The Republicans screaming about judicial overreach in the current redistricting case sound remarkably like Democrats from fifteen years ago. Back then, the court didn’t just order the legislature to draw new maps; a judge actually drew new districts for them. It could be argued that it was a case of independent redistricting.
After the 2000 census, Superior Court Judge Knox Jenkins, who passed away this year, found the districts drawn by the Democratic legislature violated the state constitution. His decision was upheld by the state Supreme Court. Instead of telling the legislature to redraw them, he drew new districts himself.
Democrats, of course, screamed. Could there be any more obvious case of judicial activism than a single judge taking over responsibilities granted the legislature in the constitution? Regardless, Jenkins did what previous legislatures had failed to do and what no legislative body has done since: he drew fair districts.
According to John Hood, who has done an excellent job of documenting North Carolina’s redistricting woes over the years, Jenkins’ maps gave the state senate sixteen safe Democratic seats, sixteen safe Republican seats and nine seats that favored or slightly favored Democrats and nine that favored or slightly favored Republicans. The house maps yielded similar results. He created maps that reflected the highly competitive nature of North Carolina politics.
As Hood noted, the House was certainly up for grabs. The Senate was more Democratic because of the quality of their incumbents and the sophistication of their caucus. Still, neither party was going to get a veto proof majority like Republicans have today.
In North Carolina, redistricting has spent more time in the court system than not. The GOP sued continuously for almost twenty years when they weren’t drawing the districts. Expect Democrats to do the same as long as they are out of power.
It’s time for the legislature to put voters’ interests before their own so both side stop sounding so hypocritical and our elections get a little bit of stability. They need to allow for nonpartisan redistricting in the state. Jenkins was a Republican and protégé of Jesse Helms but he was able to draw fair districts, a task that is clearly beyond the ability of the General Assembly.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
Thomas, John Hood knows Judge Jenkins did not personally draw the districts they were based on the partisan maps of the minority party. The party that did control the Judiciary at that time. The Court allowed Judge Jenkins to hire partisan experts to draw and twink the plan that had been proposed by the republican minority in each chamber. You might need to look closer at this decision before buying in.
Interesting piece of history. 20 years of law suits! And now we may be in for the same. If these folks were in middle school, we would characterize all of them as very slow learners.
When more of the voters are democrats, yet democrats are completely shut of lawmaking due to gerrymandering, it’s time for a non-partisan authority to step in. Although I daresay the Far Right will not accept any sort of solution that reduces their iron grasp. It was a GOOD thing the Orange Idiot won the general, otherwise we might be facing Insurrection – Yahoo Nation Edition. We have precious little time to teach the Orange voters how to tell the difference between Real News and Fake News.
In other news, Cousin Roy sends Uncle Pat packing via long-awaited concession. Not that the Alt Right TBer rabble in the GA won’t still be able to blitz-vote crazy stuff into law. Cooper will veto it , and then they’ll most likely run over Roy with the Override cart. The only difference will be that Roy will clearly explain to the literate public what the damage is, and maybe reason might return.