Posted on 11/02/2011 6:47:30 AM PDT by Libloather
Feds approve N.C. voting maps
Modified Wed, Nov 02, 2011 03:50 AM
BY JIM MORRILL, LYNN BONNER AND JOHN FRANK
The U.S. Justice Department approved North Carolina's new voting maps Tuesday night, taking away a major roadblock to next year's elections but leaving open the door to new lawsuits.
The Obama administration's decision handed a victory to the state's Republican mapmakers.
"I feel like a tremendous weight has been lifted," said Rep. David Lewis, a Harnett County Republican who led the House redistricting effort. "It's a strong statement that our plans met their objectives, which was to follow the law."
The Justice Department approved - or pre-cleared - new legislative and congressional voting districts that most analysts say would give Republicans an electoral edge for at least a decade. It was the first time in more than a century that GOP lawmakers drew voting maps.
Democrats and other critics of the plans are still poised to sue. A coalition of N.C. groups - including the Southern Coalition for Social Justice and Democracy North Carolina - have said they plan to challenge the plans.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsobserver.com ...
Unlike in most states, the North Carolina Governor has no say over redistricting.
The elimination of many Democratic seats will strengthen the GOP hold on the House.
Of course, their other objectives were to maximize Republican representation over the next decade and minimize incumbent displacement, which they also accomplished.
The map is pretty ugly, though, due mainly to:
* Voting Rights Act compliance
* One person, one vote standard compliance
* Commitment to splitting metropolitan areas (way of justifying splitting Asheville & Fayetteville)
Can someone tell me why the Federal Government has any authority over any States redistricting? Or have I misunderstood what’s happening?
As I said when I saw the maps and heard their rationale for splitting all cities among two or more CDs, this was a work of pure genius. The Dems have absolutely no case.
A year ago, NC’s House delegation had 8 Democrats and 5 Republicans; today, it has 7 Democrats and 6 Republicans; in January 2013, it will have 10 Republicans and 3 Democrats. I had originally thought that it would spread Republican too thin if the legislature drew a map with only three Democrat districts, but I was wrong—all 10 CDs drawn for Republicans gave President Bush over 61% of the vote in 2004 and gave McCain over 54% in 2008.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 requires states which had a history of voting discrimination to more or less prove that their voting laws, including redistricting, did not adversely impact minorities.
States that fall under the purview of the Voting Rights Act must have their districts pre-approved by the U.S. Department of Justice or by a federal court in order to ensure that the maps don’t disenfranchise minority voters. It’s a stupid vestige of 1960s desegregation.
There should also be “protection” from redistricting to “insure a minority seat” in Congress.
Districts should be required to be rectangular if at all possible, and encompass a proportional share of the population of the state.
Now, 146 years after the (first) Civil War ended, North Carolina is still bound with the chains of Reconstruction, namely laws requiring racial set-asides in Congressional districts. How sad.
The Supreme Court requires it. But the benefit of more minority representation is fewer Democrats. Their obsession with racial voting is to the Republican benefit.
Here in the Triangle, Bev Purdue and Mike Sleasley... I’m sorry.... Easley had raided the highway trust fund, which is taxes we collect for construction of new roads, and put it into the general coffers. So, no money for new roads, but we’d already approved I-540 in the budget. So, instead of using the money we’d collected and building the road, we decided to convert the southern half of it to NC-540 and make it a toll road. They’ve been building 540 since 1969. And they have completed a total of 24 miles. Spent billions. And now, we’re being told that despite the fact that we’re going to have to spend 13 billion that we borrowed from Uncle Sam, we’re going to have to pay for it by having it as a toll road.
So, we’re being triple-taxed for a road and it’s taking nigh on forever to build.
Why is the cost so high (nearly 1.2 billion per mile of construction)? Well, it’s simple. 1) Before the proposed plan was approved, Easly’s and Perdue’s donor list suddenly started making purchases of property. Nearly 70% of the property the state purchased at 4-6X the purchase value had been purchased within a year and in almost every case, one of the two corrupt governor’s friends, supporters, etc had been one of the purchasers. Oh, and the homes and land were purchased at 2-3 times the original value. So, in 2007, a plot of land with a house was $250,000. One of Easly’s donors would walk in and buy it for $500,000 and then turn around and charge the state $3,000,000 to buy it for the road.
The criminal good-ole-boys network in Raleigh is about as corrupt as they can get.
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