North Carolina Voters Challenge New Congressional Map
WASHINGTON, D.C. – On December 4, Elias Law Group attorneys representing a group of minority voters in North Carolina filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s newly-enacted congressional map. The lawsuit alleges that North Carolina’s new congressional map entrenches the state’s white majority by drawing four racially gerrymandered congressional districts and intentionally decreasing minority voting power.
“For far too long, minority voters in North Carolina have had to endure discriminatory voting laws and redistricting plans designed to diminish their voting power. This near-constant barrage of discrimination has entrenched significant disparities in political representation across the Tarheel State. Minority voters in North Carolina simply want an equal opportunity to participate in the political process. Unfortunately, the new congressional map enacted by the General Assembly dismantles existing minority opportunity districts, wiping away hard-fought gains made by voters of color in recent elections. We are proud to represent North Carolina voters in this case and look forward to fighting for fair and lawful maps for all North Carolinians,” said Elias Law Group Partner Abha Khanna.
“The 2023 Congressional Plan is hardly North Carolina’s first racially discriminatory redistricting plan or voting practice,” the complaint states, citing repeated efforts to diminish the voting power of Black North Carolinians through redistricting as early as 1870 and up to the present day.
North Carolina’s new redistricting plan “was adopted, at least in part, with a racially discriminatory intent to discriminate against minority voters,” the complaint continues. “Elected officials in North Carolina have limited minority voters’ ability to elect or even influence elections through the purposeful cracking and packing of minority voters.”
The North Carolina General Assembly enacted a new congressional map in 2021, after the state gained a congressional district following the 2020 census. In February 2022, the Supreme Court of North Carolina struck down that map as an unlawful partisan gerrymander. After changes to the composition of the Supreme Court of North Carolina following the 2022 midterm elections, the Court agreed to rehear the partisan gerrymandering case and then reversed the Court’s prior opinions, allowing the Assembly to enact a new congressional plan in 2023.
Read the full lawsuit here.
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