As Republicans lead efforts to redistrict states along partisan lines, the North Carolina GOP’s new congressional map is being accused of targeting Democrats and disempowering Black voters. One civil rights leader has labeled the redrawing of the state’s district lines as “surgical racism,” intended to unseat North Carolina’s only Black member of Congress.
Republicans redraw map to flip heavily Black district
The Republican-controlled North Carolina General Assembly approved a new congressional map for the state, seeking to add a GOP district to the 10 of 14 Republicans already hold. The new map redraws North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, which currently contains all eight of the state’s majority-Black counties and has been a reliable Democratic district for decades. The new 1st District incorporates more conservative areas of the state and will likely flip the district for the GOP. Republicans, who dominate the North Carolina House and Senate with the help of previous partisan gerrymandering, have been explicit that they’re attempting to advantage the GOP and push President Donald Trump’s agenda.
Republican House Speaker Destin Hall said in a statement, “President Trump earned a clear mandate from the voters of North Carolina and the rest of the country, and we intend to defend it by drawing an additional Republican Congressional seat.”
GOP redistricting is an example of ‘surgical racism’
The North Carolina GOP is being called out for the ethical and explicitly racial dimensions of their gerrymandering, as The Grio reported. Since 1992, a Black member of Congress has represented the 1st District, including incumbent Rep. Don Davis, who responded to the redrawing of his district, calling the process “one of the darkest moments in our state’s history” and describing the GOP’s redistricting effort as “morally wrong on all fronts.”
Others have more directly called out the Republicans for diminishing the power of Black voters.
“We’ve seen this pattern before,” Bishop William Barber, co-leader of the Poor People’s Campaign, said. “It’s what I call surgical racism with surgical precision — the use of redistricting and voting laws to divide, diminish and deny. But the truth is simple: when you steal people’s representation, you steal their healthcare, their wages, and their future,” Barber continued.
GOP and Supreme Court push trend of partisan and racial gerrymandering
The North Carolina move to redraw its districts is part of a larger, partisan and possibly discriminatory trend toward political gerrymandering. Directly spurred on by the president, Texas redrew its district maps to add several GOP-friendly districts, setting off a trend of other Republican-controlled states moving to redraw their congressional maps as well. Some Democratic-led states, most notably California, have taken steps to counter Republican efforts. However, the GOP’s control of more state governments gives them an advantage in the overall redistricting trend. This partisan gerrymandering could become worse and more explicitly racist soon, as the Supreme Court appears set to weaken the portion of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that protects minority voters from having their voting power diluted by dividing them up between white-majority districts.
The Trump administration, Republican legislators and a conservative-dominated Supreme Court all seem willing to allow Republicans to create district maps that disadvantage Democrats in general and Black voters in particular. With this trend showing no signs of stopping, the elimination of a Black voter-dominated district in North Carolina may be a sign of things to come as Republicans seek to solidify their legislative control.