Last week, a federal court in NC struck down the Republican drawn districting map ruling that the Reds had drawn it in such a way to advantage themselves over the Blues.
Specifically, the state panel of federal judges claimed that the Reeps drew the map to guarantee
“domination of the state’s congressional delegation.”
The court then ordered that a new map be drawn up by January 24th.
However, in a surprise twist, the SCOTUS blocked the federal Court's order temporarily.
(ORDER LIST: 583 U.S.)
THURSDAY, JANUARY 18, 2018
ORDER IN PENDING CASE
17A745 RUCHO, ROBERT A., ET AL. V. COMMON CAUSE, ET AL.
The application for stay presented to The Chief Justice and
by him referred to the Court is granted, and it is ordered that
the order of the United States District Court for the Middle
District of North Carolina, case Nos. 1:16-CV-1026 and 1:16-CV-
1164, entered January 9, 2018, is stayed pending the timely
filing and disposition of an appeal in this Court.
Justice Ginsburg and Justice Sotomayor would deny the
application for stay.
The other two more liberal-leaning SCOTUS judges have remained mum on the issue.
Last week, Republicans argued that the federal panel concocted their own legal theory without considering the current case of Gill v. Whitford, a partisan gerrymandering case in Wisconsin that was ultimately struck down when the court blocked a map-redistricting order.
Advocates, namely Common Cause and Women League of Voters, are claiming Republicans are trying to maintain a death grip on congressional maps through partisan gerrymandering before waiting for precedent set by possible tests in the Gill v. Whitford case and another case out of Maryland, Benisek v. Lamone , which would ultimately reveal the facts surrounding these gerrymandered maps in NC to be "shocking."
It's important to remember that this stay is only temporary. But now the likelihood of a new map being drawn for NC in time for the Congressional midterms has severely diminished.
Tonight’s brief order indicated that the lower court’s decision will stay on hold until Republicans can file their appeal and the Supreme Court can rule on it. As a practical matter, the court likely will not act on that appeal for some time, possibly until after it rules on the Wisconsin and Maryland gerrymandering cases. As election law expert Rick Hasen points out, this means that no matter how the Supreme Court rules, the likelihood that new maps will be in place for the 2018 elections is quite low.
While this deals a major blows to liberal partisan hopefuls looking to NC as a national precedent, the battle is far from over. And with the momentum of the Blue Typhoon crashing into places like Wisconsin yesterday (with a 27 point shift!!), North Carolina may not be as instrumental in flipping the house or state legislatures as previously hypothesized