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No deal yet on congressional map as lawmakers return to vote

After days of work generating more than a dozen maps, a committee in charge of redrawing the state's congressional districts will end its work with no debate or recommendation.

Posted Updated
congressional map, voting map
By
Laura Leslie
, WRAL Capitol Bureau chief
RALEIGH, N.C. — After days of work generating more than a dozen maps, the joint House and Senate committee in charge of redrawing the state's congressional districts will end its work Wednesday with no debate or recommendation.

Sen. Ralph Hise, R-Mitchell, the Senate co-chairman of the Joint Select Committee on Congressional Redistricting, announced Tuesday afternoon that the committee would not vote on any of its own maps.

The panel will meet one last time for a two-hour public comment hearing Wednesday morning, Hise said, and will then turn over the process to the House Redistricting and Senate Elections committees when lawmakers reconvene for their redistricting session Wednesday at noon.

Those committees will evaluate any maps filed in their respective chambers and then choose a preferred plan.

"Individual members will have the option of filing bills in the House or in the Senate," Hise told WRAL News.

Last week, all indications were that the committee planned to debate and vote on a map Tuesday or Wednesday. Asked why that plan had changed, Hise said, "There is nothing in the rules that allows a bill to become eligible by passing an interim committee," though he agreed the committee could have chosen to recommend one.

Hise confirmed that House and Senate leaders have not yet agreed on a plan and that the two chambers will likely choose different maps. In that event, he said, the differences would go to a conference committee.

Conference committees are usually held behind closed doors. However, in its injunction against the 2016 congressional district map, a three-judge panel "respectfully urged" legislative leaders to redraw the districts in a way "that ensures full transparency."

Hise pointed out that the court's comment doesn't amount to an actual order, but he said the process would probably be more public in this case.

"The process I would see us setting up is that the conference committee would be set up in a committee room that's video-streamed," he said. "Most of the time, sitting down with staff and drafting a bill isn't a public process, either, but we've done that differently with this."

Hise said the House and Senate committees could each send a map to their respective chambers for a floor vote as soon as Wednesday night.

"The earliest process could see it wrapping up on Thursday," he said. "But I think it's likely, where we are right now, that it will extend beyond that."

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