Racially gerrymandered state Senate districts in Fayetteville, North Carolina
Credit: Stephen Wolf

A federal circuit court dealt a huge blow to gerrymandering in North Carolina when it struck down its state legislative maps as unconstitutional racial gerrymanders. Republicans had illegally packed minority voters into a few districts, like the 21st state Senate district shown above. They disingenuously claimed the Voting Rights Act forced them to increase such districts from plurality black to majority black. However, the real purpose was to prevent black voters from electing their candidate preference in neighboring seats, allowing white Republicans to win seats like the 19th District.

This ruling follows a spate of recent racial gerrymandering court rulings, including one striking down North Carolina’s congressional districts earlier this year. North Carolina is one of the most gerrymandered states in the entire country and Republican legislators explicitly defended their partisan gerrymandering in anti-democratic terms. The legislative maps this court just invalidated are