Republicans want to hold on to power. No, that’s not a big secret—it’s just that those words rarely slip past their lips, but they did recently in North Carolina. Two congressional districts in the Tar Heel State were declared unconstitutionally racially gerrymandered on February 6. They have to be redrawn and redrawn quickly, by February 19. So, what are the Repubs going to do? Well they were hoping that the U.S. Supreme Court would step in and put that deadline on hold by ruling that the maps were constitutionally drawn. But that plan kinda hit a snag over the weekend.
Since they’ve still got to redraw those maps, it looks like they’ll just have to hurry up after all. But don’t forget: Repubs have let their ultimate motive slip past their lips:
“Our intent is to use the political data we have to our partisan advantage,” Rep. David Lewis (R-Harnett) told the Joint Select Committee on Congressional Redistricting on [February 16th]. “I acknowledge freely that this would be a political gerrymander which is not against the law.”
They might have a shot at it. They might be able to redraw those maps without using any racial data at all. How, you say? By looking at the voting patterns, that’s how.
“The North Carolina redistricting committee voted [February 16th] to use data of how residents voted in previous elections to draw new maps that ensure Republicans keep a 10 to 3 super-majority among the representatives they send to the U.S. Congress, despite the fact that the state is almost evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. Since the current map was ruled unconstitutional because it was too heavily focused on maintaining a “racial quota” in certain districts, the committee also voted this week to not use any racial data at all during the revisions.”
The only remaining alternative would be to delay the upcoming primary in March. If only Scalia could’ve held on a for a few more months, the Repubs in North Carolina wouldn’t have to be working so feverishly right now. They could be sitting back and enjoying the fruits of historic disenfranchisement—just like in the good old days.