SCOTUS blocks order to North Carolina to redraw congressional map

[Swordsmyth]

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday blocked a lower court’s order for North Carolina to rework its congressional map because Republicans violated the Constitution by drawing electoral districts intended to maximize their party’s chances of winning.

The conservative-majority court granted a bid by Republican legislators in North Carolina to suspend the Jan. 9 order by a federal court panel in Greensboro that gave the Republican-controlled General Assembly until Jan. 24 to come up with a new map for U.S. House of Representatives districts.
Two liberal justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor, objected to the high court’s action.
The Supreme Court’s decision to stay the order reduces the chance that the current district lines will be altered ahead of the November mid-term congressional elections. The court offered no reason for its decision.

More at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...-idUSKBN1F73C1

[Zippyjuan]

It is a temporary freeze. They did not rule about whether the lines were properly done or not.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ts/1046645001/

The justices announced the stay after legal briefs were filed for and against the GOP legislators’ request for a delay. Their lawyers successfully argued that a three-judge panel’s ruling last week declaring the state congressional map an illegal partisan gerrymander should be on hold while similar cases involving Wisconsin legislative districts and one Maryland congressional district before the Supreme Court are considered. The court has never declared that the inherently political process of redistricting can be too partisan.

Voter advocacy groups and Democratic voters who sued over the map — heavily weighted toward Republicans in a closely divided state — argued no delay was necessary because it would be struck down however the justices rule in the other cases.


The Supreme Court’s order said the delay remains in place while the case is appealed. The request was considered by the entire court, and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor would have denied the request for the delay, according to the order.

The ruling means North Carolina’s case won’t be resolved until potentially summer or later, increasing the odds that the current boundaries, where Republicans hold 10 of the state’s 13 congressional seats, will be used in the November election. Candidate filing begins next month for the May primaries. Republican attorneys had argued that requiring a new map — the third since 2011 — would have confused voters and candidates. GOP legislators are planning a formal appeal.

Now the case will await decisions on the cases from the other states during a Supreme Court term in which redistricting already figures prominently. Earlier this month, the justices agreed to hear Texas’ appeal to preserve two congressional districts and statehouse districts affecting four counties that a lower court struck down as racially discriminatory.

North Carolina GOP mapmakers approved criteria for the February 2016 map that stated one of their goals was to retain their 10-3 advantage. They did retain it in the elections that November. They also approved the use of past election results in helping them determine boundary decisions.

The three-judge panel ruled last week that emphasis on partisan outcomes resulted in “invidious partisan discrimination” whereby lines illegally benefited Republicans and their candidates at the expense of Democrats and their supporters

[angelatc]

It is a temporary freeze. They did not rule about whether the lines were properly done or not.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ts/1046645001/

It's enough of a delay to get them past the next election. And you forgot to bold this part.

The court has never declared that the inherently political process of redistricting can be too partisan.