Gerrymanderpalooza

For years, the Republican led North Carolina legislature has tried to fix the electoral game with redistricting voter maps that give them a distinct advantage in an election.  

The Republicans will put out a map that spreads around Republican leaning areas and compresses Democrat trending areas to a reduced number. The map gets challenged in court, judges rule that the Republicans can't do that and they should try again. 

So the Republicans try again. 

With yet another map that spreads around Republican leaning areas and compresses Democrat trending areas to a reduced number. 

And the map gets challenged in court, judges rule "nope" to the map and the Republicans put out another map that....

Well, you get the idea. 

This called "gerrymandering".  

What exactly is gerrymandering? 

To the Wikipedia? Yes! To the Wikipedia!! 

In representative democracies, gerrymandering  is the political manipulation of electoral district boundaries with the intent to create undue advantage for a party, group, or socioeconomic class within the constituency. 

The manipulation may involve "cracking" (diluting the voting power of the opposing party's supporters across many districts) or "packing" (concentrating the opposing party's voting power in one district to reduce their voting power in other districts). Gerrymandering can also be used to protect incumbents. 

Wayne Dawkins describes it as politicians picking their voters instead of voters picking their politicians.

Basically, gerrymandering is supposed to be wrong. 

Until it isn't. 

Once more the Republicans put out a map that spreads around Republican leaning areas and compresses Democrat trending areas to a reduced number. The map got challenged in court and some judges ruled, yeah, you're good.

So what changed?

In the last election, a couple of Republican judges got themselves elected to the North Carolina Supreme Court that weren't there before and now they constitute a majority on that court. 

And surprise, surprise, surprise! They agreed that the Republican legislators can do whatever they want. 

Apparently the state constitution specifies that the state legislature has the sole authority to establish voting districts in the state. 

And full stop. 

Republicans do love a literalist reading of constitutions, don't they? 

The state constitution does NOT say that the state legislature has the sole authority to establish voting districts in the state that are fair. Or equitable. Or diverse. Or legal. Or anything.  

The constitution merely says the state legislature can set voting districts but not one damn word as to how. Since it doesn't say how those voting districts can be established, then the  legislature can do this however it sees fit. 

Can Republicans gerrymander the shit out of the state's voting districts? Since the state constitution doesn't say they can't, the North Carolina Supreme Court essentially says they can. 

"Yo! GOP in the house! It's gerrymanderpalooza, bitches!"  

So if you start wondering why the state legislature is voting for bills and passing laws for stuff that the majority of North Carolina residents may not actually support, well...

This is why.