Court Opinion

ID: 7236044
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-07-25 04:42:08.36543+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:17:41.125599
License: Public Domain

COGBURN, District Judge,
concurring:
I fully concur with Judge Gregory’s majority opinion. Since the issue before the court was created by gerrymandering, and based on the evidence received at trial, I write only to express my concerns about how unfettered gerrymandering is negatively impacting our republican form of government.
Voters should choose their representatives. Mitchell N. Berman, Managing Gerrymandering, 83 Tex. L. Rev. 781 (2005). This is the “core principle of republican government.” Id. To that end, the operative clause of Article I, § 4 of the United States Constitution, the Elections Clause, gives to the states the power of determining how congressional representatives are chosen:
The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the places of chusing Senators.
U.S. Const, art. I, § 4, cl. 1. As redistricting through political gerrymander rather than reliance on natural boundaries and communities has become the tool of choice for state legislatures in drawing congressional boundaries, the fundamental principle of the voters choosing their representative has nearly vanished. Instead, representatives choose their voters.
Indeed, we heard compelling testimony from Congressman G. K. Butterfield (CD 1) and former Congressman Mel Watt (CD 12) that the configuration of CD 1 and CD 12 made it nearly impossible for them to travel to all the communities comprising their districts. Not only has political gerrymandering interfered with voters selecting their representatives, it has interfered with the representatives meeting with those voters. In at least one state, Arizona, legislative overuse of political gerrymandering in redistricting has caused the people to take congressional redistricting away from the legislature and place such power in an independent congressional redistricting commission, an action that recently passed constitutional muster. See Ariz. State Legislature v. Ariz. Indep. Redistricting Comm’n, — U.S. -, 135 S.Ct. 2652, 192 L.Ed.2d 704 (2015).
Redistricting through political gerrymandering is nothing new. Starting in the year the Constitution was ratified, 1788, state legislatures have used the authority under the Elections Clause to redraw congressional boundaries in a manner that favored the majority party. For example, in 1788, Patrick Henry persuaded the Virginia legislature to remake its Fifth Congressional District to force Henry’s political foe James Madison to run against James Monroe. Madison won in spite of this, but the game playing had begun. In 1812, Governor Elbridge Gerry signed a bill redistricting Massachusetts to benefit his party with one district so contorted that it was said to resemble a salamander, forever giving such type of redistricting the name gerrymander. Thus, for more than 200 years, gerrymandering has been the default in congressional redistricting.
Elections should be decided through a contest of issues, not skillful mapmaking. Today, modern computer mapping allows for gerrymandering on steroids as political mapmakers can easily identify individual registrations on a house-by-house basis, mapping their way to victory. As was seen in Arizona State Legislature, supra, however, gerrymandering may well have an expiration date as the Supreme Court has found that the term “legislature” in the Elections Clause is broad enough to include independent congressional redistricting commissions. 135 S.Ct. at 2673.
*629To be certain, gerrymandering is not employed by just one of the major political parties. Historically, the North Carolina Legislature has been dominated by Democrats who wielded the gerrymander exceptionally well. Indeed, CD 12 runs its circuitous route from Charlotte to Greensboro and beyond — thanks in great part to a state legislature then controlled by Democrats. It is a district so contorted and contrived that the United States Courthouse in Charlotte, where this concurrence was written, is five blocks within its boundary, and the United States Courthouse in Greensboro, where the trial was held, is five blocks outside the same district, despite being more than 90 miles apart and located in separate federal judicial districts. How a voter can know who their representative is or how a representative can meet with those pocketed voters is beyond comprehension.
While redistricting to protect the party that controls the state legislature is constitutionally permitted and lawful, it is in disharmony with fundamental values upon which this country was founded. “[T]he true principle of a republic is, that the people should choose whom they please to govern them.” Powell v. McCormack, 395 U.S. 486, 540-41, 89 S.Ct. 1944, 23 L.Ed.2d 491 (1969) (quoting Alexander Hamilton, 2 Debates on the Federal Constitution 257 (J. Elliot ed. 1876)). Beyond taking offense at the affront to democracy caused by gerrymandering, courts will not, however, interfere with gerrymandering that is philosophically rather than legally wrong. As has been seen in Arizona, it is left to the people of the state to decide whether they wish to select their representatives or have their representatives select them.