This fall the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a redistricting case from Alabama that is likely to have implications for the constitutionality of North Carolina’s legislative and congressional redistricting maps. In both Alabama and North Carolina, legislators stated that they believed they were required by the Voting Rights Act to draw majority-black districts with high concentrations of black voters everywhere possible in the state. In a split decision, a three-judge federal court in Alabama upheld the districts, but the U.S. Supreme Court has taken the appeal to review whether Alabama’s legislative redistricting plans unconstitutionally classify black voters by race by intentionally packing them in districts designed to maintain supermajority percentages and whether this effort amounted to an unconstitutional racial quota and racial gerrymandering that is subject to strict scrutiny. The Appellants argue the plans were not justified by the Voting Rights Act.
In an amicus brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court in support of the Appellants, attorneys representing the Plaintiffs in the North Carolina redistricting case, including the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, argue that the North Carolina general assembly also used unconstitutional racial quotas when drawing legislative and congressional districts in this state. NC Policywatch has also blogged about the brief.
