The Supreme Court slammed down 2 Republican-drawn districts in North Carolina
WASHINGTON — The US Supreme Court on Monday ruled that Republicans in North Carolina unlawfully took race into consideration when drawing congressional district boundaries, concentrating black voters in an improper bid to diminish their statewide political clout.
The justices upheld a lower court's February 2016 ruling that threw out two majority-black US House of Representatives districts because Republican lawmakers improperly used race as a factor when redrawing the legislative map after the 2010 census.
The decision came in one of the several lawsuits accusing Republicans of taking steps at the state level to disenfranchise black and other minority voters who tend to back Democratic candidates.
The justices found that the manner in which the North Carolina voting district boundaries were sketched violated the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection under the law. The ruling may offer a roadmap for challenging similarly drawn districts nationwide.
The justices unanimously upheld the lower court's decision on one of the districts and split 5-3 on the other, with three conservatives dissenting.
"The North Carolina Republican legislature tried to rig congressional elections by drawing unconstitutional districts that discriminated against African-Americans, and that's wrong," said North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat who took office in January.
http://www.businessinsider.com/r-us-supreme-court-tosses-republican-drawn-districts-in-north-carolina-2017-5
