News

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Advocacy groups, Democratic elected officials and voters challenging North Carolina's new redistricting plans want rulings on their legality by mid-February, but the state's lawyers argue a "rush to judgment" is unreasonable and the judicial branch is reluctant to delay the 2012 elections. Attorneys on both sides of a pair of lawsuits filed a month ago seeking to block new Republican-penned legislative and congressional districts from taking effect have filed motions and responses in recent days. While they largely agree on consolidating the two cases into one, the attorneys are at odds over how fast the matter should be considered by a special three-judge panel. Judges on the panel announced Monday they would hear arguments Dec. 16 on the fast-track timeline and consolidation. One lawsuit filed Nov. 3 by dozens of voters and Democratic legislators and another filed the next day by civil rights and election watchdog groups argue the maps originally approved in July are illegal for generally the same reasons. The lawsuits contend the district lines illegally cluster black voters to decrease their electoral power, cross too many county boundaries and split too many precincts, causing chaos among voters and a re-segregation of communities. The GOP lawmakers who drew the maps have said they comply with state and federal rules and legal precedent. They point to U.S. Department of Justice attorneys declining to challenge the boundaries on the basis of certain racial discrimination grounds as proof the boundaries are lawful. The cases are important because the GOP-drawn maps, if approved, could assist the party in winning as many as four additional congressional seats this decade and retaining their new majorities in the state House and Senate. Eddie Speas, a Raleigh lawyer representing voters and elected officials who filed one lawsuit, offered a litigation calendar to the judges that would lead to a trial on the combined lawsuits in early February. The candidate filing period begins Feb. 13. Should a court strike down the maps later, new maps would be drawn by the Legislature or the courts. It could require a new filing period based on new boundaries and delay of the scheduled May 8 primary. Redistricting litigation delayed the 2002 and 2004 primaries. "The relief sought by the plaintiffs in this action, if granted, will substantially affect the 2012 elections process," Speas wrote in his Nov. 18 motion. A similar motion was filed by lawyers suing in the second redistricting case. "Disruption and uncertainty will be minimized if this matter can be tried and decided by this Court before the opening of the filing period," he added. The state Attorney General's Office, defending the maps on behalf of legislative leaders and the state, offered its own plan in which there would be at least four months to collect evidence so it could respond to several hundred numbered allegations and dozens of named plaintiffs. The lawsuits, filed more than three months after the Legislature initially completed its work, could have been filed earlier, Special Deputy Attorney General Alex Peters wrote. The scheduling "request is unprecedented, unreasonable on its face and would force the court to rush to judgment regarding the constitutionality of redistricting plans duly adopted by the General Assembly and affecting all North Carolinians," Peters wrote in a Nov. 29 response opposing the accelerated calendar. Peters said the most recent state Supreme Court ruling involving redistricting showed the justices are wary about disrupting the electoral process. The justices declined in August 2007 to direct the General Assembly to correct a few Wilmington-area districts before the May 2008 primary, he wrote. In a response filed late last week, Speas said his timeline is not unreasonable and Peters' arguments forget that state courts blocked the 2002 primary election from going forward when the statewide legislative maps were challenged, as is being done now. Those maps were declared unconstitutional. Speas, a former general counsel to Democratic Gov. Beverly Perdue, worked on behalf of the state in defending maps a decade ago with the state Attorney General's Office. Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/12/05/1692070/nc-redistricting-hearing-to-focus.html?story_link=email_msg#ixzz1fm69twpf

TALLAHASSEE - Legislators have reached their first deal in the once-a-decade redistricting battle: Senators will draw Senate maps and House members will draw House maps. It sounds like an obvious agreement - each chamber knows its own territory better than the other - but, in practice, it means that House and Senate leaders both have a better chance of making incumbents happy. The first proposal for Senate boundaries is a good example. It's modeled after a redistricting map submitted by the Florida State Conference of the NAACP, packs Democrats into districts to strengthen neighboring Republicans seats and gives incumbents on both sides of the aisle a good shot at re-election, a Times/Herald analysis shows. From the Panhandle to Miami, there have been few complaints from Senate Democrats or Republicans about the proposed map. The only trouble spots are a handful of districts that could provoke a court challenge because they might not comply with requirements of the new Fair District amendments to the Florida Constitution. The Senate redistricting committee will discuss the map today, while the House plans to take up the NAACP plan in a workshop Thursday. Sen. Don Gaetz, the Senate redistricting chairman and incoming president of the Senate, "has piloted the ship very, very well,'' said Sen. Jack Latvala, a Clearwater Republican whose district is shifted from southern Pinellas County northward under the Senate plan. Both Gaetz and Latvala defended the Senate map as being in keeping with an agreement made by Republicans and Democrats last month to give top priority to the creation of minority seats. The Senate reviewed the maps submitted by the Florida State Conference of the NAACP and then drew maps based on that plan's minority districts. But the Democratic Party and proponents of the constitutional amendments that impose new redistricting standards say the maps protect incumbents, favor the party in power and permanently disadvantage minority voters who may not be in the protected minority seats - the opposite, they say, of what the amendments intended. "These districts are packed,'' said Rod Smith, chairman of the Florida Democratic Party. "They've created enclaves of a disproportionate number of Democrats surrounded by largely Republican, or much more bleached, districts on either side." For example, the Senate map includes only one district - out of 40 total districts - with more than 50 percent Republicans and the NAACP map includes only two. But there are eight districts with more than 50 percent Democrats on each map. Neither map has districts with fewer than about 26 percent registered Democrats, but some have as few as 11 percent registered Republicans in districts packed with Democrats. One packed Democrat district, No. 33 in Miami, would be 69 percent Democratic. The Senate map also mirrors much of the NAACP's proposal for dealing with minority districts. The NAACP's map was submitted Nov. 3 by Timothy Stallman, a demographer with the North Carolina-based Southern Coalition for Social Justice. In an email to Senate staff two days later, NAACP president Adora Obi Nweze asked that Stallman's name be removed from the map and the name of the NAACP be substituted instead. Repeated efforts to reach Nweze were unsuccessful. According to the NAACP and Senate maps, six of the eight districts that pack Democrats are so-called minority-majority seats. Both maps also have eight districts with between 40 and 49 percent Democrats. The Senate map has 21 districts that are between 30 and 39 percent Democrat, while the NAACP map has 22 districts with that percentage of Democrats. But Gaetz defends the maps as necessary to adhere to the federal Voting Rights Act, which require that minority voting strength be protected. Smith says the Senate map "permanently gerrymanders" minorities and disenfranchises those who are not in the selected seats. "This is going to court,'' Smith predicted. Here are some of the hot spots: . Republican Sen. Joe Negron's Stuart-based district would stretch along the coast east of Interstate 95, slicing through Martin and St. Lucie counties, while a Polk County-based seat, District 17, would reach over to pick up the western edges of those counties. . Polk County and the city of Lakeland are chopped apart to include a winding district that includes the home territory of former state Rep. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, who is hoping to replace Sen. Mike Bennett, a clear disadvantage to Galvano's expected opponent, former state Sen. Pat Neal. The map consumes the current district held by Sen. Thad Altman, R-Viera, and pushes him into a district being vacated by Senate President Mike Haridopolos. . Most of Altman's former district would become the new District 24, which would wind from southern Orange County through Osceola and Polk counties and include a 50.5 percent Hispanic population. It is being eyed by state Rep. Darren Soto, an Orlando Democrat. . To make room for a proposed District 24, proposed District 19 must divide the city of Orlando to take in the home territory of Sen. Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando. . In Jacksonville, the map appears to boost the candidacy of former state Rep. Aaron Bean, who is seeking to replace Republican Sen. Steve Wise in the Senate. . State Rep. Denise Grimsley, R-Sebring, would be the beneficiary of the new District 17. Mary Ellen Klas can be reached at meklas@MiamiHerald.com and on Twitter @MaryEllenKlas.

The Carrboro Board of Alderman voted unanimously to end the town’s anti-lingering ordinance Tuesday, ending a four-year old rule that restricting anyone from standing or sitting at the corner of Jones Ferry and Davie roads between 11 a.m. and 5 a.m. The ordinance, passed in 2007, applied to the corner where Latino day laborers congregate to seek work. Neighbors complained that men, most who were not day laborers, would hang out there, drink and create trash. Chris Brook, a staff attorney at the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, who helped campaign to end the ordinance and challenge its legality, called it “a request for dignity” from day laborers. “Folks who were impacted by this ordinance had their voice heard,” he said. “Their representatives heard them and responded. It’s always exciting to see democracy work in the way it should.” Workers addressed the board directly and told them the ordinance made it even more challenging to find work in a down economy. “Many of them, if they are able to get a job three times a week, that will be a successful week,” said Rafael Gallegos, associate director at the Chapel Hill and Carrboro Human Rights Center, an advocate for workers who helped translate their speeches to the board. “Today we have the opportunity to provide much needed assistance to those who at the bottom of the economic and social ladder.” Alderman-elect Michelle Johnson, who said during the campaign that she opposed the ordinance, also implored the board to act. “For a community that’s focused on progressive thinking and action, we must do better,” she said. Aldermen who had supported the ordinance in 2007, mainly because of reports of women being sexually harassed as they walked by the corner, supported rescinding it on the condition that the town both consider funding a community resource person to help workers on the corner and that the town look at strengthening its anti-harassment speech rules and make lewd speech directed a women hate speech. They also want to find space for a day laborer center. “I’ve always felt that this ordinance was not a complete solution to the problem,” Mayor Mark Chilton said. “I think the best solution is going to be to have at some level a more formal day labor market. … This board is prepared at last to put some money into making that happen.” Carrboro resident Steve Dear, executive director of People of Faith Against the Death Penalty, ate his lunch at the corner, in violation of the ordinance, for almost a month to highlight the injustice of the rule. No one came by to stop him, which he said showed that the ordinance was being unevenly enforced. “The lesson to take away from this experience is that good, nonviolent old-fashioned community organizing works wonders,” Dear said. “I’m just grateful that I was able to participate in the coalition of all these people.” Alderman Joal Hall Broun, who will complete her service next month, said end of the ordinance creates a new challenge. “Next year, about January 2013, I'm going to ask the question has the quality of life for the neighborhood adjacent to this corner improved or decreased, and I want everybody who is in this room, if they are living, to come back and respond to that,” she said.