Opinion ID: 1296917
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Development of a Modern Redistricting Jurisprudence

Text: In Drum v. Seawell, 249 F.Supp. 877 (M.D.N.C.1965), aff'd per curiam, 383 U.S. 831, 86 S.Ct. 1237, 16 L.Ed.2d 298 (1966), a three-judge panel on the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina ruled that the General Assembly's legislative redistricting plans violated the one-person, one-vote requirement of the United States Constitution and were therefore void. The District Court enjoined the State from using the unconstitutional plans in the 1966 election cycle. Id. at 881. The General Assembly thereafter enacted revised redistricting plans in compliance with the District Court's mandate but did not divide counties into separate legislative districts. On 18 February 1966, the District Court found the revised plans to be constitutional. Drum v. Seawell, 250 F.Supp. 922, 924 n. 2 (M.D.N.C.1966). The revised legislative districts were thereafter used in the 1966, 1968, and 1970 elections. Following the Drum decisions, the General Assembly proposed constitutional amendments in 1967 to the State Constitution's redistricting and reapportionment provisions. See Act of May 31, 1967, ch. 640, 1967 N.C. Sess. Laws 704. The proposed amendments for the Senate and House of Representatives reincorporated a prohibition against the division of counties. Id. Subsequently, the North Carolina State Constitution Study Commission completed a comprehensive review and revision of the State Constitution. See Orth, State Constitution at 20. In November 1968, the voters of North Carolina approved the amendments to the redistricting and reapportionment provisions in the 1868 State Constitution. See John L. Sanders & John F. Lomax, Jr., Amendments to the Constitution of North Carolina: 1776-1996, at 15 (Inst. of Gov't, Univ. of N.C. at Chapel Hill, 1997). These 1968 amendments based representation in both the Senate and House of Representatives upon the requirement of one-person, one-vote. See Orth, State Constitution at 81. These amendments also required the preservation of county lines when forming districts. See id. In 1969, the General Assembly reviewed and approved the proposed revisions of the State Constitution, Act of July 2, 1969, ch. 1258, 1969 N.C. Sess. Laws 1461, and in November 1970, North Carolina voters ratified a revised and amended state constitution known as the 1971 Constitution, see John L. Sanders, Our Constitutions: An Historical Perspective, in Elaine F. Marshall, N.C. Dep't of Sec'y of State, North Carolina Manual 1999-2000, 125, at 134. As University of North Carolina Law Professor John Orth, a highly respected state constitutional scholar, noted, The 1971 Constitution, the state's third, was not ... a product of haste and social turmoil. It was instead a good government-measure, long matured and carefully crafted by the state's lawyers and politicians, designed to consolidate and conserve the best features of the past, not to break with it. Orth, State Constitution at 20. The 1971 Constitution included grammatical changes to the 1968 amendments to the Constitution with respect to redistricting and reapportionment, but preserved the language prohibiting the division of counties. N.C. Const. art. II, §§ 3, 5. Consistent with the 1971 Constitution, the General Assembly enacted a redistricting plan in 1971 that did not divide counties into separate legislative districts. Act of June 1, 1971, ch. 483, 1971 N.C. Sess. Laws 412; Act of July 21, 1971, ch. 1177, 1971 N.C. Sess. Laws 1743. The USDOJ precleared the 1971 legislative reapportionment plans, and those plans were used in the 1972 through 1980 elections. In 1981, the General Assembly again enacted redistricting plans for the Senate and House of Representatives which did not divide counties. Act of July 3, 1981, ch. 821, 1981 N.C. Sess. Laws 1191; Act of October 30, 1981, ch. 1130, 1981 N.C. Sess. Laws 1657. The USDOJ refused to preclear the 1981 legislative redistricting plans, however, because they contained no majority-minority single-member districts and submerged cognizable minority populations within large multi-member districts. For these reasons, the USDOJ interposed an objection to the use of a whole-county criterion by North Carolina, as applied within the plan as then submitted, insofar as it affected the forty counties in North Carolina covered by section 5 of the VRA. The USDOJ made clear, however, that its response to the plans submitted by North Carolina at that time did not preclude the State from preserving county lines whenever feasible in formulating its new districts. In response to the USDOJ's administrative determination, the General Assembly convened in April 1982 and enacted a revised redistricting plan for the House, creating four African-American single-member districts and one African-American two-member district. The House Plan divided twenty-four counties. Act of February 11, 1982, ch. 4, 1981 N.C. Sess. Laws (1st Extra Sess. 1982) 6; Act of April 27, 1982, ch. 1, 1981 N.C. Sess. Laws (2d Extra Sess.1982) 15. On 30 April 1982, the USDOJ precleared the House redistricting plan. Similarly, the General Assembly enacted a revised redistricting plan for the Senate, which the USDOJ also precleared, that divided eight counties and created two African-American single-member districts. Act of April 27, 1982, ch. 2, 1981 N.C. Sess. Laws (2d Extra Sess.1982) 15. In Cavanagh v. Brock, 577 F.Supp. 176 (E.D.N.C.1983), a case originally filed in state court, the defendants removed the case to federal court and affirmatively advocated the invalidation of the WCP. The District Court in Cavanagh, purporting to apply a state law severability analysis, determined that the USDOJ's objection to enforcement of the WCP as to the forty covered North Carolina counties also precluded its enforcement in the sixty noncovered counties. [2] Id. at 181.