N&O analysis confirms aggressive gerrymandering in NC political maps

The newest political maps from Republican lawmakers show strong evidence of partisan gerrymandering likely to help the GOP gain an edge in Congress and protect its majorities in the state legislature, according to a News & Observer analysis. With conservative-dominated state and federal courts unlikely to rein in the worst abuses of political mapmaking, Republican gains from the maps — if approved — are likely to continue for years to come. “It looks like, as we would have expected, that the deck is pretty stacked,” said Irving Joyner, an N.C. Central University law professor who’s been active in fights against racially discriminatory maps in this state for years. The N&O analysis compared the performance of the proposed district maps to that of tens of thousands of maps created by a team of mathematicians at Duke University, using vote counts from previous elections.

The Duke team’s findings have been submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court and North Carolina state courts as evidence that previous political maps were extreme partisan gerrymanders. They were among the arguments that convinced state judges that previous Republican-drawn district maps violated the North Carolina constitution. What the analysis found The N&O analysis shows that among the 100,000 computer-generated maps, vanishingly few favor Republicans as much as the proposals now before state lawmakers, who have the power to pass them without the signature of Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper. The Duke team confirmed The N&O’s findings last week, and in a blog post Friday said their own analysis found the maps even more gerrymandered than those Republicans drew in 2021. That’s especially true of the two U.S. House map proposals, said Duke math professor Jonathan Mattingly, who leads the research team. No matter how the well Democrats perform, simulation after simulation shows almost no change in the makeup of the congressional delegation, reliably electing 10 or 11 Republicans compared to the current 7-7 party split.

“The maps the legislature have proposed essentially negate the need to have elections for the U.S. House of Representatives,” Mattingly said in an interview Friday.

Western Carolina political science professor Chris Cooper, a close observer of North Carolina politics who reviewed The N&O’s findings, said that although “there is no silver bullet in redistricting analysis,” he sees clear signals that the maps are particularly good for Republicans. “They look fairly similar to maps that have been struck down in recent years by the courts,” Cooper said. “With the state supreme court we had two years ago, these maps may have crossed the line.” But times have changed. After Republican justices captured the majority of the state Supreme Court in the 2022 election, they quickly reversed course from previous decisions, declaring that partisan gerrymandering was a political issue, not a judicial one. Republican leaders, who for the first time in several redistricting cycles created maps behind closed doors, contend the maps will withstand legal scrutiny.

(The NC SC is 5-4 Republican. One SC Justice is the son of the Senate Majority leader.j
[Post edited by Lazarus at 10/23/2023 2:37PM]