Supreme Court Hearing Oral Arguments in NC Gerrymandering Case

Maria Palmer helped register people to vote in Orange County before the 2018 general election. But when she tried to convince people who hadn’t registered, she says she often got the same response.

“People would tell me, ‘What’s the point? We know who’s going to be elected; there’s not any competition. It’s going to be a Democrat,’” Palmer says. “And I started helping other districts, going outside Orange County to knock on doors, and I heard the same thing. ‘What’s the point? The Republican is going to win here.’”

Palmer, who is a former Chapel Hill town council member, decided to act. Having legal experience from advocating against the state’s voter ID legislation, she took her case to court with eight other plaintiffs.

“We talked to our lawyers and said, ‘can’t we do something,’” she said. “Some people are under the impression that this is a Washington think tank coming to North Carolina and stirring things up, but this is grassroots.”

After a federal district court ruled twice in favor of Palmer and Common Cause in 2018, North Carolina Republicans appealed the decision to the US Supreme Court. On Tuesday, oral arguments will begin in the case as the justices begin to determine whether these partisan gerrymandering actions violate the Constitution.

In addition to the North Carolina case, the Supreme Court will also hear oral arguments for the Maryland Democratic gerrymandering case on Tuesday. These cases come after the court ruled last June that plaintiffs in the Wisconsin gerrymandering case Gill v Whitford failed to show their votes were clearly affected by the state’s districting map.

Both new cases look to have an impact on the redistricting planned after the 2020 U.S. Census. If the Supreme Court rules in Common Cause and Palmer’s favor, it will also set a precedent for whether parties can explicitly gerrymander based on political lines.

No matter the court’s decision, Palmer says, it’s not too late for North Carolina’s state government to create a system preventing partisan voting districts.

“We can have a non-partisan commission that draws the district,” she says. “We can do away with this crazy gerrymandering, because it’s wrong no matter who does it. We can ensure that it doesn’t happen, and we will continue to fight [despite] whatever happens at the Supreme Court.”

Palmer won’t be making the trip to DC for the oral arguments, but says she feels like enough people are behind her cause that she’s confident their side will be heard.

“I don’t feel like I have to be there, we are well-represented,” Palmer says. “I will be just happy with a good outcome.”

The Supreme Court’s decision on Rucho v. Common Cause is expected in June.

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Supreme Court Hearing Oral Arguments in NC Gerrymandering Case

Maria Palmer helped register people to vote in Orange County before the 2018 general election. But when she tried to convince people who hadn’t registered, she says she often got the same response. “People would tell me, ‘What’s the point? We know who’s going to be elected; there’s not any competition. It’s going to be […]

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