Court Rules That North Carolina Districts Are “Racially Gerrymandered” and Unconstitutional

But voters will still cast ballots in these illegal districts in November.

Chris Keane/Zuma

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


A trio of judges ruled Thursday that 28 of North Carolina’s 170 state legislative districts are unconstitutional “racial gerrymanders” and ordered the state Legislature to redraw the maps. But the change won’t come in time for the November elections, leaving voters to cast ballots in districts whose boundaries have been deemed to violate the Constitution.

The case, Covington v. the State of North Carolina, centers on whether state Republicans relied too heavily on race when they redrew the legislative districts in 2011. Thursday’s opinion, written by Judge James A. Wynn Jr., found that “race was the predominant criterion in drawing all of the challenged districts.” That alone doesn’t make a congressional district unconstitutional, but Wynn wrote that the state did “not [show] that their use of race to draw any of these districts was narrowly tailored to further a compelling state interest.”

The ruling comes less than a week after Common Cause, a public advocacy group, sued the state over alleged racially gerrymandered congressional districts. It comes less than two weeks after a separate trio of federal judges struck down a host of North Carolina voting restrictions, including voter ID requirements, cuts to early voting, and the banning of same-day voter registration. North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican, said he was going to appeal that ruling, but that hasn’t happened yet. A separate case, McCrory v. Harris, is also challenging the state’s congressional districts.

Thursday’s ruling orders the state Legislature to redraw the legislative districts. But given that the November elections are less than four months away and state House and Senate primaries based on those districts have already taken place, the court declined to order a postponing of the 2016 general election and will instead “allow the November 2016 elections to proceed as scheduled under the challenged plans, despite their unconstitutionality.” The court acknowledged that the plaintiffs in the case, “and thousands of other North Carolina citizens, have suffered severe constitutional harms stemming from [North Carolina’s] creation of twenty-eight districts racially gerrymandered in violation of the Equal Protection Clause,” and ordered the state Legislature to redraw the boundaries during its next legislative session.

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate