• Press Release

NDRC Invests in Effort to Fight Judicial Gerrymandering in North Carolina

Washington, D.C. – Today, the National Redistricting Foundation (NRF), an affiliate of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC), announced a $25,000 investment in the Fair Courts campaign to fight partisan attempts to rig the judicial system in North Carolina. In recent months, politicians in the North Carolina General Assembly have pushed an agenda that would gerrymander judicial districts to benefit Republicans and force many African-American judges in the state’s district and superior courts to run against other incumbents. In recent years, judges on these courts have heard gerrymandering challenges to state legislative maps.

Eric Holder, NDRC Chairman and the 82nd Attorney General of the United States, said: “Politicians in North Carolina are no longer content with their gerrymandering of state and congressional legislative districts — now they are taking aim at the judicial branch. This is a shameless attempt to rig the judicial system for partisan benefit and it must be stopped. The citizens of North Carolina deserve better from their elected officials and we are proud to support these local efforts to defend the independence of the judiciary.”

In recent years, Republicans in North Carolina have repeatedly lost in court over their gerrymandering of congressional and state legislative maps. Because they continue losing in court, they’re now trying to rig the state judicial system. NDRC is committed to fighting them on both fronts.

The National Redistricting Foundation is also supporting the voters in Cooper v. Harris, a case in which the Supreme Court affirmed the district court’s ruling that two districts in North Carolina’s 2011 congressional maps were unconstitutional racial gerrymanders. As a result of the court’s ruling, Republicans were forced to draw a new map. That new map was struck down yesterday by a federal court as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander.
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