The Supreme Court rebuked North Carolina’s Republican leaders Monday for shifting tens of thousands of black voters into two congressio…
The Supreme Court rebuked North Carolina’s Republican leaders Monday for shifting tens of thousands of black voters into two congressional districts that had steadily elected black Democrats, striking down the move as racial gerrymandering.
The Constitution forbids a state from “separating its citizens into voting districts on the basis of race” without a compelling reason, the high court said in an opinion joined by its four liberals and conservative Justice Clarence Thomas.
The ruling is the third in recent years to fault Southern Republicans for packing more black voters into districts where African Americans were already the dominant voting bloc. By concentrating black voters into a few districts, the revised state maps strengthened the GOP’s hold in the surrounding areas.
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