Under a map concocted for the 1998 election, Watt currently represents a territory that reach from Winston-Salem, in the northwestern part of the state, to Charlotte in the southwest. Its black population share 36 percent is the lowest since Watt was first elected in 1992. But the revised map under which Watt was to run this year reaches east to scoop up part of Greensboro and has a 47 percent black population a configuration the federal court struck down as too heavily reliant on race. If the court were to reject such a request, the legislature would have to adopt a new map, with the 1998 plan as an option. The controversy began after the 1990 census, when the new 12th was crafted to satisfy a Justice Department mandate that North Carolina must have two black-majority districts.
Blacks make up more than a fifth of the state's population.
However, the original map for the 12th was controversial. It snaked 160 miles along Interstates 85 and 77 and adjoining communities in and around Durham, Winston-Salem and Charlotte. In 1993, the Supreme Court ruled that a lawsuit contesting the map's constitutionality could be heard. A federal court panel in August 1994 ruled the map was constitutional, but the Supreme Court overturned that decision in June 1996. The North Carolina legislature, in March 1997, then approved the redistricting plan creating the 47 percent black 12th District.