Talk Elections

https://twitter.com/gercohen/status/1012747740974145537

https://twitter.com/gercohen/status/1012752808293134337

https://twitter.com/gercohen/status/1012763762284220419

All but ensures that the Democrats will keep the majority.

Edit: Expand the majority!

Not just keep, but expand

How would it expand? Is the Supreme Court seat up for election R-held?

Dems already have a 1 seat majority on the NC Supreme Court, if they win this seat it will be expanded to a 2 seat majority. And even if the NC GOP packed the court, there still wouldn't be an R majority.

Basically, if Earls win, Dems would have a 5-2 Supreme Court majority. NC GOP could pack the court and add two additional seats bringing it to 5-4 (still a Dem majority). Big screw up for the NC GOP.

Anglin seems like he's purposefully trying to sabotage the Rs here.

Oh my gosh, it keeps getting better. A committee of 2 Democrats (SoS Elaine Marshall & AG Josh Stein and 1 Republican (Legislative Services Officer Paul Coble) get to write the ballot language for the Consitutional Amendments the Republicans are trying to pass:

https://twitter.com/gercohen/status/1012769890296586240

https://twitter.com/gercohen/status/1012769893404508160

https://twitter.com/gercohen/status/1012769895082315781

https://twitter.com/gercohen/status/1012773358457454594

LMAO. That's amazing.

When NC GOP loses their super majority in November, they're then going to lose their gerrymandered districts in 2020. NC GOP on suicide watch.

Unfortunately, North Carolina doesn't allow the Governor to veto maps.

To think the NCGOP eliminated the primary to try to hope for a D-D-R plurality race....talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

NCGOP is finished

Thank god for incompetent evil

This is what happens when a state party is swept in on a wave and not through hard work. The entirety of the NCGOP is incompetent, and doesn't realize that the Dems still had parts of the Gov from back when it was a solid Dem state. They played risky, went all in, and in the end, the Dems had a flush.

It better be! It deserves a Disney villain death.

like scar when the hyenas eat him alive

The NC GOP has long since crossed the line into cliche cartoon villainy.

Is it just me or have they gotten even worse since Tillis went to DC? Berger and Moore seem totally off the rails

I didn’t know until Roy Cooper was on Pod Save America last week that some outside groups don’t consider NC to be a democracy. I followed up on it and Harvard’s group gives it a 58/100 for extreme gerrymandering, intentional suppression of minority votes, and the GOP stripping Cooper of some of his powers. If it were a country, they’d consider it to be similar to Cuba, Indonesia, and Sierra Leone.
https://www.electoralintegrityproject.com/eip-blogs/2017/1/7/its-even-worse-than-the-news-about-north-carolina-american-elections-rank-last-among-all-western-democracies

Exactly, or Clayton from 'Tarzan' accidentally frigging hanging himself to death on jungle vines. There are so many more to choose from and they are all appropriate for the North Carolina GOP. Disney films are kind of messed up.

Well, since Star Wars is part of Disney now, I'd say Darth Maul's final fate sounds about right.

RIP NC GOP.

RIP meaning "Rest In Pain".

They only need to control the legislature in 2021 to pass new gerrymanders. The Governor unfortunately has no say in the redistricting process.

The only thing that can stop them is losing at least one chamber. It would take a pretty big landslide in the legislative popular vote to do that. The best path forward is if they lose their super-majority this November and the state Supreme Court then later overturns the legislative maps. Then Democrats might have a shot in 2020. But the GA might try to expand the state Supreme Court if that constitutional amendment passes in November that essentially lets them fill judicial vacancies.

I disagree. SPOILERS: In 'Solo: A Star Wars Story' Darth Maul inexplicably comes back to life (actually because of a TV series or something, I don't know, that was a dumb idea) with a cybernetic lower body. SPOILERS OVER: I would hope that doesn't happen to them.

Yeah... soooo, about that:

https://twitter.com/PoliticsWolf/status/1020732428967538688


I mean, to be honest, everyone should have expected this. The NCGOP is arguably the most petty, corrupt and power-hungry state party in the country. Other states like Alabama may see a lot of officials arrested, but NC Republicans are most likely to behave like authoritarians when it comes to actual governing.

Even if it is, they'll probably still try anyway. Remember how it's unconstitutional for the legislature to redraw districts not affected by a court order during a special session redistricting? They did it anyway when "fixing" the racially gerrymandered legislative map(s), and the courts have let it stand for 2018 since there was no time to litigate the issue and fix it before the season started. It's about what you would expect from the NCGOP.

At this point, the NCGOP has made so many mistakes that I doubt even writing the language for the thing will help.

The Dems will likely break the supermajority at this rate, and if Mondale is correct, get close to/ win a majority in either chamber.

So they definitely are convening a special session now.


The problem is that people are voting on issues that at first glance, may not look so bad to voters. They aren't inherently bad until you take into account the motivations behind them, although I still contend that voter ID causes more problems than it fixes, and this amendment's version of it is particularly bad in that it doesn't require absentee voters to show an ID but makes in-person voters show one, which makes no sense at all, as absentee fraud is both easier and more prevalent due to a person not actually having to show up to do it.

The amendment letting the legislature fill judicial vacancies might seem innocent to voters unless Democrats invest in a well-financed education campaign. Voters may have a different opinion if they know the NCGOP only did it because they want to pack the state supreme court, which without this amendment, attempts to do so would leave Cooper, a Democrat, filling the initial extra two vacancies, not Republicans.

That would be fantastic.

They just passed a law retroactively stripping Chris Anglin of his Republican affiliation because of his threat to the incumbent Republican: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/07/north-carolina-republicans-pass-bill-to-strip-state-supreme-court-candidate-chris-anglin-of-his-gop-affiliation.html

TBH, the NCGOP is going to lose this race, its just too much of a D year. The fact that they listed partisan affiliation will be the nail in the coffin. NC will see a 5-2 D SC next year.

Pretty good case to make that retroactively stripping his partisan affiliation for partisan purposes is a constitutional violation, given the proximity to the election.


I sure hope so, because it's all but certain that the court vacancies amendment is meant to give them a way to pack the supreme court without allowing Cooper to pick the initial judges to fill the two new vacancies. The only way to block this is to win this supreme court race, which would still give Democrats a 5-4 majority even with two new Republicans.

Also, as expected, the descriptions the GOP wrote in the special session are highly misleading.

Court blocks two highly misleading amendments meant to strip power away from Governor (temporarily - for now):

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article216880225.html




This ordeal is yet another chapter in the NCGOP's brazenly corrupt efforts to steal and entrench power in the state government. It's also a good example of their arrogance, as they wrote descriptions so misleading that even a court had to block them. The legislature didn't need to go that far, imo. They could have wrote a more reasonable design without making it that much more likely to lose.

But, then again, that is one of the hallmarks of the NCGOP. They make extreme and often illegal efforts to get what they want, even when it's not really necessary.

The current Republican incumbent is in 3rd place! LOLOLOLOL

https://twitter.com/TimBoyumTV/status/1049434262082994176

The incumbent has FIFTEEN PERCENT? HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA.

Bruce Rauner can rest assured that he isn't the most pathetic Republican incumbent in the country right now.

hahahahaha

Beautiful to see these evil, evil people get what's coming to them.

It's about time. Sometimes there is justice in the world after all.

Rs will lose supermajority in house. Not sure about senate

The two anti-democratic Constitutional amendments are failing:

https://twitter.com/TimBoyumTV/status/1057406795726053376

Also the incumbent Republican Supreme Court Justice is still down big (22 points):

https://twitter.com/TimBoyumTV/status/1057407053302353920

If only the tax cap were down, then it would be N U T worthy.

Ugh, I come here thinking I'm finally the first one to post a poll, and here it already is, posted hours ago lmbo. This just reminds me why I love this forum so much. For all the crap Atlas gets, it's not easy to find another forum out there dedicated to political data but also highly active too. I don't think another one exists.

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Anyway, this is amazing. I was deeply skeptical that the judicial selection and election board amendments would fail, given how innocuous they seem to the average voter, but word seems to be out that they are power grabs. Even if just the judicial selection amendment failed, that would still be a massive win. It means no court-packing and the state supreme court goes 5 - 2 Democratic.

If that happens, the legislative lame duck period is going to be interesting. Can't wait to see how Republicans plan to lash out then. Maybe they can pass a bill defunding coffee machines in the Governor's office?

Voted Tuesday Afternoon:
Dem for State Senate/State House/Supreme Court and No on the judicial and election boards amendments.



I voted Republican for most everything else.

Can you imagine the rage when the NCSC strikes down all of their redistricting maps in 2021, forcing them to be drawn by a court?

You did the right thing for your state - NCGOP needs to be checked

Pennsylvania 2.0. Karma is a bitch.

The NCGOP needs to be nuked, it is out there on Pluto.

I couldn't get lucky enough for that to happen here. Most of the best maps in effect right now, were drawn by the courts.

Couldn't another lawsuit be filed in state court before the 2020 elections challenging the maps as partisan gerrymanders? The maps that were sued over before in state court years ago are no longer even in effect afaik, since the legislature redrew them due to a federal lawsuit (and still played games too, re-gerrymandering districts in violation of state law outside the parameters of the federal court order). Quite frankly, at this point, I don't even care if they technically shouldn't. They should find a justification and just redraw the maps ASAP just to restore some semblance of sanity to the state's government. You can't have a functional democracy if the pseudo-majority party is constantly rigging the system and changing the rules every single year.

The best thing for North Carolina is neutral maps and a divided government through the early-mid 2020s at least. Make these people work together and especially for the NCGOP, humble them a bit and teach them that they aren't the center of the universe and that yes, NC is not some staunchly Republican deep south state, and yes, the political opposition has a legitimate right to govern if they win power.

1. Respect.

2. How did you vote on the voter ID and income tax amendments?

I wouldn't be surprised if the NCGOP would go through with impeaching in that case--they're really properly hellbent on power in all cases.

Not like there isn't recent precedent for that, either. Look at what happened in West Virginia.

It would need a 2/3 majority. They're probably not having this majority after the election.

If the Dems pick up NC-02, NC-09, and NC-13, then the state is definitely a tossup in 2020.

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There is however a lame-duck session, where they'll likely pass the voter ID bill and other assorted nastiness. Might as well throw on judicial impeachment too.

Totally forgot about this, but regarding North Carolina's 5 - 2 Democratic Supreme Court:

https://twitter.com/PoliticsWolf/status/1060313217837252608


If they want, this is a slam dunk. Just throw a dart on a board with this list and get moving:





Follow the NCGOP's example and just do whatever you want and see if anyone can stop you :]

So wins
NC senate GOP supermajority or Roy Cooper and his super majority court.

There is no more NC Senate supermajority beginning in January

Important to note that besides the power-grab amendments, all other four (including voter ID) passed.

Voter ID will likely be ruled against at some point and the hunt and fish amendment is basically meaningless. Also, the victim's rights amendment was always going to pass.

New Republican Christopher Anglin was a hero to all people of North Carolina. Anita Earls probably loses a heart breaker without his hard work.
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Source (https://twitter.com/AsInMarx/status/1060979061223276544)

In the event the 4th circuit doesn't throw it out, maybe the state Supreme Court can, at the very least, rebuff GOP attempts to craft very strict lists of IDs that inevitably exclude IDs disproportionately possessed by Democrats.

The amendment also doesn't require IDs for absentee ballots (on purpose), so maybe they can try and make a case for that too. Like I said before, just make something up and throw it out. Play the game the way the NCGOP wants to play.

It's happening.gif

https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/1062382430915571712

Kinda surprised they didn't wait until after the lame duck was over.

Yea, I was thinking it might be iffy to do that while they can still technically impeach justices, but then again, Cooper would get to fill the vacancy with another Democrat, so it doesn't matter. We'll see if the General Assembly will lash out soon in their special session. They are a very reactionary bunch, so I'm sure this is weighing heavily on them.

Whatever nonsense they try to do in the speical election will just get struck down. This is all reminding me of a game of wack a mole.

Wasn't the Marsy's Law amendment supported by Democrats though?   The hunt and fish thing wasn't very political either way.

Proposed photo ID rules:

https://twitter.com/TimBoyumTV/status/1064996731610374151


It could be worse, but I think they are trying to play it safe to avoid them getting struck down in federal court.

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Also, plaintiffs ask that trial be held around April for NC partisan gerrymandering lawsuit (legislative maps):

http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2018/11/21/partisan-gerrymandering-plaintiffs-ask-state-court-to-speed-up-proceedings/

4th time's a charm? :]   (re-post)

https://twitter.com/CraigJ_NandO/status/1068157984906387456

NC GOP Trying Again To Cement Control Of Local Elections Boards During Election Years

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/nc-gop-trying-again-to-cement-control-of-local-elections-boards-during-election-years


So basically, the GOP gets to hold a majority on county election boards when there is a major election, and Democrats can chair when it's nothing but local elections. Sounds very fair and definitely not a power grab meant to deny early voting to Democratic counties!

They just can't stop trying to seize control of election boards. Their desperation stinks.

Luckily the State Supreme Court will smack most of this down. It's like a game of whack-a-mole.

Why is the Supreme Court even needed? How can they pass this over Cooper's veto?

It's a lame-duck bill with their lame super majority.

So they lose the supermajority after the new legislature is sworn in?

I was wrong, this is their 5th attempt to seize control of the election boards. The first three were shot down by the SC, and the 4th one failed because voters didn't approve the constitutional amendment.

Also, part of what I was saying before about Republicans changing the election board powers to blunt the election fraud investigation:

https://twitter.com/ECGreaves/status/1070030707332972550

NC Republicans never disappoint :]



Yup.

NC doesn't allow initiative or referendum.

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The governor can't veto the map.

Is there any way at all to end Republicans' gerrymandering?

how tf don't MN and WI two states with large amounts of progressive and #populist not allow referendums?

Democrats should en masse change their registrations in order to thwart this.

State Supreme Court is now 5-2 in favor of the Democrats, so a Pennsylvania style lawsuit.

As a person born in North Carolina and lived there til I was 30, the hand-wringing over North Carolina Republicans by the Democrats, a party that ran the state pretty much consecutively from the end of Reconstruction 130 or so years onward, is amusing. It's one corrupt party telling the other party "you're corrupt". Sorry, I actually took a class on North Carolina history.

"We are out of power now, let's go find religion and be for no gerrymandering and other things in elections to ensure wins that we did for more than a century."

For the record as a person that used to live G.K. Butterfield's district, I'll support anti-gerrymandering laws that ban districts purposefully drawn for demographic reasons, which is currently required for North Carolina by federal law. Do Democrats not realize that districts like the 1st which are used to elect African-Americans make them weaker everywhere else? Also, what a gerrymander is needs to be absolutely defined, because I've seen the term used in conflicting circumstances by different commentators to further their respective arguments.

Galaxy brain: Singapore-style nominally-democratic regime-building isn't acceptable when either party does it.

Luckily the Democrats have a large NCSC majority now and can clean up the mess.

More like go to war. Republican majorities rather then supermajorities, a Dem gov, and Dem courts mean that this is not going to be resolved without a fierce fight.

I mean, in the end, if a 5 - 2 Democratic Supreme Court wants to redraw these maps >= 2019, there is little the NCGOP can do. They can drag their feet, stall, threaten people, complain, cry in a corner, etc etc, it doesn't matter. Either they end up capitulating or the court steps in and draws it for them (99% likely). So it might get heated, but there isn't much Republicans can do in this scenario. It's why they invested so much effort in trying to change the judiciary and how vacancies are filled. They were absolutely planning on packing the SC if the relevant amendment was approved.

The real battle is probably going to be 2020, for the governors office and 1 Republican Supreme Court seat, and especially 2022, where a slew of Supreme Court justices must stand for reelection: 3 Democrats, 1 Republican. There is a real chance that Republicans could take back the Supreme Court in 2022, particularly if a Democrat wins the presidency. This is a big deal, because if Democrats have not flipped a chamber of the legislature in 2020, there would be no stopping fresh gerrymanders. Democrats increasing their SC majority to 6 - 1 in 2020's elections should be a top priority to head off this scenario.

I like how every commenter after my post glazes over the fact I posted that North Carolina and other southern states are required by the federal government to create supermajority Democrat districts specifically to elect African-American candidates to Congress, and this in turn makes other districts that surround these districts more Republican. If you do not remove that requirement, that means Democrats in the rest of the state's districts would always be fighting uphill.

it has never been required for a super majority district anyway. I think by now outside the deep south a 45% AA district is enough according to some court rulings. In a place like NC a 40% AA district would reliably elect african americans as they would form like 4/5 the primary vote for D's and then the few liberal whites which is greater than Ms liberal whites would elect a black D.

Anyway Im no fan of the VRA required districts and they clearly aren't required anymore outside a few deep south states(see MS LA AL) as we saw people like Lauren underwood and Joe Nuguese get elected in like <3% black districts.

If you are so hot on North Carolina history, you should know that (unlike in places like WI and MI) the Republicans' shenanigans are nothing new. The only new thing is they have an R next to their name instead of D. The two parties switched-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmington_insurrection_of_1898

Because you fail to understand the complexity of the VRA. Districts can be anywhere from <40% AA to >56% AA depending on the circumstances. The AA candidate just needs to confidently win both the primary and the general, which varies by location. The districts also need to be 'realistically' compact, so you cannot spiral across a state just to collect AA voters like Pub gerrymanders love to. You also in most cases can't have a district with a super-majority AA voters, since that counts as racial packing, so what Pubs love to do is stick legislative districts full of AAs and try to make every other voter a white lib.

Finally, the VRA tends to benefit Southern Dems in ever case except dem trifectas, even though it hurts Midwestern dems. Under Pub Gerrys, the VRA forces dem seats, giving dems a floor they wouldn't normally have. For example, One could easily draw 4-0, 6-0, 7-0, 13-3, and 10-2 Pub maps in MS, AL, SC, GA, and NC respectively. In fair maps, the white libs are separated from AA's they would be paired with under Pub Manders to create more dem seats  - check my Sig for example of things like a 5-1-1 SC and AL, 8-5-1 GA, and 7-5-1 NC - all maps which generally match the states PVI. Only if Dems have full control over redistricting does the VRA harm their efforts in creating as many Dem seats as possible.

No because that is not true. That type of racial gerrymandering was not common until after the 1990 Census.

That makes them supermajority Democrat districts, which mean every district that surrounds it is more likely to elect a Republican. What's a gerrymander again?

Drawing districts specifically to elect African-Americans to Congress are by fact gerrymanders because you're taking all the Democrats and putting them in one area. In addition to being disgustingly segregationist, the Voting Rights Act requires them otherwise all the districts get thrown out, and yet some commentators are talking about gerrymandering as the reason Democrats lose while defending the existence of these districts. It's the height of bullsh**t.

I will not take any anti-gerrymandering post or comment by anyone seriously until they say they are for stopping this requirement on drawing districts, period, otherwise you're a walking contradiction. If that requirement was removed, this would IMPROVE Democrats' chances on getting more seats, so you cannot accuse me of supporting this for partisan reasons. So why don't Democrats support this other than they don't have the balls to stand up to the Black Caucus?

Why would anyone Think it important to protect black political representation in the South. You've truly stumbled upon a Deep mystery here and the only explanation is a political Conspiracy run by blacks and, eh, globalists.

VRA is essentially to proper representation of minority populations, especially in the Deep South. Saying otherwise is ignorant.

I still don't like VRA districts as it does segregate the country too much. Its clear outside the DEEP racist hicks only a few VRA districts are required.

Lets see
Texas - No longer a need for strict VRA. if the GOP wants to gerrymander against hispanics they can get BTFO in a dummymander
GA-Bishops district is losing population anyway
FL- there is one northern florida black district. The three cuban districts are represented by white people. The black district could just be  2 districts now. One lean-Likely D in Jax and a Likely R Talhasee district.
The rest of America clearly has no problem electing black people in a major amount. See Lauren Underwood in Il 14th , Joe neguse in Co 2nd and Hayes in Ct 5. All of these are very low population african american districts and  two of them are swing districts .  Only a few states like MS AL and LA probably need it because of their racially polarized history.

I don't like VRA districts. Georgia's 6th congressional district is in the South, only 13% of back, and represented by Lucy McBath. StateBoiler is completely right on this one.

VRA districts are an abomination. If you want proportional representation of racial (or any other) groups, there's a voting system for that and I'm all for adopting it. But if you want to use SMDs, they should be compact and COI-based.

Once again the VRA DOES NOT REQUIRE DRAWING THOSE SORT OF HEAVILY GERRYMANDERED DISTRICTS.

They weren't even common until after 1990.

elll-ooo-elll:

https://twitter.com/mcpli/status/1074821943952584706

(this maneuver is not guaranteed to succeed fwiw)

+1.

...wait, what does that mean?

In the US, a court case originally brought in state court can be removed to federal court if there is a substantial federal issue (an issue under federal law) at stake in the case. State courts can decide federal law, but the defendant (who didn't choose the forum of the case) generally has a right to have federal issues decided in federal court so can seek removal in the early stages of the case. If removed, all federal issues would be decided in federal court, and any remaining state law issues are remanded to state court. A defendant can file for removal to federal court at pretty much any time, and the entire proceeding has to be stopped in state court until the federal court has ruled as to whether it has jurisdiction. If the federal court has jurisdiction, it has to take the case; if it doesn't (because, among other possible reasons, there is no substantial federal issue), it has to remand the case back to state court.

The challenge to the districts is based purely on state law, the North Carolina Constitution. However, the NCGOP is making two arguments here for removal.

The first is that the at least some of the districts sought to be changed were drawn on the order of a federal court (though not by a federal court) in order to ensure compliance with federal law (the VRA) and the federal Constitution, and then they hand-wave to suggest that changing those districts at all would be potentially contrary to or somehow in conflict with federal law, or at least involve interests that could be contrary to federal law (even though it obviously wouldn't be) and therefore they have a right to have a federal court to hear the case. This argument is obvious bunk, and the federal courts will see right through it.

The second argument is truly ridiculous; they claim that any redraw of the map would violate an ostensible federal constitutional right of Republican voters to have representation in Republican-favoring gerrymandered districts. This is even more obvious bunk, and the federal courts will laugh it back to state court.

So it's mostly just a time-wasting procedural tactic in this particular instance. Presumably they are trying to run out the clock on having to redraw before the 2020 elections.

This missed the point entirely. The VRA is not about electing black or other minority politicians. It is about enabling minority voters to elect the candidates of their choice (even when that candidate is not of that minority group). Underwood, Neguse and Hayes have nothing to do with the VRA.

I basically agree that VRA districts are not great in many ways, but it's the only real way to ensure that minority voters can elect candidates of their choice in an FPTP, single-member district system in states that are highly polarized on racial lines (including all of the states you mentioned) barring some sort of very strong federal anti-gerrymandering law (or constitutional finding).

Thanks for the explanation, Tintrlvr. I'm confident that this won't jeopardize the State lawsuit.

Wouldn't blacks (who vote 90%+ democratic) prefer say, 2 or 3 white democrats who agree with their views over one black democrat though?

representative russ Carnahan agrees.

Agreed. Posting garbage like this while North Carolina Republicans literally do everything and anything humanly possible, legal or otherwise, to retain power animator demonstrating exactly play the VRA is necessary as we speak, is the height of make combined Pinnacle of stupidity and arrogance.

Lol, the North Carolina Supreme Court will now be 6-1 Democrat.

https://twitter.com/garydrobertson/status/1088907946346598400

Bye-bye, Felicia!

LOL

oh my god

edit: can't help but feel like if the NCGOP didn't try to undermine their own state's judiciary so badly and so thoroughly for so many years, he might have actually stayed on.

Amazing! :D

Hope Governor Cooper appoints a champion of voting rights to replace him.

America's own Iran/Russia/Venezeuela is finally getting more Democratic!

Lol if they hadn’t lost the super this year, I’d bet they’d try to make the SC seats pass the leg

Whats the likelihood that the new 6-1 court would strike down the voter ID law?

NC GOP would like Democratic Governor Roy Cooper to respect the will of the people and maintain the partisan balance of the court by filling the seat with a Republican judge

https://twitter.com/RaleighReporter/status/1090303679452901376

.....

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NC GOP sure knows a lot about respecting the will of the people!

Just goes to show you that your bad actions will catch up with you sooner or later.

Pretty sure that sentence can sum up the NCGOP after the bathroom bill was introduced.

just lol

Lol North Carolina Republicans

https://twitter.com/jonathankappler/status/1092833120880115712

You'd think NC Republicans would have learned their lesson about splitting their own votes in NC Supreme Court elections. But, I guess that's giving them too much credit.

FWIW I believe the canceled judicial primaries for 2018 was just that - 2018 only, and not a change to future elections. The official justification Republicans gave was that they needed more time to debate/pass a redistricting bill for judicial districts (and other power grab reforms). Although we all know they just wanted to hang on to a Supreme Court seat at any cost.

https://www.greensboro.com/news/government/elections/federal-appeals-court-backs-skipping-judicial-primaries-in-north-carolina/article_b54bdeff-e19d-5c23-b7f5-8cd03e1ead28.html

So vote splitting shouldn't be a big issue this time around.

Ah okay, that's weird. Still, I look forward to the NCSC striking down everything the NCGOP did over the past 6 years.

Just a friendly reminder that the NC GOP is evil incarnate.

Carry on!

https://twitter.com/rickhasen/status/1099072027481145345

https://twitter.com/PoliticsWolf/status/1099078366144061441

Going to be interesting to see what a 6-1 Democratic Supreme Court does here.

WOW.

The NCGOP is having the worst of luck.

Karma

It ran over their dogma.

Absurd ruling

By this logic basically every law from 1860 to 1960 in NC is void.

Im pretty sure even the 6-1 D NC SC will strike this down.

Lol sometimes vengeance takes time but usually you get it.

When will the NC Dems win back control of both chambers of the NC General Assembly ?

A.) 2020

B.) 2022

C.) 2024

D.) 2026

I wouldn't say "usually." But sometimes being rare actually makes it even more satisfying!

If the maps are redrawn and 2020 is a wave, I'd say they have a shot in 2020. Otherwise, if Trump wins reelection, I'd say 2022 (assuming, again, maps are fair). If a Democrat wins the White House, maybe 2024. I'm not sure they would flip it in a Dem midterm since 2022 would be a drag on downballot Democrats.

Nonetheless, this is still cause for celebration if you ask me. NC Democrats had few if any prospects just 2.5 years ago, and now they are already regaining their footing and have basically retaken the judiciary in a big way.

lolol^

Dallas Woodhouse next please

BREAKING: Wildly popular NC Republican Labor Commisioner Cherie Berry won't seek re-election.

https://twitter.com/NCCapitol/status/1113072599653740544

Safe R->Tossup

I'm going to translate Berry's statement as "I do NOT want to wear out my welcome, would rather go out on top."

Who will the NC Dems & NC GOPers put up candidates to replace her ?

GLORIOUS news.

Wow I’m so shocked the NC GOP was so rotten and corrupt! Shocked!

From Dallas Woodhouse's wikipedia page: "Dallas Woodhouse (born 1972/73) is an American political operative based in North Carolina. He has been the Executive Director of the North Carolina Republican Party since October 2015. He is a liar and a crook."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas_Woodhouse (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas_Woodhouse)

Dallas Woodhouse stepping down as Executive Director of the NCGOP:

https://www.wral.com/woodhouse-to-step-down-as-nc-gop-director/18327447/

NC GOP lucky they still have control of both chambers of the NC General Assembly & some down-ballot statewide offices.

Just when you thought the fun would stop

https://mobile.twitter.com/TheHerald_Sun/status/1144752998435971075

At this point, I think North Carolina is going to be my favorite state to watch elections for in 2020. If the maps get redrawn, Democrats have some real opportunities for 2020 and beyond. Not to mention the slew of executive office races.

Not to mention how delightful it would be to see someone like Dan Forest lose.

But here's why Republicans and Republican voters aren't racist.

Why didn't this happen in 2016?

Lmao how did a state party in a swing state get to be so crazy? At least the CA/VA GOP stands no chance regardless of what they do. The NC GOP has to be the worst state party in a competitive state. 

There is still the FL Democratic Party

Ehh, the FL Dems aren’t great but a lot of that is also bc the FL GOP is just so good.

I mean, Pat McCrory did lose reelection.

Outlier.

Laughs. Lived in North Carolina all my life up until 2012. Democrats ran the state continuously for more or less 130 years essentially unchallenged. Back in the middle of Easley's governorship, you had Meg Scott Phipps, you had assorted shenanigans in the state legislature where the R's actually won more seats one election but a crisis was orchestrated to keep the speaker D, Easley's sole goal his first few years in power to get a lottery going, you had the deal with Easley's wife, and then Bev Perdue - a rotten piece of sh**t from the town next door that when I was in grade school was actively anti-certain educational programs as in she literally came to my school and wanted vocational education eliminated, and then ran for governor on an education platform. The Republicans to their credit back then due to being perennially out of power were idiots.

I used to tell people this: "here's North Carolina politics in a nutshell, the Democrats are corrupt and the Republicans are morons".

This sounds a lot like the zany claim that "Democrats were the party of slavery". Yes, in the 1860s. That was a long time ago.

The GOP has not realised that in today's world, politics is about much more than money. It undergirds every aspect of ours lives, from family to consumption to sexuality. Attacking the process of fair elections is denying the right to a fair society, which is the core belief in the US as a country. The anger will never subside.

That there were shocking shenanigans in the 1950s in North Carolina, a time of white male authority when a large chunk of the population was disenfranchised, is immaterial to today's world and does not justify anyone's actions.
"The past is a different country. They do things differently there" - LP Hartley

If that tit for tat rule applied, can you imagine what the cheating, lying, bribing GOP would deserve next time the Dems take over? That alone should give you pause before defending the Dowlesses of the world.

The actions I'm describing were from the 1990s and 2000s where the Democrats dominated affairs on a state level. I've not even touched the unique version of straight ticket voting the state at least used to have, not sure if they still do, that the Democrats pushed through (you can vote straight ticket for everything but president, that way if you hated the national Democratic Party as a lot of N.C. Democrats at least used to, you could vote R for president and D for everything else), or how white Democrat vs. black Democrat politics work in smaller voting districts (e.g. municipal level). This wasn't the 1950s, this was the 2000s.

North Carolina Democrats raising hell about the Republican actions in the state is an alcoholic suddenly finding religion and is in favor of throwing the book at anyone that has a sip of wine. I was a resident of the state of North Carolina for 30 years of my life, lived in Beaufort, New Bern, Havelock, Raleigh during my time in college, Rocky Mount, took classes in North Carolina history, was actually awake for them, and you're a resident of Ireland per your avatar. Unless you're lying about where you're from, I think I know more about the state politically than you, with all due respect.

State Democrats suddenly throwing a fit about gerrymandering, dear God, if there was ever a clearer case of the pot calling the kettle black. "Racial gerrymandering" - go look at the electoral map of eastern North Carolina over the past 30 years. The 1st and 3rd districts of the '90s were outright disasters and the guy that drew it should be locked in jail for having his only eye being toward intentionally segregating voters away from one another based on racial demographics. And you know who drew that map? A Democrat, because they controlled the State House continuously from 1899 to 2010 for all but a handful of years. Democrats can tell me they have changed when they start holding resolutions for their state party going back and censuring the actions of their corrupt members of the past. Until then, don't sit and try and tell me they're any better than the North Carolina GOP and act holier than thou. I'm not sitting here and telling you the North Carolina GOP are intelligent and saints, I'm telling you the Democrats are no better than them. They're a bunch of Bev Perdues, Easleys, and Holden Thorps.

Imagine if he were still governor though

So just run of the mill GOP whataboutism. "But they did something similar a generation ago, so we must be even worse today, because that's the way forward!"

You sound like President Manchild's ravings.

"30 years ago Democrats did something really bad, so they can't complain about anything bad the Republicans do today!!"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Carolina%27s_congressional_districts#/media/File:United_States_Congressional_Districts_in_North_Carolina,_1993_%E2%80%93_1998.tif (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Carolina%27s_congressional_districts#/media/File:United_States_Congressional_Districts_in_North_Carolina,_1993_%E2%80%93_1998.tif)

Just looking at this 1990s CD map, how was this allowed? I know the 12th was struck down, but the 3rd and 6th districts here are definitely not contiguous. Even the racists of Jim Crow drew contiguous districts.

I promise y'all, that the NCGOP are nothing like the people who vote GOP in NC, for the most part.

If anything they're less racist and hateful than the average NC GOP voter.

Not true. But whatever you say.

Say goodbye to gerrymandered state maps:

https://twitter.com/newsobserver/status/1149792082292346880

Destroy your hard drives, kiddos.
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Around 1990, there was a court decision that mandated Southern states to draw districts to ensure that blacks would be elected to more legislative offices.  IIRC, the Court ruled that these districts had to be 65% black in order to pass muster.  These districts, such as the old NC-12, actually "changed lanes" at some points.  A FL district literally combined black neighborhoods in Jacksonville, Orlando, and Ocala/Gainesville, held together by thin lines.  Another black district went from PART of Fort Pierce, through mostly inland farmland, south to black communities in Palm Beach and Broward Counties.  LA elected two (2) black Democrats in 1992 due to a non-NOLA district that stretched out in a similar manner.

These districts were drawn with the full support of black Democrats at the time.  Black Democrats joined with Republicans to bring this about.  I'm sure that many regret this, as it helped to usher in the end of black-working class white coalitions that elected many Congressional Southern Democrats and Southern Democratic state legislators, but they were all for it back then.

Yes, when VRA districts first came into existance they were opposed by most of the Southern Dems. In part because AA districts necessitated packing your voters, and in part because Southern Dems did't want to see tons of AA representation. This was partially due to racism, partially due to the lack of loyalty AA legislators would have to White Dem state governments, and part because AA legislators were cut from a different cloth ideologically than their white southern democratic partners. So when VRA districts became a thing, you saw the 'super-AA seats' where AA voters were packed into 1 to 2 seats a state, and then the rest were reapportioned in a way to produce seats that could only elect white democrats (too AA for a white R, too white for a AA dem).

Litigation like Shaw v Reno began the slow process of establishing the guidelines for racial packing and cracking we follow today: that the circumstances differ based on a states historical turnout, how many white dems are in the seat alongside AAs, how partisan and lockstep are the republican whites, and what is the trajectory of AA population in the region. But until that point arrived, you saw AAs team up with republicans in the minority from time to time to get back at their White Dem allies and create more AA seats. Or you got court cases establishing what can and cannot be connected to produce and AA seat. But the southern white dems still held this worldview that AAs can be parceled out in a way to prevent any AA and republican legislators - look at Arkansas. The legislature could have drawn one Obama district easily, but that seat would have elected an AA. So they drew three seats that would have elected white dems under the old alliance, but now would easily be safe republican. Its only recently (this decade), with the death of the Southern White Democrat and his migration to the republican party that democrats in the south start fully working with AAs districtwise, in part because the regions democratic parties now look more like those in other parts of the nation rather then legacy products of the 1970s.

Its frankly absurd that we still even have AA seats. Even if there was it should be a strict 50% and not change to the Democrats benefit like in Virginia at 40%.

The Republicans were all for VRA districts in the 1990's, just as they were all for expanding black voting in the 1960's. The Southern Strategy was not about becoming the Segregationists, it was about displacing them and forcing their voters to become Republicans. You did this through blacks taking over the local Democratic Parties. You need to have blacks voting and voting as Democrats to facilitate this in the 1960's and 1970's. By the 1990's it had moved to the districts and these early court rulings and the Bush 41 Justice Department were the ones that pushed the matter. This would cause the rest of the delegations to shift ever more Republican and become polarized between white Republicans and black Democrats.

Yeah so I get all of this, but I was wondering did the 3rd and 6th districts from the 1990s NC map ever get struck down? Like how was that configuration even legal to draw?

Water and touch point contiguity.

Is that still around today in NC, that you can draw districts that are only connected at a single point?

The 6th district has the 12th cut right through it.  You cannot full get through the 6th from North to South without crossing the 12th. Same with the 3rd and 1st districts.  With these rules, you could draw checkerboard block districts that literally skip every other house.

See TX's map from the same period, they did do just that to protect their dems.
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Generally these days if districts do touch point continuity or spidermanders like TX they get thrown out by the courts  for a host of other reasons unrelated to the partisan side of gerrymandering.

Also state boiler is right. The NC Democrats were just awful, plain and simple. Having moved here in the 2000s, I didn't realize that the GOP were just as awful as they were so I foolishly thought that the GOP taking power would change things.

Static parties is false yes, but party flip theory is also bullcrap. Especially in a state like NC. You can make a case that in some states, Segregationists went from being Democrats to Republicans over night like in say South Carolina, but not here.

North Carolina is a completely different kettle of fish. NC for one was a border state and one of the last to secede, it arguably only seceded because VA seceded and it was surrounded by secessionist territory. After the war, unlike the Deep South where Democrats would routinely get 80% or 90% of the vote, NC was much closer. The unionist mountain counties of the west voted Republican and many of the surrounding areas had much softer Democratic margins, similar to the piedmont regions of VA and other places where 50% margins for the GOP interchanged with 50% margins for the Democrats. The only solid part of NC was Eastern NC.

Yes there were two groups that did flip, African Americans gained the right to vote and became Democrats and the Jessecrats (led by Jesse Helms) flipped the Piedmont region to being solid Republican from being tied. Republicans also made gains in Charlotte and Raleigh metros creating the East West divide that defined the state's politics on the state level as late as the 2000s. But in the rest of the state and in terms of the Democratic establishment, their was no massive flip of parties or anything and the fact that the Republicans couldn't take and hold the legislature until 2010 is proof of that. It took the New Deal Democrats dying off to flip the state legislature.

Democrats very slowly declined in the rural areas and as state boiler said, the NC Democrats did what they had to do to cling to power. They saw what happened in 1964 and other elections where Goldwater caused GOP slates to win because of straight ticket voting. So they created the ballot he talked about which meant that people could vote Nixon, Reagan, Bush and still vote straight Democratic down ballot. This was was how Bush won NC by double digits and at the same time Easley won by almost the same margin. They resorted to gerrymandering, using black voters to prop up flailing white Democratic districts, at the expense of reducing minority representation in the state legislature and Congress. They used corruption on an extensive level to maintain power.

And yes Democrats had it out for vocational education as state boiler said. There was this sense that Democrats were beholden to the big three Universities and that if you weren't planning to go to a college they didn't give a crap about you. In the 2000s, Republicans were actually seen as the more reasonable ones on education. That didn't change until the budget cuts of the early 2010s pushed by the newly GOP state legislature.


That is already happening. The current excess of the GOP is motivated by a desire to get back at the Dems for their treatment of the GOP For 100 years. And once the Democrats return to power they will indeed do the same stuff they did before. There are no good guys in this state.

That is why my votes are strategic. You cannot trust either side to have complete control of this state.

I agree with you, up to a point though. I think the part you missed, in part because it is kinda going under the rader, is the transformation of the southern democratic parties. With the advent of race-line voting with Obama, and then the GOP gerrymanders of the 2010s, the Southern Democrats are dead. Those people who worshipped the ideology of power unquestioningly were replaced by caucuses forced to be majority black with hyper-liberal College seat dems and other minorities as supplemental. This cataclysmic event arguably brought southern democratic parties into line with the rest of the national democrats. Like, look at 2018. The only 'southern dem' who got on a significant major ticket were Bresden and Nelson, and that was because one lacked competition and the other was an incumbent. You had Abrams and Gillum, not Crist and Carter. And even as the nation gave the dems a big wave, rural southern white dems still lost their state legislative seats that they had somehow held in 2014. The places where these parties are growing similarly reflect this policy changes - they are all areas being fed by non-southerns migrating south like Atlanta, the Triangle, NOVA, and all the Texas cities.

I know you said that it feels like the criminal suddenly finding god..but well they kinda have if we look to what the VA dems are doing. And its because their repentance moment was the equivalent of losing an arm and a leg.

Those Texas districts are actually connected without being crossed over like those North Carolina districts.

I didn't say that, State boiler did.

Also are you implying that progressive and minority based state Democratic parties don't engage in corruption, gerrymandering etc?

Nope. In fact AA's in safe districts I think engage in corruption more, see Corrine Brown, Gillium, Chakka Fattah, and many others because they feel safe. No, what I am saying the culture and fundamental bedrock that shapes the party has shifted.

This would be easier to explain with texts like Edward Gibson's 2012 Boundary Control, that explores how sub-national authoritarianism can survive and propagate even in healthy liberal democracies. But the short summery is that once Jim Crow came into place, the democratic party of the solid south took hold and ruled the states uncontested. One can draw a straight line from Jim Crow to Civil Rights to 1994 to 2010. When rivals did appear in these states they were drawn away in gerrymandering, or powers were stripped from the offices they held to limit 'damage,' or a favorable local press kept everyone in line. Even as the coalitions changed, the people in power did not, in part because there were southern dynasties, in part because they were the only people who had ever controlled the states for the democrats. These people were raised in the culture of the Southern Authoritarianism, and their only goal in politics was to maintain power. even as ideology changed, this bedrock always remained.

Then in 2010, everything changed. Well, everything had already changed in 2008 with the election of Obama, but the decades long decline had paid off. Voter voters who had been efficiently governed by southern authoritarians were dead or in Florida, and people like us were around who only remembered the decline and the consistent attempts to cling to power, not the goodwill that is brought during the heyday of authoritarian leaders. There was the migration of voters who were loyal to republicans, there was racist undercurrents, there was the classist undercurrents, there was suburban expansion in exurbs, and much much more. In general, the bottom fell out from the southern dems. That authoritarian class? Gone, or relegated to the decaying minority of the party.

What was left of the southern Democratic parties was the African American caucus, once a minority just like the republican shoved aside by the white democrats. And of course these caucuses were larger then ever, thanks to GOP gerrymandering both based on parties and to eliminate every white dem from their legislature. You had the liberal whites left who had never been part of the southern democratic class, they were always big-city or university based. And you had assorted other minorities like Hispanics in Texas or Vietnamese in Louisiana who were in a similar boat like the African Americans. Even though all of these groups had held power alongside the Authoritarian southern democrats during the decline, they never were in control, or even close to the true levers of power. Always the Southern Dems, always the White Authoritarians.

And so in effect, its a whole new generation now. The loss of the southern dems have sent Southern Parties into the wildnerness and the ideologies that they have come back resemble the liberal (small l) ones held by northernern and western and every other party in the united states. Its a type of people who look at the Georgia legislature and are happy that its almost entirely minority. Its a type of people who have moved to the region from areas without an authoritarian legacy. Sure, these people want power, thats the goal of all parties. But they don't see power as the be all end all goal. They are happy to trade the majority and minority, as long as the other party plays just as fair. Just like every other party, policy, ideology, and Identity now play roles. Its why southern democratic parties today are pursuing platforms, reforms, and campaigning on the spirit of the national platform, rather then going their own way in a vain quest for power.

Now, Northerners aren't exempt from this phenomenon. In fact, Illinois is developing into a one party local-authoritarian system with Madigan as its king, but that is a topic for another thread.

So was point contiguity not a requirement in NC districting back then? Like I get districts 1 and 3 touching at a single point but 6 and 12 look ridiculous.

https://twitter.com/The_VRI/status/1151097245372207106?s=19

()

Follow @mcpli if you want live tweets of the case's arguments each day.

https://twitter.com/mel_bough

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article232677422.html


Right, because telling the courts they have no right whatsoever to rule on redistricting-related issues is totally a solid argument. It worked so well in Pennsylvania's case.

Haha, good luck with that NCGOP.

Moderate suburbanite State  Rep. Holly Grange is IN for Governor. Grange backed reforms opposed by hard right to bathroom legislation and is military vet (West Point grad).

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.newsobserver.com/news/business/article232823772.html (https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.newsobserver.com/news/business/article232823772.html)

Now that SCOTUS has leaned in and decided that gerrymandering is non-justiciable, how could the SCONC alter the map and get it to stick for 2020?

The ruling applies to federal courts. The SCONC is using state law, so similar to the PA case, the maps will stand for 2020 if implemented. In fact the Supreme court case changed very little since they had always thrown out Non-VRA gerry cases beforehand, the two big court-ordered remaps in PA/FL this cycle came from state laws and state courts. States can do whatever they want, and in fact the Supreme's verdict stated that state insitutions or congress can legislate for gerrymandering in whatever manner they please, it just never can be a federal court issue and really never was.

Coz its the Supreme court of North Carolina.  They just have to find some random words in the state constitution and SCOTUS won't do jack.

Roberts endorsing the state commissions pretty explicitly this year was a pleasant surprise as he dissented from a 5/4 decision upholding redistricting commissions passed by referendum back in 2015.

Add them to the mugshots of Greg Gianforte, Colin Murray, Don Blankenship, Michael Grimm...

bUt ThE gOp Is ThE pArTy Of LaW aNd OrDeR!!!

Are you sure they weren't arrested for Meth? Those are the scuzziest most disgusting looking group of rednecks I have ever seen.

fwiw, when the hammer started coming down and they all started talking to the press, it was mentioned that there was frequent drug use (opiates) where Dowless kept and sorted the ballots. I forget which one it was, but the woman talking said she would go in there and frequently see someone passed out from getting high all day.

I....

Found it lol

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/briannasacks/dowless-britt-inside-north-carolina-absentee-ballot-machine

That's why so many of them are in police stations.

https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/1168978497928388608

Its here! So what will the dem court do now is the question. Perhaps they draw a bunch of competitive seats. Perhaps they will draw seats that will result in a dem majority, to force divided govt in 2020. Perhaps they just change around the AA seats in the east. Perhaps the GOP will try to claw onto their majority for 2 more years.  Who knows for now.  

https://twitter.com/mcpli/status/1168985760365711365

So the referee will get to pick the maps drawn by either the defendant legislature or the plaintiffs?

Considering its the NCGOP, the court will either pick the plaintiffs or draw their own. I have no faith in the NCGOP going along with this,

Apparently the legislature has 2 weeks to submit a legal map, before  the courts and master seize control.

Saw a statement that the legislature is not going to appeal the decision.

You mean this? https://twitter.com/NickOchsnerWBTV/status/1168998919885508608

They realize how there is literally no way to win in a 6D-1R State Supreme Court,  so there's no point to appeal.

Great ruling-a victory for democracy! Looks like NC state legislature is now truly competitive in 2020. It depends on what the new maps end up being, but it's bound to be better than the current maps.

They wont and given the precedent SCOTUS set this term they wont take up the case as it was decided under the state constitution.

Is this for both the state legislature and congressional seats? I have wondered why there was no state legislature redraws in PA as well.

Just the state legislature.

Glad to see these bastards get their comeuppance.

Too bad they couldn't have toppled Richard Burr and stopped Donald Trump with them.

Key evidence: Plaintiff's expert drew 1000 sets of plans at random minimizing municipality splits, VTD splits, and compactness.

The random maps did remarkably better on municipality splits and VTD splits. I suspect that this was largely that the legislature map was not religiously avoiding splits.

The random maps also did better on partisan results. For example, based on a suite of 10 statewide races, the legislature's plan would have elected 42 Democrats to the House, while they typical random plan would have elected 46 or 47.

BUT

There are 120 House members. A "fairer" plan drawn with traditional redistricting criteria such as respecting political boundaries and compactness would increase the Democratic percentage from 35% to 39%.

It should be remember that it was a Republican-initiated lawsuit that forced the legislature to more closely follow the state constitution with regard to county split, led to the Republican legislative victory in 2010, even though the Democrats drew the map.

Activists now prepare to move against the Congressional Map, though they would have to move fast with the  primaries approaching.  (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/democrats-eye-move-against-gop-congressional-gerrymandering-north-carolina-n1049686)

Although it isn't ideal the Court has the ability to alter the primary schedule to accommodate a new map, which includes holding the primary on a different date than the one currently set (like what happened in 2016).

I've actually seen some rumblings that the plaintiffs should appeal in order to get a better ruling (essentially requiring the court to draw the first round of maps as the defendants can't be trusted).

Why didn't they do them both at the same time?

Who knows. Given the shifts from Republican to Democratic majorities in the appellate/Supreme Court, it would have been a reasonable assumption to believe the lawsuits would succeed. I mean, the NCSC has a 6 - 1 Democratic majority, and the newest justice was literally involved in gerrymandering lawsuit(s) for the left, for gods sakes.

I think it was too close to the previous lawsuit that had the congressional districts redrawn in 2018. 

I wonder if they will attempt to strike down the state legislature map in PA too? I certainly hope so. Dems won by 11 points and still can't get a majority.

The problem that PA dems have is Philly. The Philly burbs have helped a bit, but the Democrats used to be able to contest for the legislature by controlling Western PA rural seats. The gerrymandering being removed will probably reduce the differential, but the Democrats have way to many seats that go 80% and 90% Democratic.

It would require a competitiveness gerrymander that would turn the state into spaghetti strips.

The New Yorker got a full look at all of the Hofeller files.  (https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-secret-files-of-the-master-of-modern-republican-gerrymandering)

Probably enough evidence in here to get their Congressional map thrown out again for being a racial gerrymander, among other things.

NCGOP says f it, decides to troll court that threw out their partisan gerrymander:

https://twitter.com/mjs_DC/status/1170141519187271681

Bought and paid for is the best term that comes to mind.

can we bring about non-racist Redeemers who will bar the GOP from ever holding power in NC?

Unfortunate if it gets thrown out by SCOTUS for racial gerrymanders which are always of some weird logic, 35% districts are fine in VA but do that in MS and they slap you back. The worst case this decade was the VA state house. I am not gonna deny it was a gerrymander but its incredibly unfair one map gets thrown out racial gerrymandering but the Democrat State senate one doesn't because its not "racial".The VA state house map was supported the black caucus seeking a bipartisan gerrymander.

Just because black incumbents in search of safe seats in primaries supported a racial gerrymander does not make minority groups any less represented. Still, it would be nice if they didn't provide votes to the Republicans so often in these cases.

They tend to do it when they know a democratic map is impossible and republicans have the initiative, so why not hop on and get rewarded. We just saw a lot of that in 2010 because the GOP held so many of the states where stuff like this could have occurred.

This should be where we stand going into 2021 redistricting, assuming this decision also gets applied to the NC congressional districts.  Green = significant restrictions on legislature, Yellow = completely independent process

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Notes:

CT+ME: 2/3rds of legislature needed to pass a map
OH: partisan maps expire after 4 years instead of 10
KY: state constitution prohibits splitting counties unnecessarily (so cannot gerrymander KY-03)
NY+UT: commission proposes map that legislature can amend within certain limits

You've correctly noted the restrictions in Ohio, but I would not deem them significant.

Are they really not? I thought the restrictions on city/county splits was a rather significant one. In other words, for example, there should have to be a district entirely within Hamilton County that contains all of Cincinnati.

Okay, this is far enough off topic for NC related redisrticting, which this thread is about.

The plaintiffs have requested Nathaniel Persily to be the referee. He drew the Pennsylvania Congressional redo last year. He also drew the current districts for Connecticut and New York at the beginning of the decade.

https://twitter.com/mel_bough/status/1170457803556839424?s=20

He's a excellent choice for the type  of outcome desired by the plaintiffs.

Isn't the one that drew a map more favorable to Democrats than 99% of other maps?

The New York map is rather decent, as is the PA map with a few minor quibbles, so I am hopeful if he is selected.

One of the requirements the court handed down was that the drawing of the new map be done in public. That's starting this morning.

https://twitter.com/mel_bough/status/1171064827831300096?s=20

( last comment on this to avoid derailing)

Sorry, I thought you meant only the requirement to remap after 4 years if the parties can't agree rather than waiting a full 10. That's pretty much a paper tiger in my book, though the restrictions on city and county splits is noteworthy I agree.

This is hilarious, North Carolina Republicans continue to break the law.

https://twitter.com/ncpolicywatch/status/1171171000672825344?s=21

The courts need to draw the map themselves.

This is disgusting. Luckily the State Senate can block it.

https://twitter.com/KaplanABC11/status/1171770804117397504?s=20

These people are scum, absolute ing scum.

I'm sure all these fine individuals will have an epiphany once Trump leaves office.

I'm not.  The party in general seems to be focused entirely on holding and exercising power at the expense of any other principles.

Does the NCGOP even know the purpose of having a legislative assembly of representatives?   They're there to represent the interests of the people in the state, not rig the system to get what they want.

They did this while the NC House Dems were attending a ceremony for 9/11....wow!

I hope Democrats use this against them in campaign ads and in campaigning in general and in town halls. They would be foolish not too.

The NC Republican party needs to go the way of VA's, and fast.

Hang them all outside of the state capital and let them rot.

Why is the NCGOP so angry

It's all that white privilege guilt.

They are even more deplorable than WV Republicans.

This is like a perfect example, LIVE, of why lawmakers should not be allowed anywhere near the maps and basically a non-factor in the process. They won't be able to help themselves, even when under court order. They don't want to risk losing their jobs and many of them don't even want to have to actually run in a competitive election and will do whatever they have to in order to avoid it. It's a massive conflict of interest and one of the founding father's biggest mistakes.

I kind of liked this explanation on Slate for what is going on here:


I don't think these politicians have any real hope that this will work, so they are just trying to weaponize the entire affair. The issue though is that they don't need to do this to "rally the base." They can just say whatever they want and their base will gobble it up. It's how politics works these days. And I'm really skeptical the GOP base even cares or feels passionately about this anyway. Maybe if they can get Trump to spend weeks railing against the NC judges and doing rallies in the state leading up to the 2020 elections, but other than that, it's not likely to cause any movement.

The other rationale is that NCGOP politicians are so immovably corrupt that even when forced into a situation where it is virtually impossible to gerrymander again due to the restrictions placed on the process, they simply can't produce a fair map because every inch of their being is screaming for them to manipulate the process anyway just for that 0.0001% chance it works. When they have no ethical foundation to lean on in the first place, it's really easy to give in to the urge to gerrymander anyway. What do they care? They won't personally face any repercussions for it. And all of this is a great argument for why they should.

Agreed, even if they don't do a partisan gerrymander they'll do an incumbent protection gerrymander and there are many ways for them to deviate from a fair map. Voters should choose their politicians rather than politicians choosing their voters, after all.

btw can anyone explain how the D's get the 6 seats to flip the NC house?

They are literally maxed out in Charlotte afaik due to a dummymander. The GOP should probably have 1 seat there in 2018 in a fair map. How would they flip 7 other seats?

Because the seats they need aren't in Charolette/Raleigh, those areas fell in 2018 and if drawn fairly probably would have fallen earlier. The seats Dems need to win are in the East and the Greensboro/Winston-Salem area where race plays a big factor in voting Because of this, its very easy for the GOP to pack up the AA seats and divide the white dems, and they did it before. It's those places where the map falls down.

Some places look okay, most still look pretty cracked and packed.

The Republicans Senate map has Clinton winning 21 seats comfortably, and Trump winning 28 seats comfortably, with 1 seat (SD-9) as a swing seat, Trump won it by 3.4%.

To win a majority on that map, the NC Dems would have to flip seats that Trump won by >10%.

The state legislature has made a mockery of the process, and hopefully the North Carolina Supreme Court recognizes this and appoints a special master.

yeah they know they lost so this is all just trolling.

If you look at the live feed, Sen Alexander has been in the room almost the whole time, lol.   He must be freaked out.

And now he's retiring.

https://www.wral.com/wake-county-senator-won-t-seek-re-election/18629639/?version=amp&__twitter_impression=true

He probably watched himself get thrown under the bus in real time.

Yep, he's also the last Republican representing either chamber in Wake County.

Shocking that Art Pope was not selected! /s

https://twitter.com/mel_bough/status/1172548834733547520?s=20

DRA has new data and features specifically for North Carolina and North Carolina legislative redistricting. (https://medium.com/dra-2020/north-carolina-redistricting-and-you-7e40edc3a5ce) If you want to play around, go crazy!

For the State Senate,  the court order actually didn't include Cumberland at all, it also didn't include the 3 currently Dem held seats in the northeast at all either.  It also required that the drawers keep the same "country groupings" as the current map.

Here's the counties the court orders be redrawn for the state senate:

-Alamance-Guilford-Randolph (except that Senate Districts 24 and 28shall not be redrawn, and any portions of Senate District 27 added by theCovington Special Master shall not be altered)

-Bladen-Brunswick-New Hanover-Penderc

-Buncombe-Henderson-Transylvaniad

-Davie-Forsythe

-Duplin-Harnett-Johnston-Lee-Nash-Sampson

-Franklin-Wake

-Mecklenburg

So the redrawing can't change what counties are included in what districts, it can only change the lines of the districts within their current counties.  

From the looks of the redrawn map done by the Republican legislature it would seem the NCGOP is conceding Mecklenburg entirely, holding the line in the Forsythe/Guilford area, and conceding only a little in Wake.   The changes in the remaining counties didn't change much at all (In New Hanover they actually just swapped two precincts for  one other)

Mecklenburg	Old 2016 D	Old 2016 R	New 2016 D	New 2016 R
SD-37	76.37%	19.88%	58.30%	38.10%
SD-38	77.46%	20.18%	76.60%	20.40%
SD-39	46.69%	49.57%	54.30%	41.90%
SD-40	72.91%	24.35%	71%	26.40%
SD-41	50.73%	45.48%	59%	37.60%
Wake
SD-14	68.61%	28.49%	57.70%	38.60%
SD-15	69.60%	26.60%	71.90%	24.70%
SD-16	61.04%	34.93%	61.70%	34.40%
SD-17	46.15%	49.64%	49.80%	45.90%
SD-18	45.75%	50.84%	49.50%	47.40%
New Hanover
SD-9	45.22%	51.16%	46.50%	49.90%
Forsyth
SD-31	34.94%	61.77%	43.60%	53.60%
SD-32	69.92%	27.34%	56.90%	39.80%
Guilford
SD-26	32.66%	65.20%	30.20%	67.60%
SD-27	46.16%	50.85%	47.40%	49.70%
SD-28	74.10%	23.38%	74.10%	23.40%
Buncombe
SD-48	38.41%	58.55%	37.70%	59.40%
SD-49	57.75%	39.20%	58.20%	38.70%

They moved all the Mecklenburg district's out of reach for the GOP,  while the Wake county districts are still somewhat competitive (although they are much more in the Dem's column now).  

Forsyth and Wake could still be improved dramatically (with nicer districts).   I don't find their redraws in those counties acceptable.   Guilford could be improved by having all of High Point in SD-27.

Swapping the two precincts in New Hanover did make SD-9 roughly 2.5% more dem, and not much more can possibly be done there anyway, so that's fine.

The redraws in Buncombe and Johnston don't really change anything, boring.

I'd say the Democrats push for better districts in Wake and Forsyth, maybe small adjustments in Guilford, while leaving the rest as they are now.   Sucks they can't redraw the Dem vote sink of SD-28, wtf?

Also, who will win the primaries for the Lt. Gov race so far? (Sorry if this is not on topic.)

I put the House's map in QGIS and then redrew the districts in DRA.   Here's the map

https://davesredistricting.org/join/053fd071-3670-4283-8e7e-045c9a3033fc

It's not perfect since a lot of the precincts in DRA don't match up with the precincts in the map's shapefile.

Still, it should give a general idea of where the House districts are in the new map.   

In 2016 Clinton would've won 47 districts in the State House using that map.   Again, to win a majority, Democrats would need to flip seats that Trump won by >10%.

https://twitter.com/PoliticsWolf/status/1173750762943307776

How pathetic. They'd rather increase their odds of remaining in the minority, mostly powerless, so long as some of them get safer seats. Literally not even about governing at this point. Just warming seats and collecting a paycheck.

Every last one of them needs to be primaried.

Yeah, this is disgusting.

Would be interesting to watch the craziness that would ensue if the House flips but the Senate majority holds, leading to split control in the redistricting year (a very plausible outcome on new maps in a mildly Dem leaning year).  Note that mid-decade redistricting is prohibited in NC (unless court-ordered), so whatever maps they agree to or a court chooses would be final for the decade.

A flat out abomination. I hope they are shamed and humiliated by their constituents.

Im still sure that the court has enough evidence to scrap the map made by the legislature, but the Senate Ds are really not helping.

This 100%. Hopefully the SC proves competent and strikes down the new maps.

Republicans now have the clear defense of "these maps are bipartisan, look at all the Democrats who voted for them!"

Is anyone really surprised? The Democratic Party does not fight and if you want to continue this kind of WEAK leadership then vote for people like Biden to be the standard bearer of the party.

Given the restraints put in place by the court,  the only areas on the Senate Map I can see where there's potential for improvement for the Democrats would be Forsythe and Wake,  along with keeping as much of High Point in SD-27 as possible.  

That basically gives Democrats 24 "winnable" seats:

5 in Wake
5 in Mecklenburg
2 in Durham
2 in Guilford
2 in Forsythe/Davie
2 in Cumberland
2 in rural northeast
1 in Orange/Chatham
1 in Pitt
1 in Buncombe
1 in New Hanover

I don't see anywhere on the map they can get the last 1 or 2 seats (depending if they get Lt Gov) with the redrawing given what the court order says.

With the current map I'd see them having probably 23 seats - all the ones they currently do now plus SD-39 and SD-18.   The only one really out of reach is the Forsythe/Davie one (SD-31 I think, it's tough but not impossible).    

The dem margins in the Wake County districts and SD-27 could be improved to not be so close though.

Edit - Part of the court order is that the new districts "Improve compactness" which the new SD-31 in Forsyth/Davie certainly doesn't do at all.   I won't be surprised to see the court strike that particular district down and draw a new one that's easily more compact (and more competitive).   That would make for 24 seats the Democrats can win next year.

Elected Black Democrats tend to be selfish pricks, somehow this doesn't surprise.

EDIT: Now reading that it sounds really close to calling them the n-word.....my point is that the CBC seem to only care for themselves rather than the good of the party (and accordingly I suspect most of the people that voted for the gerrymander were AA Democrats)

https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107358


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Former NC GOP Chairman to plead guilty to lying to FBI (https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/463475-former-north-carolina-gop-chairman-to-plead-guilty-of-lying-to-fbi)

ftr, a lawsuit was filed against the NC Congressional map:

https://twitter.com/mateagold/status/1177579466387853312

I still can't help but feel like this was done in response to impeachment, given that it would help offset any potential losses in bigly Trump districts. The only other explanation is they just dragged their asses for months up to the point where it might not even be possible to redraw the map (after a trial/appeal) in time.

https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/1188929192207048704

Courts making moves.

It appears that the Court has accepted the remedial map for state legislative districts drawn by the NC General Assembly, instead of opting to re-do it themselves:

https://twitter.com/RaleighReporter/status/1188928116573519874

The maps are only slightly less gerrymandered, and the Republicans would still likely maintain control of both chambers after the 2020 election if put in place.

The maps drawn last month more or less locked in the 2018 result - slim R majority but no chance at supermajority, even with the few dem gains guaranteed by the new lines. Slim chance of state senate flipping but don't bet on it. Doesn't really matter long term since Cooper looks the  be remaining at the helm right now, the lines are only for 2020, and the court has been moving to take de facto redistricting powers from the de jure legislature.

And damn the utterly coward Democratic legislators who accepted this Republican gerrymander Lite merely because it was also drawn to offer them incumbent protection