Redistricting, or the redrawing of the boundaries for races in the U.S. House and state General Assembly, occurs every 10 years. State lawmakers must use census data to shape districts that contain a roughly equal number of voters, but they otherwise have considerable leeway in drawing the maps. As has occurred in past election cycles, the districts developed by the Republican-majority legislature have incurred legal challenges that are complicating North Carolina’s elections.
The N.C. League of Conservation Voters and other voting groups brought a lawsuit challenging the maps and claiming that they have been gerrymandered to benefit Republican candidates. On Dec. 8, the N.C. Supreme Court suspended candidate filing for all offices for the 2022 primary election and ordered the N.C. Court of Appeals to issue a decision on the new maps by Tuesday, Jan. 11. The Supreme Court also pushed the date of the primary back more than two months, from Tuesday, March 8 to Tuesday, May 17.
Rose notes that the court’s decision on the districts will also impact the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners because the districts are tied to the state House. That arrangement, unique in North Carolina, was established in 2012 at the behest of Republican Rep. Tim Moffitt, who now represents Henderson County.
While lawmakers must take state House incumbency into consideration when redrawing district maps, they do not need to consider county commissioner incumbency. As the lines now stand, Buncombe’s District 2 was redrawn by the state to include no current county commissioners; Democratic Commissioners Al Whitesides and Amanda Edwards, who represent current Districts 1 and 2, respectively, were drawn into District 1 and would therefore run against each other after serving their current terms.
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