A Tale of Maps

 

Abuse and revenge. That's the pattern of Democratic and Republican gerrymandering for the last 20-some years in North Carolina.

I love maps, especially historical ones and most especially historical ones that show changes to landmasses over time, like "The Roman Empire At Its Height" and "The Dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire." Today, it's "The Evolution of North Carolina Gerrymandering" put together by Carolina Forward -- a compilation of historic maps of Congressional districts under both parties, analyzing how Ds and Rs fared. (Blair Reeves has built Carolina Forward into a go-to source for new data and for endorsements of General Assembly candidates. Reeves' frequent videos on Facebook are always enlightening about what's really happening in our state.)

Map 1, the last gerrymander of the Dem bosses before the Tea Party eruption of 2010, still makes me wince. The abuse looks palpable. But as the analysis points out, that gerrymander actually produced majorities of Republican reps in some 2-year cycles and a near-even swap in others. The election of 2008 stands out for its Democratic surge, which elected 8 Dems to 5 GOP House members. You might note that 8 Dem reps serving 2009-2011 is the highest Dem count in the last 20+ years. With improved computer programs, the GOP has done much more advanced gerrymandering, managing to arrange us voters so there are now 10 Rs to 4 Ds (Maps 2 and 4). Map 3, the court-appointed one that lasted only one election cycle, produced the first even split between the parties -- 7 Ds to 7 Rs. 

Those were the days, my friends! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

Virginia Democrats Clap Back

 

In May of 2024, Gov. Glenn Youngkin called the Virginia General Assembly into a special legislative session on the budget. The Democrats, who control both houses, slyly left that special session "open." In Virginia, if a special session is left "open," not officially closed by the General Assembly, then technically, the authority to reconvene that session -- just incidentally on the new pressing issue of redistricting -- goes to the state House speaker and the chair of the state Senate’s Rules Committee, both of whom have already admitted their intention to redraw the Congressional map of Virginia to add Democratic seats to make up for the recent NC Republican steal. And they will do that over the objections of Gov. Youngkin, who knows what's up.

But in Virginia, the law for redrawing the map is cumbersome, takes a constitutional amendment, which itself requires enabling legislation passed by both houses of the General Assembly -- not once but twice. The process has to start with a special session, which Gov. Youngkin would never call, but the Democrats did. The special session on a proposed constitutional amendment is now scheduled for next Monday. Theoretically, that gives the Democratic majority in the General Assembly just enough time. They have to vote the proposed constitutional amendment through both houses very quickly. Then after the election next month (Virginia votes in off-years), the next session of the General Assembly must also approve it -- a foregone conclusion, evidently, as the Democrats are polling well. Then put it to the voters in a referendum, who have to vote "yes" in time for a new map to be used in 2026. 

My head spins. So many hoops, so little time. But good on them if they can pull it off.

Now we can discuss the political brutality that gerrymandering brings to a state. Right now, because the spotlight is on their corruption, Republican loyalists love to parry the criticism by saying, "The Democrats did it worse to us when they were in charge." I don't know about "worse," but of course Democrats have pulled off their own outrageous and patently unfair map tinkerings. Which is precisely why the most progressive elements in the Democratic Party have pushed in recent years for independent redistricting for North Carolina. I myself worked on a resolution calling for an end to gerrymandering and the creation of an independent agency to draw fair maps. That resolution passed locally, passed at the district level, then went to the state Democratic convention. 

Admittedly, that was a quaint time when we thought the Republicans should join us in our high-minded opposition to the evils of gerrymandering, because Republican leaders had been calling for independent redistricting for years, obviously under the burden of Democratic gerrymanders that kept them down. But instead of helping to end gerrymandering, Republican leaders were just lying in wait, full of the same spirit of retribution that defines Trump. And they're getting their revenge. 

We're trapped in a revenge tragedy. What's a player to do but unsheath our own swords and start swinging? That's just survival. We can be reform-minded later when -- and if -- saneness reasserts itself.

Corruption in Plain Sight

 

You may compare Phil Berger's newly drawn and carefully gerrymandered Congressional map for North Carolina with the current map. Only CD 1 (in purple) and CD 3 (beige) have changed. CD 1 changed drastically to satisfy Trump with another guaranteed Republican seat. (Berger's supposed to get something out of the deal, mainly a Trump endorsement for reelection against that pesky Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page.) CD 1 is represented by Democrat Don Davis. Phil Berger's new gerrymander takes Davis from the 1% margin by which he won in 2024 to an almost 12% disadvantage for 2026 (based on how those counties voted when Trump was on the ballot). Don Davis beat the odds twice before, against twisted conservatives who should have won an R+2 district. Berger's new map adds insult by drawing Don Davis completely out of his own district.

Berger and the Boys swapped some relatively diverse and politically competitive counties that Davis represents, including Wilson and Wayne, for some more heavily conservative counties currently represented by Rep. Greg Murphy in CD 3, a Greenville Republican. Murphy's district would still favor Republican candidates but would be more competitive in the future.

The Democratic Hero of NC Senate Dist. 37

 

Kate Barr (in mauve, seated at head of table),
with some of her campaign volunteers

I wrote about the singular Democrat Kate Barr back in December. She had just signed up to run in the newly gerrymandered Senate Dist. 37, wherein the Republican elves carved the liberal enclave of Davidson off from Mecklenburg and stuck it in a district with Iredell County, making a district that is 62% Republican. Barr's campaign Twitter bio caught my attention and my fancy: "Dem for NC Senate District 37. Gerrymandered out of a chance. F*ck it. I’m running anyway .... let’s raise a little hell and have some fun."

Her campaign motto, printed on T-shirts and pink hoodies -- "Clear Eyes, Full Heart, Can't Win" -- became a pretty brilliant piece of marketing. The Washington Post's Colby Itkowitz has just reported on Kate Barr's improbable (but oh so hopeful) race, and I'm so glad I sent her money back in December (even though she said at the time that she didn't want anybody's money). What had started as an in-your-fat-face defiance of Republican power grabbing has become a genuine campaign with a sparkly website, yard signs, bumper stickers, and many volunteers willing to hit the streets.

They say Kate Barr can't win, but what she is doing is boosting Democratic performance in an impossible district, which increases the likelihood for Democratic successes in statewide races up above her on the ballot. In other words, Kate Barr is a hero.

Here's what I wrote about her in December, and her Republican opponent.

Map A Will Be on the Referendum Ballot in November

 

This is the map that will be voted on this November in a referendum on the reorganization of the Watauga County Commission.

Tonight Watauga County Fights Back Against Sen. Hise

 

Last fall on October 25, Senator Ralph Hise's local bill changing the voting districts for the Watauga County Commission -- and the way its members will be elected, starting this fall -- sailed through the General Assembly with its Republican super-majorities. Hise's bill created five new commissioner districts with three of them gerrymandered to favor Republicans. Every current County Commissioner -- two Republicans and three Democrats -- was put on the record in a public meeting saying they had no conversation with Sen. Hise about this piece of legislation. Believe that, if you can. No public hearing notice, or any sort of open, transparent, or accessible conversation was ever had with the community. Watauga was the only county in the state to be targeted -- punished -- in this way.

The Hise Map, Oct. 2023

The three sitting Democratic county commissioners responded earlier this month by exercising their ability under state law to hold a ballot referendum to return the power to Watauga citizens to set commissioner districts. This was approved in a 3-2 vote, along party lines.

Then, just a day later, Hise introduced a second local bill, saying that a referendum approved by the people in Watauga could have no impact on maps until after 2030, and he went further by gerrymandering our school board members into new districts following the Hise commission map -- again, without public involvement or notice.

The two Hise districts representing the town of Boone and a majority of its suburbs will not be up for election until 2026. These are the only two Democratic-friendly districts in Hise's map. No current representation exists for those districts, as no current county commissioner resides in either. Hise's intention is that the two commissioners in Democratic districts will be appointed by the likely three Republican winners of this fall's election.

Ralph Hise lives in Spruce Pine and has represented Watauga County in the Senate for less than a term. Local bills like Hise's are fundamentally anti-democratic, a form of aggressive government overstep, a power grab, and hyper-partisan.

At its regular meeting tonight, the Watauga County Commission will consider a resolution for the content of a public referendum on county commission districts. Being proposed by the Democrats is a mixed system of three districts based on equal population and geographic distribution and two at-large seats to be elected by the entire county. Three possible maps have been produced by a certified map-drawer who was instructed to draw districts with equal populations with no consideration of political affiliations. These three maps were published in the county commissioner meeting packet for this evening, pp. 59-61, and are reproduced here:

Watauga’s Chance for Home Rule

 By Bricca Sweet, guest-posting

[Editor's Note: For additional background on the redistricting of Watauga's County Commission by Sen. Ralph Hise, see "Does Senator Hise Hate Watauga?" and "Watauga County Commission Sues Over Gerrymander"]

It’s ironic to write this on June 6, the 80th anniversary of D-Day. I’ve stood on the cliffs of Omaha Beach, imagining the grit and terror of the young men coming ashore and scaling those obstacles in the face of withering enemy fire, as they fought for the freedom of a people they didn’t know. Yet on Tuesday evening, I witnessed two of our own Watauga County Commissioners repeatedly reject the notion that Wataugans should decide for ourselves how we elect our county commissioners. Why aren’t they, safely in the comfort of a modern meeting room, fighting for our freedom?

The Hise map for Watauga County
Commissioner Districts

A little background. In the waning days of the 2023 General Assembly (late October), NC State Senator Ralph Hise quickly pushed through a "local bill," legislation specific to Watauga’s county commissioner election process. NC Statute 153A-22 -- proposed without ANY local input -- basically achieved three changes. First, Senator Hise redrew our five County Commission districts so that some of our voting precincts were split into three different districts and the population varied among the districts by well over five percent. Second, Senator Hise changed our voting process from one where we each voted for each commissioner candidate to one where we now can only vote for the candidate from our own district. Third, Senator Hise changed the election rotation basis from terms that depended on the amount of votes each commissioner received to a rotation based on the districts. Conveniently, three of the districts (3, 4, and 5) leaned Republican, and they will be up for commissioner election in 2024, while voters in the Democratic-leaning districts (1 and 2, the largest two districts, with a population of 22,696) can’t even cast ballots for commissioners until 2026. The newly drawn District 1 has no current commissioner residing within it. Commissioner Ray Russell resides in newly drawn District 2, yet his term expires in 2024.

This statute governs how Watauga’s County Commissioner elections will proceed for the 2024 election, unless there is a very expensive lawsuit on the part of the now disenfranchised voters in District 1 or 2. The June 4 County Commission meeting focused on how our elections should proceed in the future. Democratic Commission Chair Larry Turnbow proposed that a referendum be placed on our 2024 ballot, allowing Watauga voters to choose a map of three electoral districts for three commissioners who reside in each of those districts, while two additional commissioners can be elected at-large from a county-wide vote. Turnbow further proposed to seek the services of an independent professional map-maker to provide three proposed maps for the commissioners to consider in selecting one map for the referendum. He imposed these criteria in developing the maps: no use of current voter registration statistics (voter party affiliations); the districts must be equal in population; districts must be contiguous; and no voting precincts can be split. Commissioner Russell added that existing municipalities should be kept intact within proposed districts.

Chair Turnbow stated that the districts in Statute 153A-22, along with the rotation of elections for those districts, were imposed by Raleigh, and did not reflect home rule. All county commissioners have previously stated on record that no one in Raleigh, including Senator Hise, had consulted with them at all in developing these districts or the statute. None of the commissioners had any issue concerning within-district voting, other than the likely consequence of the commission becoming divisive and losing sight of county-wide issues. The ensuing discussion revolved around allowing Watauga citizens to choose how we vote via a referendum, as allowed by state law.

Republican Commissioners Todd Castle and Braxton Eggers repeatedly echoed that they liked the maps as drawn by Senator Hise. They offered no explanation of why they wouldn’t want Watauga voters to decide on district maps along with at-large commissioners. Democratic Commissioner Wallin expressed curiosity as to why, since the terms for Castle and Eggers are not up until 2026, yet the Hise redistricting put their seats up for election in 2024.  Again, there was no reasonable explanation for this. Incredibly, Castle and Eggers explained that they would stay on the commission regardless of the 2024 election. Obviously, if they each win their county commission elections, they would remain commissioners. Astonishingly, they argue that if either or both of them lose, they would then become commissioners for the new Districts 1 and 2. They argued that because they were elected at-large in the 2022 election, this was indeed representation. They couldn’t explain how this would be representation of districts that didn’t even exist in 2022, or how they could be considered commissioners for districts in which they don’t even reside. Neither Castle nor Eggers expressed any concern for the issues that voters from the new District 1 and 2 have over being excluded from the opportunity to vote for their county commissioners.

After all of this laborious and at times heated debate, Chairman Turnbow asked if there was any more discussion of the motion to put the proposed referendum on the 2024 ballot. Commissioner Eggers once again stated that he supported Senator Hise’s maps. The motion passed three to two, with the two Republican Commissioners opposed. It is beyond me to comprehend why there was so much furor over allowing Watauga voters to choose how we would like to elect our county commissioners. I thought that Republicans were all about local control. It’s a quandary.

The point is that we Watauga voters will now be able to exercise home rule in determining how we vote for our own county commissioners. The other bottom-line is that it sadly appears that voters from the new District 1 and 2 (population: 22,696) will likely have no say in their own representation until 2026. It’s vital that we make sure that our fellow voters understand the importance of voting YES on this referendum!

Judge Bob Orr to the NC Supreme Court: "Be Fair!"

 

Former state Supreme Court Justice Bob Orr (and former registered Republican) filed suit Wednesday (Jan. 31) in Wake Superior Court aimed at taking down gerrymandering in North Carolina by way of a Supreme Court finding that fair elections are also a constitutional right even though fair doesn't appear in the language of the NC Constitution but only the adjectives free and frequent. “If the citizens of North Carolina are guaranteed by their State Constitution the right to ‘frequent’ and ‘free’ elections," Orr's lawsuit argues, "then surely the Constitution guarantees them the right to ‘fair’ elections. After all, what good are ‘frequent’ elections if those elections are not ‘fair’? Likewise, what good are ‘free’ elections if those elections are not ‘fair’?” 

Orr filed the suit on behalf of seven Democrats and two Unaffiliated voters.

In particular, the suit mentions specific Congressional and NC General Assembly seats as egregiously illustrative of the meanness (sometimes approaching cruelty) behind partisan gerrymandering, namely CD 6, CD 13, CD 14, SD 7 and HD 105, "as well as other districts" (like HD 67, HD 103, HD 10, HD 13) -- redistricting maps showing outrageous unfairness, all appended to the complaint.

Orr seems to be going straight for the Paul Newby gullet. Newby as chief of a 5-2 Republican majority took inordinate pride in ruling not so long ago that the previous finding by a Democratic Supreme Court that extreme partisan gerrymandering is both recognizable and subject to judicial re-do -- he said that was wrongly decided, and in fact, he and his fellow Republican majority ruled that partisan gerrymandering is not only A-OK but venerable in its historical presence in state government.

Guaranteed, Paul Newby is not gonna see the logic of saying "free" and "frequent" also implies "fair." He'll see no such thing, and his fellow Republicans also, who can't admit that the base of their power is situated in the highly partisan districts drawn by computer desk jockeys who know how to manipulate population blocks.

Who Is Bob Orr?
Aside from having served as the appointed District Attorney for Watauga County and the rest of the 24th Prosecutorial District in 2014 (to finish the term of DA Jerry Wilson), Orr had already built an impressive record of service. He was appointed to the NC Court of Appeals by Republican Governor Jim Martin in 1986. He won election to the NC Supreme Court in 1994 and served there for ten years. He ran for governor in the Republican primary of 2008, losing to Pat McCrory. In 2016, he was a John Kasich delegate to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, leaving the convention early before Trump's formal coronation but not before commenting to a WRAL reporter that Donald Trump was “singularly unqualified to lead this country.” In fact, Orr said, "Trump is a danger to the country."

NOTE

CD 6, CD 13, and CD 14 all elected Democrats to Congress in 2022 -- Kathy Manning, Wiley Nickel, and Jeff Jackson -- but after the late Fall Republican gerrymandering of those districts, all three Democrats declined to run again because of impossible odds. It's now a foregone conclusion that these will be Republican seats after November. SD 7 is the outrageous case that carved Black neighborhoods out of Wilmington and shoving them across the Cape Fear River to be part of a very rural Senate district dominated by white Republicans. HD 105 illustrates the bizarre favors the General Assembly attempted to give the recent turncoat Tricia Cotham, whose previous district map was heavily Democratic and now leans Republican.

How To Win By Losing

 

Kate Compton Bar, the NC Senate candidate in Dist. 37 whose slogan "Clear Eyes, Full Heart, Can't Win" has attracted national attention (and a post on this site), was the subject of an NBC Meet the Press segment, which can be viewed here. 

The Meet the Press segment gets into the whole national disgrace of gerrymandering, especially as it's been practiced in North Carolina.

P.S.

Gerrymandering like this shite, pulling Wilmington Black voters out of Senate Dist. 7 (New Hanover) and adding them to the rural whites in Senate Dist. 8 (Brunswick and Columbus), so that incumbent Republican Senator Mike Lee has a better shot at reelection. A national disgrace.

So It Goes

 

Will Doran, WRAL reporter, a little before 10 a.m. on Tuesday:

BREAKING: The NAACP and Common Cause are suing state lawmakers over racial gerrymandering in new NC maps. Unlike previous lawsuits, this challenges the new US House lines as well as the #NCGA districts https://wral.com/21202363/ #ncpol

Hard to get excited any more about potential justice in the age of Clarence Thomas.

Watauga County Commission Sues Over Gerrymander

Watauga County districts, redrawn by Ralph Hise

On December 8th, the Watauga County Commission filed a lawsuit in Watauga Superior Court seeking a declaratory judgment on how to implement Sen. Ralph Hise's gerrymandering of Watauga's County Commission districts. The local act that Hise passed has created confusion and actual chaos among the very Board of Election people who will have to implement what they argue is an unworkable law, or send it back to the General Assembly to fix. The Hise bill redraws Watauga's Commission districts and converts them from "residential districts" to "electoral districts" (the new map, above), meaning that in the future the whole county will not vote on all commission seats. Candidates for those seats will have to come from an electoral district and only voters in that electoral district will be allowed to vote on candidates from that district. 

The town of Boone and students at AppState are segregated and isolated in a single district (# 1 on the new map). Districts 3, 4, and 5 are greater in land mass but with fewer voters, are largely rural in character and historically very Republican. In other words, the whole gerrymander is a lead-pipe cinch for producing a guaranteed Republican majority on the Commission in perpetuity.

But whereas Hise promised that "all county commissioners will serve the terms they were elected to," "no terms will be extended," and "no terms will be cut short" -- that promise was simply not true. Because the bill mandates that Districts 3, 4, and 5 will be on the ballot in 2024, which means (shorthand version) that...

Todd Castle in new Dist. 5 has his 4-year term (won in 2022) cut short by 2 years.

Braxton Eggers in new Dist. 3 has his 4-year term (won in 2022) cut short by 2 years.

Ray Russell in new Dist. 2 has his term (set to expire in 2024) extended until 2026.

Furthermore, Dist. 1 (Boone and AppState) has no incumbent commissioner living in district but is not mandated for an election in Hise's bill until 2026. The voters of Dist. 1 will be disenfranchised from representation for two years, or -- worse -- will get a commissioner appointed by the new Republican majority (early in 2025).

The old saying "You can't out-think a man who ain't thinking" applies here, perhaps. 

The NC Senate District That Prompted a Lawsuit

 

The newly gerrymandered Senate District 2 stretches more than 160 miles from the Virginia border to Carteret County on the Atlantic Ocean. It descends diagonally southeastward from Warren County, then protrudes, like a hitchhiker's thumb, northward encompassing Washington and Chowan counties, then dips back down towards the coast.

That map "cracks" Black majority counties to give white Republicans the majority, which a Federal lawsuit alleges violates the Voting Rights Act.

Attorneys for the two North Carolina Black plaintiffs bringing the suit (from Halifax and Martin counties, respectively) also filed a motion to expedite proceedings, asking the court to finish arguments and decide on a motion for a preliminary injunction by Dec. 1 — three days before candidate filing begins.

This Right Here Needs To Be a Federal Lawsuit

 

Study the map below. It's state senate districts 8 (darker color on left) and 7 (light color next to the ocean) in and around the city of Wilmington, North Carolina. The meandering blue line pretty much down the middle is the Cape Fear River, not only a wide and deep natural barrier to travel but also the county line between New Hanover and Brunswick. So you're called on to note the bulge to the east of the river, that allows the new Senate Dist. 8 to hijack a mainly Black population of Wilmington to cripple a Democrat's shot at beating the Republican incumbent for the NC Senate in District 7. 

Sen. Mike Lee is the incumbent and stands to benefit most from this piece of out-and-out racial gerrymandering for political advantage. Could you get any more obvious? Plus the willingness to greatly inconvenience and discourage a whole class of voters for purely petty and partisan reasons is truly despicable. 

Sen. Natasha Marcus, Also Gerrymandered Out, Considers Moving

 

Lisa Grafstein is not the only female member of the NCSenate targeted for elimination in the new maps and willing to move her residence to fight back. Sen. Natasha Marcus in SD41 tells the tale herself of her own experience of being so specifically singled out that it would be comic if it weren't such a crap on fairness. In a press statement released last Friday (reproduced below), Marcus explains what the Republicans did to her:

“Republican map drawers cut a line through my hometown of Davidson, putting most of the town in a new district that is based in Iredell County, and leaving part of Davidson in a new district which is currently represented by [Dem] Sen. Mujtaba Mohammed, who lives fairly far away in east Charlotte,”

[She said her current home is in a part of Davidson that’s moved to the district mostly in Iredell County represented by Republican Sen. Vickie Sawyer. The new district Marcus and Sawyer are drawn into leans Republican by a margin of 62% to 35%, according to analysis by Dave’s Redistricting, which analyzes data from previous elections.]

“The mapmakers knew exactly where my house is and seemingly did this on purpose to try to squeeze me out of the NC Senate,” Marcus said.

She's got all her options open and plenty of rage revving her engines. She says moving to another, fairer district is definitely an option, as is running for a different office altogether.

Sen. Lisa Grafstein Willing To Move Residence

 

Democrat Lisa Grafstein was just elected to the NC Senate seat from northern Wake in 2022, but the Republicans targeted her with the new NC Senate maps by double-bunking her with another powerful Democrat, Jay Chaudhuri. It would be harmful to both senators to run against each other. So is Lisa Grafstein just out?

The news comes that she's willing to move residence and run further south in Wake.

She's not just a fighter. She's a litigator. This is what we found out about Lisa Grafstein when I wrote about her in October 2022 before she won her seat:

Grafstein is a Raleigh disabilities and civil rights litigator, currently on staff of the non-profit advocacy org Disability Rights North Carolina. She's listed on Super Lawyers as a top rated litigator. She's endorsed by both Lillian's List of North Carolina and by the national PAC Emily's List.

She's a first-time candidate but has a long involvement in politics, mainly running the election campaigns for Democratic judges Linda Stephens, Robin Hudson, and Suzanne Reynolds.

Grafstein won her primary last May against Patrick Buffkin with almost 67% of the vote.

Grafstein thinks she's now being silenced -- little does Ralph Hise know! -- because she's been outspoken for LBGTQ+ rights in that Raleigh room full of unreconstructed old men. She's thinking of moving to another Senate open district with no incumbent. She's no stranger to moving her residence. She says she's lived in many different houses in Wake County in her 33 years there, so another move -- while a pain in the ass, especially so because it's the result of political spite -- would be doable.

What Tricia Cotham's House District Will Look Like

Below, the new proposed Republican map for redistricting NCHouse seats in Mecklenburg County. Tricia Cotham's House district is currently 112, but Carolina Forward tweeted the map below yesterday, with this comment:

Check out Mecklenburg's new House District 105. Custom-drawn for @triciacotham, it still leans Democratic (as does all of Meck), but - wow. #ncpol

 

Now that's some gerrymandering! Will it save Cotham's seat? Or will she run for Dan Bishop's 9th CD House seat? If she wants to do that, they better pass the maps in S 756, where the map for the 9th Dist. includes Cotham's Mecklenburg abode, and not the alternate maps in S 757, which will throw CD9 northward and well away from Meck.

Incidentally, NCHouse Dist. 105 is currently held by Democrat Wesley Harris who is giving up the seat to run for Treasurer in 2024.

Gerrymandered To Oblivion: Jeff Jackson Bows Out

 

Congressman Jeff Jackson, in his first term goddamnit, gets effectively annihilated for reelection by new redistricting maps for North Carolina's 14 US House districts, drawn in total secrecy and behind closed doors by a handful of powerful Republicans (Ralph Hise, Destin Hall, et al.) and sprung on everybody yesterday. Hise's committee in the Senate has actually proposed two different maps. One would pretty much guarantee an 11-3 Republican majority, the other one, a 10-4 split. (It's currently 7-7.) Which map you suppose they'll settle on next week?

But, here, let Jeff Jackson himself fill you in:

In both maps, my current district becomes an R+15 seat. That means the last Republican presidential candidate carried the seat by 15 points.

Just to be clear, it is completely impossible to win a seat that leans the other way by 15 points. Not even a remote chance.

I sent you an email two months ago giving you a heads up about this. Unfortunately, it went exactly the way we predicted.

Many of you will ask about the courts. Well, our state Supreme Court flipped in the last election and is now controlled by the same party as our state legislature, so the widespread expectation is there will be no relief there.

As for the federal courts, a few years ago the U.S. Supreme Court basically legalized political gerrymandering. However, certain forms of racial gerrymandering remain illegal. I’m sure there will be litigation on that front, but I don’t have a clear sense of timeline or likely outcome....

In effect, a farewell. With no word about next steps. He's too good at politics to leave politics -- the best communicator that North Carolina Democrats have anywhere right now -- and clearly with the Phil Berger Bunch in the General Assembly, and Paul Newby at the Supreme Court, state-wide is the only way for Democrats to win. Statewide office for Jeff Jackson sounds like a campaign I'd get involved with.

Does Senator Hise Hate Watauga?

New district maps for NC Senate, proposed in S 758.
Dist. 47, which includes Watauga, sends Ralph Hise to Raleigh

 

Ralph Hise's "local bill" completely upending the structure of the Watauga County Commission -- evidently to give Republicans a guaranteed (or nearly) advantage in three of five new commissioner districts -- is now moving in the General Assembly.

What Used To Be: Every voter in Watauga County got to vote in all county commish races. Didn't matter where the voter lived. Did matter where the candidate lived, because each of Watauga's 5 districts demanded residency for the candidate. But any voter in, say, Beaver Dam, could also vote for any commissioner candidate representing far off Stony Fork.

What Will Happen Under Hise's Local Bill: There will be five new geographical districts. The only map I've seen is this one, annoyingly devoid of place labels and lines. Hise has presented no map, only population "blocks" under the Census, which can actually be reconstructed into a map. It's clear enough that Boone (deep blue) has been segregated into a single district. Three new, large, and largely rural districts will ring Boone and pretty much guarantee a perpetual 3-man Republican majority on the commish. 

So, We Get It. Hise has power. Some might claim absolute power. He'll probably get this bill through, and it'll be another notch on Trump-era belts (but to us-ens a grotesque abuse of any understanding of democracy, of how a republic is supposed to govern itself). But we get it. We do get it. We're all naked apes, potentially, and why pass up the opportunity to pound your enemy into dirt and eat his cake?

The Republican Realignment of 2023

 

Currently, the Congressional delegation from North Carolina is split evenly -- 7 Republicans, 7 Democrats -- because in terms of registered voters, the state is also split evenly, 50-50. But the new Congressional maps (two different ones) that the Republican super-majority in Raleigh unveiled yesterday -- given the blessing of Chief Justice Paul Newby and the promise that the Court will not stand in the way -- presents another stunning power-grab for a state that is not in fact that red. These guys in Raleigh are doing precisely what most of the people in three public hearings begged them not to do.

Best representation of how they've gerrymandered the 14 Congressional districts is the partisan realignment chart on one of the two maps (S 757) published by Dr. Michael Bitzer:

Democrats who've retained "safe" districts in this map: Rep. Alma Adams (CD12), Valerie Foushee (CD4), and Deborah Ross (CD2). Democrat Donald Davis's CD1 will be a toss-up. The rest look pretty safely Republican, which means Kathy Manning (CD6), Wiley Nickel (CD13), and Jeff Jackson (CD14) were targeted for elimination.

The people doing this have also made themselves as safely insulated as possible in the maps they've drawn for their own NC House and Senate districts. They intend to do their worst under the sanction of their own sanctified ambition.

This is the map (S 757) that Bitzer analyzed above:

Hope Is a Kid in High School

 

Wow.

This 17-year-old Huntersville senior Eric Willoughby has had his face all over Twitter for days, but I just got around to watching the actual video footage of his speech in front of the NC House & Senate Redistricting committees last Wednesday in Raleigh. Just wow. Kid lays it out there and ends with a threat: "We're watching you, and young people like me are fed up!" Words to that effect.

And that's exactly why the NCGOP needs to handicap, inconvenience, and otherwise hobble the voting power of young people. Those conservative mamas didn't raise no fools.