Introduction
Few policy areas in North Carolina have been as contentious, let alone litigious, as redistricting. No set of North Carolina redistricting plans passed by the General Assembly since 1971 has survived unaltered by lawsuits. It is a function of the highly competitive nature of North Carolina politics and the multiple rules affecting redistricting that can be used as the basis for lawsuits.
Article 2 of the North Carolina State Constitution (Section 3 for the House and Section 5 for the Senate) makes the General Assembly responsible for redistricting. It states four criteria for drawing state legislative districts:
- Each state representative or senator shall represent “as nearly as may be” an equal number of people
- The district must be contiguous (but can cross bodies of water)
- Counties cannot be split (the “whole county” rule)
- Districts can be drawn only once every ten years
The United States Constitution and federal law also affect redistricting. The U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted Article 2, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution and Section 2 of the 14th Amendment as requiring equal representation in congressional (Wesberry v. Sanders, 1964) and state legislative (Reynolds v. Sims, 1964) districts. In addition, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act prohibits states from drawing districts that dilute the voting power of voters based on race.
Numerous court cases have affected redistricting in North Carolina. Chief among them is Stephenson v. Bartlett (2002). It effectively ended the use of multimember legislative districts, although it left the door open to their return if justified by a substantial state interest. It also created the “Stephenson process,” assigning counties to “clusters” based on population. That rule limits how creative legislators can get when drawing state legislative districts and encourages the legislature to keep communities of interest together. The U.S. Supreme Court and the North Carolina Supreme Court have both ruled that partisan gerrymandering claims are non-justiciable political questions.
Both Republicans and Democrats, depending on which party is out of power, have called for the creation of a commission to take responsibility for redistricting from the General Assembly. Bills mandating redistricting commissions have gone nowhere, however.
Key Facts
- The North Carolina Constitution mandates that state legislative districts can be drawn only once every ten years “until the return of another decennial census of population.” Nevertheless, courts have ordered the state legislature to redraw districts numerous times over the past several decades.
- Restrictions imposed by the North Carolina Constitution, the U.S. Constitution, and federal law have imposed limits on how creative legislators can be when they draw districts. Those restrictions have not stopped legislators from either party from trying to draw districts favorable to their side.
- North Carolina has a unique element in the process of drawing state legislative districts. The first step in that process is the creation of county clusters, which are groupings of one or more counties that can contain a whole number of legislative districts. Districts are drawn within those clusters but cannot cross into other clusters. For example, Mecklenburg and Iredell counties were combined in 2021 into a two-county cluster containing six North Carolina Senate districts, and those six districts must be completely contained within those two counties.
- Map drawers use the home addresses of incumbents to prevent “double-bunking” (putting the homes of two incumbents in the same redrawn district). North Carolina requires that state legislators live in the districts they represent.
- Public hearings outside of Raleigh are part of the redistricting process. They may be of limited value, however. Party and political organizations seed those meetings with activists, meaning those meetings do not reflect the public’s will.
Recommendations
1. Ban the use of data other than headcounts when drawing districts.
More specifically, forbid the use of voter registration data or data from past election results. Those data, especially from past election results, are essential to finely gerrymandering districts. Also, map drawers should prohibit using voters’ demographic data, except to measure compliance with the U.S. Voting Rights Act, and not consider the addresses of incumbents when drawing districts.
2. Make Districts Compact, Consistent With Other Standards and North Carolina’s Geography.
The basic principle of compactness is that citizens in a voting district should live as close to each other as possible. Following that principle increases the chance that citizens in a district will have shared interests.
3. Draw Districts in the Open.
As was done under court order in 2019 and voluntarily in 2021, the actual drawing of districts should be done in open legislative meetings on computers that members of the public can see in-person and online. The General Assembly reverted to a closed process for drawing maps during court-ordered redistricting in 2023.
4. Enshrine the Stephenson Process in the North Carolina State Constitution.
The rules established by Stephenson v. Bartlett limit how much legislators can gerrymander state legislative districts, especially in rural areas. They also minimized splitting counties to favor one party in the redistricting process. Making that process a permanent part of redistricting will protect that gain from shifting judicial politics.
