Redistricting

If history is any indicator, turnout for the North Carolina primary on May 8th may be low, especially with no glitzy federal or statewide candidates on the ballot—fewer than 8 percent of voters cast a ballot in 2016. But this year may be different. The races highlight one of the biggest political stories of 2017: our state’s election maps.

The Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a class size bill, and North Carolina’s redistricting saga are among the issues in the news this week in state politics. Also, how open is North Carolina state’s  government and how accessible is it for journalists and the public to access what happens at the General Assembly?

Thanks to winter weather, it was a slow work week for many in North Carolina. However, the political world trudged along with more redistricting and judicial developments.

Federal judges ruled yesterday that the state's congressional districts drawn by Republican lawmakers are too partisan. They described them as  drawn to “entrench Republican domination of the state’s congressional delegation.” This ruling marks the first time a federal court has struck down a congressional map on those grounds. 

Thomas Farr is a Raleigh-based lawyer who has counseled North Carolina Republicans on a multitude of racially divisive cases.

This week in North Carolina politics, a conversation about judicial redistricting and Anita Earls’ race for state Supreme Court; the special master's legislative maps; and objections from North Carolina Senators Tillis and Burr against Donald Trump’s EPA nominee.

North Carolina lawmakers released new voting maps last weekend. The freshly-drawn district lines come after 28 House and Senate districts were found by the U.S. Supreme Court to be illegally gerrymandered along racial lines. 

This week on the WUNCPolitics Podcast, a conversation with Jeremy Loeb, Morning Edition Host and reporter at Blue Ridge Public Radio.

Jeremy joins Jeff on this politics podcast to discuss redistricting, the powerful U.S. House members from Western North Carolina, craft beer, and what he misses most about WUNC - where he used to work.

This week in state politics, a plan to repeal Obamacare fizzled in the U.S. Senate. What impact, if any, will that have on North Carolina's congressional delegation?

The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the North Carolina General Assembly violated the constitution by relying too heavily on race in drawing two congressional districts. The decision upholds a lower-court ruling that struck down maps drawn in 2011 by a Republican-led legislature.

Updated at 11 a.m., May 22, 2017

State lawmakers were handed their latest legal defeat Monday, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down two of the state's congressional districts because race played too large a role in their creation. Since 2011, more than a dozen Republican-backed bills have been struck down in federal and state courts.

On this episode of the WUNCPolitics podcast, a conversation with Jessica Huseman, senior reporting fellow at ProPublica.

UPDATE: According to reports from News & Record reporter Danielle Battaglia, a superior court judge has ordered the release of the police body camera footage of Jose Charles to the Greensboro City Council for viewing in a closed session.

Another violent arrest by police in Greensboro is testing North Carolina's 2016 law on the release of police body camera footage. The mother of fifteen-year-old Jose Charles says police choked her son without provocation at a Fourth of July party, and she wants the public to see the police tape of the incident. Police charged Jose Charles with attacking an officer, among other crimes.