redistricting
May 23, 2017 -
This week the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that congressional districts drawn by North Carolina's GOP-controlled legislature back in 2011 involved unconstitutional racial gerrymanders. The decision connected racial and partisan gerrymandering in a way that experts say will lead to many more successful racial gerrymandering cases in the South and elsewhere.
May 5, 2017 -
In a live broadcast from North Carolina, Facing South Publisher Chris Kromm talked with Amy Goodman about the South's growing clout in the Trump era and why the state is ground zero for battles over voting rights and democracy.
December 9, 2016 -
This week the U.S. Supreme Court took up cases involving potentially racially gerrymandered voting districts in North Carolina and Virginia. The rulings are expected to define for the first time what constitutes excessive reliance on race when drawing district lines.
February 12, 2016 -
The court battle over North Carolina's congressional and legislative districts highlights the role of well-funded interests in shaping political maps. A Washington, D.C.-based super PAC not only helped draw up the congressional districts that were recently ruled unconstitutional, but also helped elect legislators and an N.C. Supreme Court justice who approved the maps.
February 12, 2016 -
North Carolina's Republican-controlled legislature redrew congressional districts to make two of them majority-black — and then moved this year's primary up two months. Now, with absentee voting already underway, those districts have been ruled unconstitutional and the legislature ordered to draw new ones.
January 29, 2016 -
Voting rights activists in a number of Southern states have taken state and federal election district maps to court in recent years — and the cases are going their way.
December 9, 2015 -
In a Texas case titled Evenwel v. Abbott, the plaintiffs are seeking to count eligible voters rather than the total population when drawing political districts — a move that could significantly shift political representation to older, whiter communities in the South and elsewhere across the country.
