By rssfeeds-admin Since Eastern North Carolina will likely be carved by that new map and has a large Black population, it is expected opponents will sue, citing federal law that bans districts drawn to limit the voting power of a minority group.
However, that kind of lawsuit could soon be impossible because of a case currently before the U.S. Supreme Court.
A group of non-Black voters in Louisiana is suing over the drawing of a second majority minority district. The district was originally drawn to follow federal law that prohibits voter dilution, which refers to the reduction of a racial group’s voting power, therefore preventing them from choosing the candidate of their choice.
The non-Black voters say that the action was racial discrimination, and the Republicans who drew the map now agree it shouldn’t have been created.
“The job is clear from our standpoint that the court needs to fix this because we think the court is what’s broken the process to begin with,” said Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill.
With North Carolina’s first congressional district being nearly half Black, any change to the map would likely divide up that block of Black voters into several, less concentrated districts, thereby weakening their voting power.
If that were to happen, groups like the ACLU and the NAACP would sue to stop the map from being approved.
“They’re going to argue that people of color in the northeastern part of the state, in this redrawn congressional district one, are not able to elect the candidate of their choice,” said Chris Cooper, a professor at Western Carolina University.
But if those non-Black plaintiffs in Louisiana win out, there would be no legal path for challengers in North Carolina claiming voter dilution.
The General Assembly has yet to unveil its new map, but whether it is allowed to stay will be up to what the Supreme Court decides for voters in Louisiana.
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