Shuler considering leaving Congress

[minionofmidas]

Erm what? No way it's higher than NC-5, 6 or 11.

Yeah, NC-11 is now the most Republican.

Coble has a 55/44 McCain district now and McHenry and Foxx are each at 57/42. Poor Shuler is at 58/41 McCain...

Possibly Red meant the current district, as opposed to the unveiled plan. Possibly. It's also possible I'm giving him too much credit.

[minionofmidas]

It is a confusing article, but unless a black VAP majority district can be drawn connecting clear communities of interest, and the GOP map does not, and goes farther afield, I don't really see a problem with the GOP map myself.  The SCOTUS decisions are hardly consistent in any event, and it continually tacks from one map review to the next. I assume that if the DOJ intervenes here, the matter will be going to SCOTUS, and Justice Kennedy will get to elaborate on, and revise and extend, his Bonilla decision. 

Basically. I don't see what adding Durham instead of Raleigh Blacks will accomplish for the Democrats, either. So the White Dem pack seat moves a little further east. *Shrug* Maybe you could fight some of the coastal rural counties dropped back in, and that upsets the delicate math in eastern NC somewhat, but this article raises no issues that would affect the basic outline of the plan there (much the same is true if the Lumbee vote is held to be illegally diluted, which probably won't happen either).
As to the 12th, pish tosh. If its last version passed the Supremes, the new one will too. And if the decisions about the second-to-last one are explicitly reversed in letter, that would just clear up redistricting case law a little.

[minionofmidas]

Strictly speaking he says it makes it much harder. Which is true, actually - I hadn't really looked at that quite ugly 13th district enough before. It's indeed certainly not impossible. Apart from a double cross, you could also just do a corridor along the district's edges... or you could even get the Black district to Durham via a corridor through Raleigh.
Of course, were a court to decide that a 1st like his must be drawn, that court would also then redraw the neighboring districts itself. In which case R's might well end up finding they'd have been better off just conceding the 7th to McIntyre. But it's quite unlikely that that will happen. The map just is not egregious enough on its face, and the issue about which counties are "protected" is too arcane and not really the relevant determinant anyways (except for what needs preclearance and what does not).