GOP/POLITICS/VOTING: “A panel of federal judges struck down North Carolina’s congressional map on Tuesday [1-9-18], condemning it as unconstitutional because Republicans had drawn the map seeking a political advantage.
The ruling was the first time that a federal court had blocked a congressional map because of a partisan gerrymander, and it instantly endangered Republican seats in the coming elections…
The ruling and its chief demand — that the Republican-dominated Legislature create a new landscape of congressional districts by Jan. 24 — infused new turmoil into the political chaos that has in recent years enveloped North Carolina. President Trump carried North Carolina in 2016, but the state elected a Democrat as its governor on the same day and in 2008 supported President Barack Obama.
The unusually blunt decision by the panel could lend momentum to two other challenges on gerrymandering that are already before the Supreme Court — and that the North Carolina case could join if Republicans make good on their vow to appeal Tuesday’s ruling.”
-Alan Blinder and Michael Wines, “North Carolina Is Ordered to Redraw Its Congressional Map,” The New York Times online, Jan. 9, 2018