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Price calls latest congressional map 'mockery'

Fourth District Democratic Congressman David Price says the latest GOP voting maps "make a mockery" of district compactness requirements.

Posted Updated
Congressman David Price
By
Laura Leslie

From Washington today, 4th district Democrat David Price issued the following statement on the latest draft of new redistricting maps, which would double-bunk Price with fellow Democrat Brad Miller in a reconfigured safe-Democratic district:

“I will look forward to representing the Fourth District in whatever form it emerges. That said, the current map makes a mockery of the notion that districts should be compact and include communities of interest.

"The Fourth District, currently the state’s most compact, centered on the Research Triangle area, becomes the state’s least compact. It more than doubles in length extending over seven counties, including the entire county in not one of them. I hope the General Assembly will think hard and consult widely before considering this map.”

The new Fourth winds from the Caswell County line south and east through the Triangle into Cumberland County, stretching all the way to Hoke. At one bottleneck between Chatham and Harnett, the district's only contiguous point is about 100 yards of river and sandbar.

Then again, to put it in context, the new 4th looks very much like Democrat Mel Watt's12th district, which narrowly follows the I-85 corridor from Charlotte to Winston-Salem. That district has been upheld by federal courts.

 

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