News on the gerrymandering beat from yesterday: a federal appeals panel ruled that North Carolina's congressional boundary lines violate the Constitution, in particular the First Amendment and the equal protection clause of the 14th. The court is openly entertaining the option of forcing the boundaries to be redrawn before the approaching midterm election. Under one proposal, the boundaries would be redrawn now and November's election converted to a primary, with a special general election to follow in January before the new Congress is seated. Such an arrangement would bring into view the possibility that, on election night in November, the Democrats come up just shy of the 23 pickups they need to win a majority. Control of the House of Representatives would then hinge on the outcome of 13 races waged in freshly drawn districts in North Carolina's January special election. Can you imagine the windfall to North Carolina media outlets from the sale of advertising spots? PBS and NPR would benefit from thousands seeking refuge.
Republicans will argue in court that any scheme requiring new district boundaries before the next election will result in chaos. That's a sensible argument for them to make, considering the difficulties involved in defending the fairness of the current map. Politically, North Carolina is the very lightest hue of pink. Obama won it in 2008, but since then it's voted for Romney and Trump--by less than 3 per cent each time. It has two Republican US senators and a Democratic governor. Republicans control the state's General Assembly, which draws the congressional map. Maybe it's not a fifty-fifty state. Call it Republican by 51-49. Yet of the 13 congressional districts in the state, 10 are represented by Republicans. This is no accident. Republican Representative David Lewis, who chaired the redistricting committee, has said that he wanted to create a 10-3 Republican map, because it would be impossible to draw an 11-2 map--too many Democrats living too far apart!
The general situation in North Carolina parallels the case of Pennsylvania, another roughly fifty-fifty state that, on account of a congressional map drawn by its Republican state legislature, had locked in a 13-5 Republican majority in the state's delegation to the House of Representatives. Earlier this year, however, a court threw out the obviously rigged map, and under the new one everyone expects Democrats this fall to gain at least three seats, and maybe as many as five or six. A congressional election in North Carolina, if conducted under a fair map, would likely result in at least two Democratic pickups--more likely three or, if it's a good year, four. Since the magic number is just 23 in the whole country, Republicans will be trying mightily to preserve their partisan map in North Carolina for one more election.
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