Eric Holder Statement on the North Carolina Supreme Court Republican Majority Overturning Landmark Redistricting Decision
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Brooke Lillard
Lillard@redistrictingfoundation.org
Washington, D.C. – Today, the new Republican majority of the North Carolina Supreme Court released a decision overturning that court’s 2022 decisions in Harper v. Hall, the state court case that struck down the legislature’s gerrymandered congressional and state legislative maps.
The North Carolina Supreme Court’s most recent decision in this case was issued in December 2022, when it struck down the state Senate map as an unconstitutional gerrymander and upheld a lower court’s implementation of a fair congressional map. Previously, in February 2022, the state’s high court struck down all three of the maps initially drawn by the Republican-controlled state legislature for being partisan gerrymanders. The National Redistricting Foundation (NRF), the 501(c)(3) affiliate of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC), has been supporting North Carolina voters in this case.
Eric H. Holder, Jr., the 82nd Attorney General of the United States, issued the following statement in response to the North Carolina Supreme Court Republican majority’s decision to overturn the landmark case:
“This shameful, delegitimizing decision to allow the unjust, blatant manipulation of North Carolina’s voting districts was not a function of legal principle, it was a function of political personnel and partisan opportunism. Neither the map nor the law have changed since last year’s landmark rulings – only the makeup of the majority of the North Carolina Supreme Court has changed.
“History will not be kind to this court’s majority, which will now forever be stained for irreparably harming the legitimacy and reputation of North Carolina’s highest tribunal. The eyes of the nation will now turn to the North Carolina legislature to see what further harm Republicans will do to undermine democracy in the state.
“Make no mistake, this moment is the result of a concerted effort by too many in the Republican Party to bend – even break – the rules of our democracy in order to unfairly gain and then hold onto power. They fear they can’t win in a fair electoral system. Republicans have said themselves that state supreme court elections are ‘the next big political frontier.’ By planting partisan ideologues instead of fair-minded justices on the courts, they are weakening the independence of state judicial branches across the country in order to roll back rights and force unpopular policies – including abortion and democracy destruction – onto the people. We cannot allow them to succeed.
“Our fair maps movement stopped them in Wisconsin, and we must do the same later this year in Pennsylvania. We will not abandon North Carolina. We must stay engaged everywhere to promote electoral fairness and to protect our system of checks and balances, the cornerstones of our democracy.”
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