N.C. Redistricting Maps Get Green Light From Feds
The U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday helped North Carolina’s GOP clear a major hurdle in securing a potential path to electoral dominance for years to come, giving approval – so-called pre-clearance – to redistricting maps drawn earlier this year, despite howls from critics who claim the plans discriminate against minorities and violate the Voting Rights Act.
“The Obama Justice Department’s stamp of approval on our redistricting plans confirms what we’ve said all along: these are fair and legal maps that give a strong voice to all voters,” redistricting chairmen Sen. Bob Rucho and Rep. David Lewis wrote in a joint statement. “Today’s historic decision by the Obama Justice Department, after thorough review by Attorney General Holder, proves that we followed the letter and intent of the law in protecting the voting rights of minorities.”
I’m no lawyer; but if I were, I’d surely hate to have to make a case that voting maps approved by the Civil Rights Division of a Justice Department headed by an African-American who was appointed by the country’s first African-American president, are somehow insidiously designed to discriminate against African-Americans.
Which isn’t to say some folks won’t remain bent on clinging to that very argument. Indeed, hours after the Justice Department gave pre-clearance to North Carolina’s maps – the first time in three decades that all three plans (House, Senate and Congressional redistricting maps) had won approval in an initial 60-day review – state Democrats and liberal activists were vowing to stay the course in legal challenges.
And this time around, in addition to supposed discrimination claims, they have another bone to pick. Earlier this week, it was revealed that a software glitch in a program used to draw the maps left thousands of voters unassigned to districts. The technical snafu occurred when computer-generated maps were translated into bill language, according to a memo from legislative staff to the redistricting committee chairmen.
“That error in the software code resulted in the omission of some Census blocks in the bill text,” reads a portion of the memo, which notes that the technical glitch has been identified and corrected.
Justice Department lawyers who approved the GOP plans seemed to be aware of the software glitches and not overly concerned with their potential ramifications, according to the pre-clearance letter that state officials received from Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez.
The information from state lawmakers, Perez writes, “indicated that the spatial and statistical data that the State provided in connection with this submission accurately reflected the redistricting plans as intended to be adopted by the General Assembly.”
That did little to mollify state Democrat leaders who were quick to pounce on the software error, which they noted seemed particularly prevalent in blocks where voting precincts were split between districts.
“The review by the Department of Justice focused on one narrow aspect of the plan and preclearance was not unexpected,” House Minority Leader Joe Hackney opined in a statement. “We continue to believe this redistricting proposal is divisive, highly partisan and legally deficient.
“We will pursue whatever remedies are available to mitigate these shortcomings,” Hackney wrote.
If Hackney is really concerned about mitigating shortcomings, he should look no further than his own party’s flawed political philosophies, which led to massive state deficit spending, left thousands of North Carolinians standing in unemployment lines and, ultimately, produced a voter revolt at the polls that tossed Democrats out of power.
But I suspect that’s asking too much.
It’s easier to just complain about manufactured inequities and inequalities and continue to file lawsuits of no factual or demonstrable merit.
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