DURHAM, N.C. (1/18/2018) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday temporarily blocked a lower court’s order requiring North Carolina lawmakers to provide a revised congressional voting map for 2018, making it likely that this year’s N.C. Congressional elections will be conducted using gerrymandered districts.
Democracy North Carolina, the state’s leading voting rights organization, immediately expressed disappointment at the Supreme Court’s decision to stay the trial court ruling. Tomas Lopez, Democracy North Carolina Executive Director, released the following statement:
“We are disappointed with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to stay a three-judge panel’s order that the North Carolina General Assembly immediately redraw the state’s unconstitutional congressional maps.”
“As the lower court warned in its ruling, without new, constitutional maps, North Carolinians will cast votes in congressional elections conducted under unconstitutional maps in 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2018 — virtually the entire decade. However, we remain hopeful that the Court will ultimately strike down partisan gerrymanders in the cases currently before it, and set a national precedent that people, not parties, should pick their representatives.”