City of Greensboro, et al., v. Guilford County Board of Elections

Voting Rights

This is a federal court challenge to the North Carolina legislature’s 2015 redistricting of the Greensboro City Council. We claimed that the prohibition against a local referendum to change the city’s election system was unconstitutional; that the legislation violated the one-person, one-vote principle by under-populating white districts and over-populating minority districts; and that one district was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The Court invalidated the prohibition against a local referendum, held that the redistricting violated the one-person, one-vote principle under the Equal Protection Clause, and enjoined the use of the 2015 redistricting plan. In light of its other rulings, the Court did not reach our racial gerrymandering claim.