Sorting Out North Carolina's Redistricting News, Case By Case

We've been hearing a lot of news about redistricting lately.

Just this month, there have been new court decisions about the fairness of North Carolina's legislative maps at both the state and national level. And with each ruling, new legal challenges emerge.

It's a dizzying amount of information that can be totally confusing. But it's also vital to the way voters conduct a democracy. 

WFDD's Sean Bueter spoke with Catawba College political science professor Michael Bitzer to help sort out what's happening in the fights over the state's electoral maps.

Interview Highlights

First, some clarification on the status of the state's congressional districts:

The most recent decision on the congressional district maps was about partisan gerrymandering. And that is the idea that one political party benefits from redrawing the districts and basically puts the other political party at a disadvantage.

So, for the congressional maps we've experienced both the issue of racial gerrymandering and now we are entering the unknown territory of partisan gerrymandering because with this most recent court decision partisan gerrymandering is now frowned upon just as much as racial gerrymandering was.

On legal challenges to the North Carolina House and Senate districts:

The state legislative maps have been challenged based on race. And so now we have what is called a "special master" who has drawn maps designed to take that racial consideration out of the map drawing and basically make it a little more compact in terms of the districts. That will probably have an appeal...going up to the U.S. Supreme Court. So it will continue to be a volley of lawsuits bouncing between North Carolina up to Washington D.C. and back again.

Why is this important? And why should voters care?

I think for the average voter, at this point, they are probably in a state of confusion. They don't know – or potentially may not know – what districts at the congressional level, at the state legislative level, at the state Senate level, even at the district court level that they may be residing in. And so it really is a question of "Who am I voting for and do I even know who the candidates are right now?"

It's not just the average voter. It's incumbents. It's potential challengers coming up to this midterm election. Everybody is pretty much in a state of confusion over these maps. The question is: when do we hold primary elections? When are these maps going to be solidified? When will the Supreme Court make a definitive decision? I think a lot of this is still up in the air for a lot of us who follow [politics and government].