Stories tagged: "Gerrymandering"
Republicans in the North Carolina legislature could create election maps that ensure party dominance for the next decade over several issues that affect day-to-day lives.
The decisions, reversals of the court's previous rulings, give the Republican-controlled General Assembly the ability to entrench their power, without checks or balances.
The rehearings not only threaten free and open elections, but also undermine the integrity of the state’s highest court, voting rights groups say.
Among the proposed legislation are efforts to legalize medical marijuana, crack down on protesters, ban gender-affirming care for transgender minors, loosen gun rules on private school grounds, and overhaul the state’s redistricting process.
The two Democratic justices on the court disagreed with the majority’s decision, with Justice Anita Earls writing that rehearing the redistricting decision was a “power grab” and a “radical break with 205 years of history.”
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The GOP’s request for total control is not altogether surprising, as the courts have repeatedly found that North Carolina Republicans have gerrymandered and disenfranchised Black voters in the state with “almost surgical precision.”
North Carolina's Republican-led legislature could expand Medicaid to cover 600,000 more residents this year, but they could also try to ban abortion in the state, robbing their constituents of their reproductive freedom.