “This is the single most important case on American democracy — and for American democracy — in the nation’s history,” Luttig said. Leading Republican lawmakers in North Carolina told the Supreme Court that the Constitution’s “carefully drawn lines place the regulation of federal elections in the hands of state legislatures, Congress, and no one else.” During nearly three hours of arguments, the justices seemed skeptical of making a broad ruling in the case. Liberal and conservative justices seemed to take issue with the main thrust of a challenge asking them to essentially eliminate the power of state courts to strike down legislature-drawn, gerrymandered congressional district maps on grounds that they violate state constitutions. In North Carolina, a new round of redistricting is expected to go forward and produce a map with more Republican districts. The state’s Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, praised Tuesday’s decision, but also implicitly acknowledged that it does nothing to inhibit Republicans who control the legislature from drawing a congressional map that is more favorable to them. Cooper, who by state law can’t block redistricting plans approved by lawmakers, said that “Republican legislators in North Carolina and across the country remain a very real threat to democracy as they continue to pass laws to manipulate elections for partisan gain by interfering with the freedom to vote.” Republished with the permission of The Associated Press.
Democrats, Republicans fight to a redistricting stalemate
After nearly a year of partisan battles, number-crunching, and lawsuits, the once-a-decade congressional redistricting cycle is ending in a draw. That leaves Republicans positioned to win control of the House of Representatives even if they come up just short of winning a majority of the national vote. That frustrates Democrats, who hoped to shift the dynamic so their success with the popular vote would better be reflected by political power in Washington. Some Republicans, meanwhile, hoped to cement an even larger advantage this time. But both parties ultimately fought each other to a standstill. The new congressional maps have a total of 226 House districts won by Biden in the last presidential election and 209 won by Trump — only one more Biden district than in 2020. Likewise, the typical congressional district voted for Biden by about two percentage points, also almost identical to 2020. “It’s almost perfect stasis,” said Nicholas Stephanopoulos, a Harvard law professor who follows congressional redistricting. “If you compare the maps we had in 2020 to the maps we’re going to have in 2022, they’re almost identical” in terms of partisan advantage, he added. The specific lines of congressional districts have, of course, changed as some states added new ones — or lost old ones — to match population shifts recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2020. Redistricting is the once-a-decade adjustment of legislative lines to match the Census’ findings. It is typically an extraordinarily partisan process, with each major party trying to scoop up enough of its voters to guarantee wins in the largest number of districts. This cycle was no different, but the end result is virtually no change to the overall partisan orientation of the congressional map. That leaves the map tilted slightly to the right of the national electorate since Joe Biden won the presidency by more than four percentage points. In a typical year, Democrats would have to win the national popular vote by about two percentage points to win a House majority, while the GOP could capture it, theoretically, with just under 50%. Republicans pointed to that as a victory. “If we’re fighting to a draw on a map that everyone agrees is good for Republicans, that’s good for Republicans,” said Adam Kincaid, executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, which coordinates redistricting for the party. Democrats noted that it’s still a far better place than where they were after the last round of redistricting in 2011, fresh off a GOP sweep of statehouses that allowed them to draw a far more slanted series of congressional maps. “We are in a stronger position than in 2020 and in a way stronger position than in 2012,” said Kelly Ward Burton, executive director of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. The assessment became possible this week after New Hampshire became the final state to adopt a congressional map on Tuesday. On Thursday, Florida’s Supreme Court ruled it wouldn’t consider a Democratic challenge to a map pushed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis before the November election, ending the last significant legal uncertainty over the maps this year. The odds are the national map will improve for the GOP after November, however. If Republicans do well in the election — as is widely expected — they could capture seats on state supreme courts in North Carolina or Ohio that’d allow them to redraw more slanted maps previous courts rejected. Similarly, if the GOP seizes power in some other state legislatures or governor’s mansions, the party could redraw new maps in those states in 2023 that would be implemented for the coming decade. And the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority has indicated it will reconsider some of the guidelines that govern legislative line-drawing nationally next year, which could open the door to even further Republican gains. It’s a reversal from earlier this year, when Democrats were poised to lessen the partisan bias of the congressional map, at least in 2022. But the centerpiece of that effort — an intensely pro-Democratic map in New York state — was ruled an illegal partisan gerrymander by the state’s Democrat-appointed top court, and the court’s redrawn map favored the party less. A similarly pro-Democratic map in Maryland was replaced by a more equitable map. But Florida’s strongly pro-GOP map, which DeSantis pushed the Republican-controlled legislature into adopting, was not overturned by its majority-GOP-appointed high court, bringing the national partisan pendulum back to the center. Democrats were already fighting on an uneven playing field during this round of redistricting. They only controlled the drawing of maps in states representing 75 House districts, while Republicans held the pen in ones with 187 districts. That’s partly because of GOP statehouse gains in 2010 lingering, partly because many Democratic-controlled states like California, Colorado, and New Jersey ceded their power to draw lines to independent commissions to take partisan politics out of redistricting. The Democratic Party has embraced that approach nationally, pushing for it in all 50 states as part of its voting overhaul that floundered in the Senate earlier this year amid unanimous GOP opposition. But some members of the party have questioned whether it amounts to unilateral disarmament in the partisan cage match of redistricting. After this cycle, Stephanopoulos said, there’s no longer much debate. “If all the blue states reform and all the red states run wild, that’s not a good outcome,” he said. Though the map’s partisan lean didn’t change, the number of competitive House seats diminished. That’s partly because Republicans, who maximized their gains in the post-2010 redistricting cycle, focused on packing as many GOP voters as possible into the districts of some of their incumbents who had tough re-election campaigns. The number of House seats decided by a 10-point margin or less dropped from 89 to 76, largely by the GOP changing 14 of its competitive seats into safe ones, Kincaid said. Advocates of sweeping changes in redistricting warn the loss of competition is dangerous for democracy. “Partisan balance is one thing, but it’s much more important to think about how gridlock and extremism
