North Carolina's congressional districts
[4] After the 1990 census, the US Department of Justice directed North Carolina under VRA preclearance to submit a map with two majority-minority districts.
On June 28, 1993, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Shaw v. Reno, found that the 12th congressional district was an unlawful racial gerrymander.
On August 22, 1994, the Eastern District of North Carolina on remand in Shaw v. Hunt found that the 12th congressional district was a racial gerrymander (as the U.S. Supreme Court had directed), but ruled that the map satisfied strict scrutiny due to the compelling interest of compliance with the Voting Rights Act and increasing black political power.
A three-judge panel of the Eastern District of North Carolina granted summary judgment that the new boundaries were an illegal racial gerrymander.
[10][11] In January 2018 a federal court struck down North Carolina's congressional map, declaring it unconstitutionally gerrymandered to favor Republican candidates.
Districts had to be drawn without "partisan considerations and election results data," and done so in plain view, a departure from the closed-door processes the ruling eschews.
[21] On December 2, 2019, a three-judge panel ruled that newly Republican-drawn congressional district maps completed in November 2019 would stand for federal elections in 2020.
[22] On February 4, 2022, the North Carolina Supreme Court struck down the congressional and state legislative district maps drawn by the GOP-controlled General Assembly as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander in a 4–3 ruling, after a testimony had shown that Republicans were likely to win 10 out of 14 U.S. House seats under the proposed map, an increase from the eight out of 13 that they won in the 2020 elections.
[23] On February 23, 2022, a panel of three former judges chosen by the Wake County Superior Court drew and approved a new remedial congressional map after the court, earlier that day, struck down the congressional district maps passed by the General Assembly on February 17, 2022, as not meeting standards of partisan fairness.
[24][25] On April 28, 2023, the North Carolina Supreme Court—after Republicans gained a majority in the court following the 2022 judicial elections—overturned the same ruling in a 5–2 decision, which cleared the way for gerrymandering in the next redistricting cycle.
