Justices Hears GOP Challenge To Voting Districts

"The General Assembly has treated those clauses as invalid andunenforceable since 1982," said Eddie Speas, chief deputy attorneygeneral.

Speas and the state are defending a lawsuit brought byRepublican lawmakers who claim Democratic legislative leadersignored the whole-county provision when they redrew state House andSenate districts last year.

The House plan divides 70 of North Carolina's 100 counties toform 112 districts. The Senate map divides 51 counties to establish46 districts.

Before a packed courtroom of about 125 people, many of them toppolitical leaders, the seven justices heard oral arguments in thecase. Many of the Democratic and Republican leaders satside-by-side, some of them joking with each other prior to thehearing.

The hearing was the first ever from the state Supreme Courtshown live on television, broadcast on a local cable news channel.

Speas, the lead lawyer handling the case for the state, told thejustices that both the U.S. Voting Rights Act and federalprotections for proportional representation essentially forcedcounties to be divided, superseding the state constitution.

Republican lawyers, though, argued that Section 5 of the VotingRights Act applies only in 40 North Carolina counties, meaning thelegislators have no right to ignore the state constitution in thestate's other 60 counties.

"There is no other state in the union that hasn't adopted thistheory, that hasn't rationalized and harmonized their constitutionprovisions with whatever the federal law is," said attorney TomFarr.

However, some of the justices were clearly troubled by what that"harmonization" would look like.

Republicans have submitted proposed legislative district mapswhich don't divide counties but create large multimember districts.In Mecklenburg County, some voters would be put into a districtthat includes 10 House members and five Senate members.

Another five-member Senate district - with a population as largeas a congressional district - stretches from Caswell throughRockingham, Randolph and portions of Forsyth and Guilford counties.

"If you have a large group of eight or nine people running(from one district), how does that best serve democracy?" JusticeMark Martin asked.

Justice Bob Orr asked whether lawmakers could keep county linesintact but create single-member districts within them.

Farr, though, said the state constitution makes no provision fordividing counties in that way.

Famed civil rights attorney Julius Chambers, arguing on behalfof the NAACP, said surrounding single-member minority districtswith huge multimember and largely white districts would violateprincipals of proportional representation.

"You are telling black voters, I am going to give you oneperson to vote for. You are telling white voters, I am going togive you eight to vote for," Chambers said.

The court did not reach a decision in the case Thursday, and itwas not clear when it would rule. The justices have already agreedto delay the May 7 primary pending a ruling in the case.

If justices agree with Republican plaintiffs, they could throwout the new districts, ordering lawmakers to redraw them beforeelections can be held. Or the justices could allow the 2002elections to proceed with the current districts and order lawmakersto redraw them next year.

The state could also seek another appeal to federal court if aruling goes against it.