By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
In the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent stunning decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which struck down that state’s second black majority-minority Democratic voting district as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, crippling Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) and setting off a redistricting race across the South to erase similar black voting districts, can the same thing here in North Carolina?
The result of that ruling will be the dilution of the black vote, critics say, and a loss of black representation in Congress.
“This recent Supreme Court ruling is part of a long assault on the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965,” Rep. Alma Adams of NC’s only still-standing majority-minority district, the 12th, said in statement afterwards. “The Supreme Court has weakened an essential provision in the VRA used to protect the country from extremely biased racial gerrymandering. These protections weren’t a favor; they were a debt this nation owed to Black Americans after centuries of terror at the ballot box.”
Tennessee almost immediately redistricted Memphis, the only black Democratic majority-minority district there, slicing it three ways into Republican-leaning voting districts.
“With the Memphis Massacre that occurred in the Tennessee Legislature, the political carnage has begun,” NCCU Law Prof. Irving Joyner warned. “Watch out!”
The only question now is how many black Congressional seats are now at risk? South Carolina was on target to redraw the one black majority congressional district within its boundaries, currently represented by veteran Democratic Congressman Jim Clyburn, but the Republican Senate Majority leader, against the wishes of Pres. Trump, decided against it Tuesday. The governor there can still call a special session.
Mississippi has called a special session for redistricting, but it’s not clear if congressional redistricting is involved. Alabama has a special election for four congressional seats in August, and Louisiana also wants to redraw, and has delayed its primaries to do so.
Can the Republican-led NC General Assembly also target North Carolina’s 12th Congressional District, which has always been Democratic, majority black, and for the past six terms, represented by Rep. Adams?
The 12th District is considered the most Democratic structured congressional district in the state, with Charlotte a main urban center, comprised of 36.5% black, 35.9% and 17.6% Hispanic populations. The district has, in fact, never been represented by a Republican, though it has been legally challenged in the past.
So can it be challenged and redrawn now or in the near future?
The answer before the Louisiana ruling was no, thanks to federal legal protections.
But since that U.S. Supreme Court decision, and how it dismantled the protections of Section 2 of the VRA in favor of partisan gerrymandering (which is legal in North Carolina), still difficult, observers say, but not impossible.
“[E]very congressional district is at risk in this race to the bottom on gerrymandering,” Democratic House Leader Rep. Robert Reives (Caswell) said, adding, “[The] Supreme Court decision on Louisiana v. Callais should be disappointing to all North Carolinians who believe in fair representation and a seat at the table. But it also isn’t new. In fact, North Carolina has been the blueprint for how Republican leadership stifles the voices of voters – especially black
and brown voters — in pursuit of further power. Now, the rest of the South will be in a race to the bottom to see how many Democrats in Congress lose their seats, and more importantly how many black and brown voters in the South lose their voice in Congress. This decision is disheartening but far from unexpected, the work toward a more perfect union never ends.”
State Sen. Natalie Murdock (D-Durham) agrees that it would be no surprise if Republican legislative leaders were huddling together to figure out strategies with which to approach carving up the 12th Congressional District eventually.
“[Republicans] would have to do a lot of work because Mecklenburg County is huge, and they would have to slice off a large part of the [Charlotte] metro area to try to pull that off,” Sen. Murdock said. “So [I’m] not saying that it’s impossible, but unlikely. I wish that it wasn’t even a question on the table,” Sen. Murdock added.
In addition to the Supreme Court ruling now endangering majority-minority Democratic districts across the South, before the ruling, North Carolina Republican legislative leaders were able to redraw the First Congressional District, currently represented by incumbent two-term Democratic Congressman Don Davis, so that it now leans Republican, with the historically black voter percentage cut from 40% to 32%.
Sen. Murdock says despite that, Congressman Davis, who was once her seat mate in the NC legislature, can still overcome the dilution of black voting support in his district, and win in the fall.
“He’s working very hard,” Sen. Murdock said proudly, adding that Davis has been canvasing his expanded district every day talking with voters, trying to win their support to be reelected.
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