Remedial Redistricting Order – Gerrymandering

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United States Supreme Court

Case Name: North Carolina, et al. v. Sandra Little Covington, et al.

Case No.: 17-1364

Focus: Remedial Redistricting Order – Gerrymandering

This appeal arises from a remedial redistricting order entered by the District Court in a racial gerrymandering case we have seen before. The case concerns the redistricting of state legislative districts by the North Carolina General Assembly in 2011, in response to the 2010 census. A group of plaintiff voters, appellees here, alleged that the General Assembly racially gerrymandered their districts when—in an ostensible effort to comply with the requirements of the Voting Rights Act of 1965—it drew 28 State Senate and State House of Representatives districts comprising majorities of black voters. The District Court granted judgment to the plaintiffs, and we summarily affirmed that judgment. See Covington v. North Carolina, 316 F. R. D. 117 (MDNC 2016), summarily aff ’d, 581 U. S. ___ (2017).

At the same time, however, we vacated the District Court’s remedial order, which directed the General Assembly to adopt new districting maps, shortened by one year the terms of the legislators currently serving in the gerrymandered districts, called for special elections in those districts, and suspended two provisions of the North Carolina Constitution. See North Carolina v. Covington, 581 U. S. ___, ___ (2017) (per curiam) (slip op., at 1–2).

The defendants first argue that the District Court lacked jurisdiction even to enter a remedial order in this case. In their view, “[w]here, as here, a lawsuit challenges the validity of a statute,” the case becomes moot “when the statute is repealed.” Juris. Statement 17. Thus, according to the defendants, the plaintiffs’ racial gerrymandering claims ceased to exist when the North Carolina General Assembly enacted remedial plans for the State House and State Senate and repealed the old plans. Second, the defendants argue that the District Court erred when it “conclu[ded] that the General Assembly engaged in racial gerrymandering by declining to consider race.” Juris. Statement 20. They assert that “there is no dispute that the General Assembly did not consider race at all when designing the 2017 [remedial plans]—not as a predominant motive, a secondary motive, or otherwise,” and that such “undisputed fact should have been the end of the plaintiffs’ racial gerrymandering challenges.” Id., at 21–22.

Third, the defendants argue that the District Court abused its discretion by arranging for the Special Master to draw up an alternative remedial map instead of giving the General Assembly—which “stood ready and willing to promptly carry out its sovereign duty”—another chance at a remedial map. Juris. Statement 33. Yet the District Court had its own duty to cure illegally gerrymandered districts through an orderly process in advance of elections. See Purcell v. Gonzalez, 549 U. S. 1, 4–5 (2006) (per curiam). Here the District Court determined that “providing the General Assembly with a second bite at the apple” risked “further draw[ing] out these proceedings and potentially interfer[ing] with the 2018 election cycle.” 283 F. Supp. 3d, at 448, n. 10. We conclude that the District Court’s appointment of a Special Master in this case was not an abuse of discretion.

The District Court’s decision to override the legislature’s remedial map on that basis was clear error. “[S]tate legislatures have primary jurisdiction over legislative reapportionment,” White v. Weiser, 412 U. S. 783, 795 (1973) (internal quotation marks omitted), and a legislature’s “freedom of choice to devise substitutes for an apportionment plan found unconstitutional, either as a whole or in part, should not be restricted beyond the clear commands” of federal law, Burns v. Richardson, 384 U. S. 73, 85 (1966). A district court is “not free . . . to disregard the political program of ” a state legislature on other bases. Upham, 456 U. S., at 43. Once the District Court had ensured that the racial gerrymanders at issue in this case were remedied, its proper role in North Carolina’s legislative districting process was at an end. The order of the District Court is affirmed in part and reversed in part.

Affirmed in part. Reversed in part.

Dissenting: THOMAS, J., filed a dissenting opinion,

Concurring:

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.