States Granted Some Flexibility in Redistricting

The Supreme Court gave states, including California, a bit more leeway Monday in redrawing electoral districts after the next census.

In a unanimous ruling, the justices revived a disputed, squiggly-shaped North Carolina congressional district that contains a large number of black voters and has been represented by a black Democrat. The district was declared unconstitutional last year by a three-member panel of federal judges after some white voters complained that it was an example of racially based gerrymandering.

The high court justices told the judges to take another look at the district and to listen to the state’s argument that it drew its lines based on political alliances, not race. The three-member panel, in issuing its judgment, should have sought more evidence on the motivation of North Carolina lawmakers in drawing the district, the court said.

The decision, though only directly involving North Carolina, could affect the redistricting process nationwide after the 2000 census by forcing judges to be more certain of the role that race played before overturning a reapportionment plan.

It is legal to draw electoral lines based on politics and state lawmakers routinely do just that. In Sacramento, they have drawn Republican districts and Democratic districts, often by moving district lines one way or the other based on the voting patterns of the residents.

Monday’s Supreme Court ruling “will give more breathing room to California, which has the biggest redistricting job after 2000,” said former U.S. Solicitor General Walter Dellinger, who defended North Carolina in its redistricting case.

Until 1993, state officials had a free hand to draw electoral boundaries. The fights in state capitals tend to be political free-for-alls.

But the high court upset the status quo that year by ruling that redistricting based primarily on race or ethnicity--such as increasing the number of minority lawmakers--is discriminatory.

Ever since that decision, the justices have struggled to explain what role, if any, race can play in drawing district boundaries.

Justice Clarence Thomas, speaking for the court, reiterated that race may not be the “predominant factor” in a district’s shape, although he said that it is not easy to prove state lawmakers look mostly at the race of the voters in drawing districts, rather than their political allegiance.

The case (Hunt vs. Cromartie, 98-85) concerns North Carolina’s 12th district represented by Rep. Melvin L. Watt, a Democrat. In the 1992 election, the first following the 1990 census, Watts was one of two blacks elected to Congress from North Carolina. Previously, the state had not sent a black to Washington since 1901.