North Carolina Court, With New Partisan Mix, Reverses Itself on a Key Voting Case

Barely a year after Democratic justices on the North Carolina Supreme Court said new maps of the state’s legislative and congressional districts were partisan gerrymanders that violated the State Constitution, a newly elected Republican majority on the court reversed course on Friday and said the court had no authority to overturn those maps.

The practical effect is to enable the Republican-controlled State Legislature to scrap the court-ordered State Senate and congressional district boundaries that were used in elections last November, and draw new maps skewed in their favor for elections in 2024.

Overturning such a recent ruling by the court was a highly unusual move, particularly on a pivotal constitutional issue in which none of the facts had changed. In an opinion divided 5 to 2 along party lines, the new Republican majority of justices said the court had no authority to strike down partisan maps that the state General Assembly had drawn.