Redistricting

Group sues to have state districts redrawn
Titan Barksdale, Staff Writer
http://www.newsobserver.com/politics/story/789865.html

A group of Republican voters in North Carolina allege in a federal lawsuit that state House and Senate districts are unconstitutional and should be redrawn in time for the 2008 primaries.
The suit alleges that several House and Senate districts do not meet the standard of the federal Voting Rights Act because they dilute minority voting power. The suit names about 20 counties where the districts they contend are unconstitutional are located.

The suit comes on the heels of a state Supreme Court ruling in August that said the General Assembly improperly carved up Pender County in southeastern North Carolina between two House districts. The lawsuit, filed this week in U.S. District Court in Raleigh, cites the Pender County ruling throughout.

The lawsuit names State Board of Elections Director Gary Bartlett, Attorney General Roy Cooper and board of elections members as defendants. Greensboro lawyer Bob Hunter, who has been involved in many redistricting battles, filed the lawsuit.

Hunter, former chairman of the State Board of Elections, asks in the suit that the board be prohibited from conducting elections until new districts are drawn.

The Supreme Court found that a House district that takes in most of Pender County and the northern portion of New Hanover County was unlawful because it does not have a majority black population.

The drawing of legislative district lines, done by the legislature every 10 years, is subject to the federal Voting Rights Act. The act requires states to create election districts that do not dilute minority voting power.

Hunter argues in the suit that the two House districts in the Pender County case are not the only ones in North Carolina that don't meet the standard of the Voting Rights Act. The suit does not spell out the specific legislative districts it is challenging. Instead, it lists several counties that it says include districts that do not meet the federal standard.

"If the legislature were to comply with the North Carolina Supreme Court's order, ... then nearly three-quarters of the House of Representatives 2003 redistricting scheme would have to be redrawn because it grossly fails to properly group counties," the suit says.

Orange, Chatham, Caswell and Moore are among the counties that have been wrongly combined to help form districts, the suit says. Incorrect census data were used to create the districts that cover those counties, the suit says.

Hunter could not be reached for comment Friday. Officials at the state Attorney General's office, which would defend the state in the suit, did not return phone calls Friday.

But Hunter accused the legislature in the lawsuit of deliberately using incorrect census data.

"The General Assembly withheld corrected census data in order to produce a more politically advantageous redistricting scheme and knowingly diluted the votes of specific citizens," Hunter said in the suit.

One of the eight plaintiffs in the lawsuit is Frank Mitchell, a former House member from Iredell County.

Mitchell lost a re-election bid in 2004 to Julia Howard in the Republican primary and believes that the redistricting contributed to his loss.

But he said his concerns went beyond what happened in his district.

"There was a dorm at Chapel Hill that got counted twice, and the Census Bureau notified the leaders of the legislature, but they never told us about it, and they drew the districts using those bogus figures," Mitchell said in an interview.

The Supreme Court said in the Pender ruling said that the legislature did not have to revise the election map until 2010.

But Mitchell says waiting until 2010 would mean an election carried out under unconstitutional districts.

"They have enough time to redraw those districts," Mitchell said.


titan.barksdale@newsobserver.com or (919) 829-4802