Rucho responds to lawsuit

Senate Redistricting Chairman Bob Rucho doesn't think the lawsuit filed against the GOP's redistricting plan today will succeed.   

Rucho is the lead defendant in the lawsuit filed this afternoon in Wake County Superior Court.

He wasn't surprised that critics of the maps are accusing Republicans of race-based redistricting. It's an argument that's been heard throughout the debate over the maps - but Rucho says pre-clearance by federal officials this week should put it to rest.   

"The fact that the Justice Department had a chance to review the maps completely, and responded that they were comfortable with our maps and they followed the letter of law, makes that argument moot," Rucho said. "They’re part of the Civil Rights division - they’re the ones protecting the rights of minority voters, and they felt we complied completely with the law."

Rucho doesn't think the section of the lawsuit dealing with divided precincts will win over the judges, either. "There is no law that deals with dividing precincts or VTDs," he pointed out.

"I’m very confident that, as we did with the Justice Department, we’re going to be vindicated - that we drew fair and legal maps and we followed the letter of the law, and we will win those lawsuits. Either win them or have them dismissed for being frivolous or irrelevant to the law we followed," he added. "And we'll proceed toward our goal, which is to have fair and legal districts in place for the voters of NC for the 2012 elections"