[Constitution Day]

NC Ping!

[Constitution Day]

Complete North Carolina Supreme Court ruling (LONG)

WRAL story with other links

[Constitution Day]

Sorry to post and run, but I've got to get home for dinner.
Will check in later tonight.

[Dianna]

The Supreme Court decision will require that counties be divided into single-member districts, crossing county lines only to protect minority voting strength in the 40 counties covered under the Voting Rights Act or to balance district population totals

How exactly do they protect "minority voting strength"? If an inner city has say 10,000 residents do they lump that in with a couple of suburbs which would have a population roughly equal to 10,000?

[KQQL]

Two Democrats -- Sarah Parker and G.K. Butterfield -- dissented....I AM SHOCKED...........I bet the Superior Ct ends up drawing the NC state house and senate maps.

[Tribune7]

Courts have doing a lot of that in a lot of states recently -- including Pennsylvania. One more bit of Slick's legacy.

[Enlightiator]

Good ruling! Now if we could just get the rediculously gerrymandered US congressional districts eliminated, like the Mel Watt district that followsed a narrow corridor up I-85.

[snopercod]

So the Voting Rights Act overrules the U.S. Constitution? Is that what the dems are saying?

[JWinNC]

Maybe I'm dense as a post, but I don't understand why it's so hard to draw the districts to fit the Constitution.

I know there are "target" population numbers that you have to get close to for each district, but how strict does it need to be? Just split the big counties into small districts (as opposed to the large multi-member districts) and let the small counties stand alone. The numbers are never going to be perfect anyway. One county may have a better ratio than the next, but that's always going to be the case. That's why we redraw the maps.

The only wrench in this type of simple plan is the "minority majority" district requirement. That's a Constitutional (State and Federal) abomination in itself.

JWinNC