The NAACP has filed a lawsuit to overturn legislation creating the Guilford County district map that leaves 43,000 residents without representation. The N&R offers its endorsement.
Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger is named as one of the defendants in the lawsuit. Berger —paraphrased in the Rhino — says the “General Assembly will not change the structure of the redistricted Guilford County Board of Commissioners because there is nothing to fix,” adding “complaints that there are problems are being made largely by the same people who wanted to see the new board structure thrown out by the US Justice Department when that agency reviewed the new board makeup last year.”
Exactly —- except that the Justice department didn’t throw out the new board structure, which makes you wonder how far a lawsuit filed by the NAACP will get. Which is not to say that this isn’t a mess that needs to be cleaned up —somehow.
Keeping in mind I’m not an attorney, I have a question– —-it might be one thing for Greensboro resident Myra Sloane to claim “standing” — as County Attorney Mark Payne described it— that she will have no representation in District 6. However, can the other defendant –Greensboro personal injury attorney R. Steve Bowden—- legitimately claim lack of representation when, as a resident of District 5, he only has one representative on the board of commissioners, whereas “residents of District 3 and possibly residents of District 7, will have two. …”?
