Federal Judge mulls injunction request for NC Senate districts

Attorneys for Republican lawmakers, as well as voting rights advocates argued in federal court Wednesday over whether a judge should bar a state Senate map drawn last year from being used in the 2024 elections.

“Our clients have been put in districts where they cannot elect a candidate of their choice,” attorney Edwin M. Speas, Jr. told District Judge James C. Dever III.

Speas is representing two Black residents, Rodney Pierce and Moses Matthews, who sued over the Senate redistricting plan last year. The federal lawsuit contends the Senate redistricting maps approved by Republican lawmakers in 2023 violate the Voting Rights Act because they dilute the power of Black voters’ political voice and their right to choose who represents them in office.

Wednesday’s hearing was on a motion asking the court to bar the districts from being used in future elections and instead use alternative maps the plaintiffs argue are fairer and don’t dilute Black voters’ power, an ask that Dever called “extraordinary.”

“This isn’t, ‘Judge, keep the status quo,'” said Dever, whom George W. Bush nominated to the bench in 2002.

Dever did not issue a ruling Wednesday, but his decision could have serious implications on the makeup of the General Assembly. Republicans have a veto-proof supermajority by a margin of just one vote; if the plaintiffs’ maps were adopted, Republicans could lose their supermajority in the state Senate and potentially be unable to overturn a veto from the governor.

Pierce and Matthews hail from counties in northeastern North Carolina that are part of the “Black Belt” — a region that runs across the American southeast where enslaved Africans and their descendants worked in the fertile soil.

The lawsuit claims legislators engaged in a process known as “cracking,” putting residents of a historically Black district into multiple districts as opposed to keeping them in majority-minority districts where their votes would carry more weight.

Republicans drew and approved the redistricted maps last year without input from Democrats, claiming that their maps are legal. (They also drew and approved new congressional and state House maps last year. Those maps aren’t a part of this suit.)

Attorneys for the GOP say Republicans did not use racial data when drawing the maps. Phillip J. Strach, attorney for the GOP, said Wednesday that the plaintiffs’ arguments contradict what they’ve been claiming in recent years. Before, Strach said, voting rights lawyers claimed legislators could not use race to draw districts. But now, Strach said, they’re claiming legislators violated the Voting Rights Act and should use different maps that take race into account.

“I guess the problem was Republicans kept winning the legislature,” said Strach.

In court documents lawyers for Republican lawmakers have argued that fixing the two Senate districts would force legislators to redo the entire map — an impossible task, given looming elections this year. North Carolina is currently scheduled to hold its primary elections on March 5 — also known nationally as “Super Tuesday.”

“Relief was too late the moment they filed the lawsuit,” Strach said Wednesday.

Dever spent a lot of time asking about a report prepared by the plaintiffs’ expert witness. The judge pointed to a table he thought indicated a Democrat would have won a race in 2022 if it used the maps before the court. If that’s true, Dever said, “I don’t see how you have a case.”

Elisabeth S. Theodore, another attorney for Pierce and Matthews, disputed that their expert’s table showed Black voters’ candidate would win the race in that district. Rather, she said, the expert’s report shows that candidates preferred by Black voters lost 30 out of 31 recent elections.

“The chance of a Black candidate winning in that district is highly, highly unlikely,” said Speas.

But that single win appeared to give Dever pause to throw out the maps. Such a conclusion that Democrats could win with that map, from the plaintiffs’ own expert, no less, Dever said, destroys their argument.

“It eviscerates it,” he said.

Plaintiffs previously tried to persuade a court to expedite the hearing, even before candidate filing started in early December. The court declined to act that quickly.

Voting rights groups asked the federal Court of Appeals to step in in an effort to expedite the case, too, a request the higher court denied on Tuesday, the eve of the district court hearing.

Pierce and Matthews’ lawsuit is not the only election-related lawsuit wending through the courts. There are also multiple lawsuits involving an expansive elections law that Republicans passed along party lines over Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto. Some involve the issue of address verification for people who register to vote during early voting periods, others contend the law discriminates against young people, and others claim it makes it harder for other state residents to register to vote or have their ballot count.

NC Newsline Investigative Reporter Lynn Bonner contributed to this story.