by Christopher Cooper
I wrote a new piece for The Assembly about North Carolina’s recently passed congressional map. You can take a look here (and, if you’re not a subscriber, now’s a good time to rectify that).
https://www.theassemblync.com/politics/nc-congressional-map-takeaways/
Related—the first legal challenge to the new maps was filed just after I submitted the piece referenced above (this stuff moves fast!). It’s a supplemental complaint to a previously filed case that challenged those districts in their previous form. The whole thing is worth a read, but here’s the best single summary of their case for the TL;DR crowd.
Like I said in The Assembly piece—race, not partisanship.
It also appears that since North Carolina passed its new maps, Virginia and Indiana have decided to follow suit.
I increasingly think that nationally, the most likely outcome of this tit-for-tat redistricting war is going to be a wash (or damn close to it) in terms of partisanship. The real loser is going to be anyone who thinks that competitive elections are a good thing.
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Dr. Christopher Cooper is Madison Distinguished Professor and Director of the Haire Institute for Public Policy at Western Carolina University. His most recent book, Anatomy of a Purple State, is available from the University of North Carolina Press.
