Why redistricting reform fails. Why NC lawmakers keep trying. And trying.

by Sarah Michels, Carolina Public Press
February 26, 2025

In June 1993, Democratic state senator Clark Plexico filed a bill that would remove lawmakers’ ability to draw their own electoral maps. Instead, Plexico proposed a nonpartisan method: selecting five regular people to help draw maps during the redistricting process. 

Majority and minority legislative leaders would each appoint two members. Those four would vote on their fifth and final member. 

The goal was to remove politics from the decennial redrawing of maps to adjust for population shifts identified by the U.S. Census Bureau. 

But the bill was never assigned a committee, and no other lawmaker signed onto it. 

Three decades and 16 similar bills later, North Carolina appears no closer to a non-political redistricting process. 

But that hasn’t stopped 39 House Democrats from signing onto House Bill 20 — the Fair Maps Act — this session. Upon approval by a majority of North Carolina voters, it would amend the state constitution to establish an independent redistricting commission made up of five Democrats, five Republicans and five unaffiliated voters to draw the state’s next electoral maps after the U.S. Census. 

Per usual, the bill has not been assigned to a committee, meaning Republican leadership has effectively ended its run before it began. 

It’s a lesson Plexico learned a long time ago: Nobody gives up power unless they’re forced. And redistricting holds the power to control a legislature, and therefore, state policy for a decade at a time. 

“I was naive,” he admitted. “I thought of politics and being in elective office as public service. So I thought I was there to do the right thing, which meant: What’s the best thing for the majority of people?”

The history of redistricting reform  

Plexico filed his bill when Democrats held power in both legislative chambers and the governor’s office. He was friends with leadership, too. But that didn’t stop them from asking Plexico if he was “out of his mind.” 

While this type of legislation has been continuously proposed since the 1993-94 session, only four sessions saw it filed by a lawmaker who belonged to the party in power. Plexico was the first. 

In the 2005-06 session, Democrat Eleanor Kinnaird tried her hand. Unsuccessfully. 

Most recently, in the 2011-12 and 2013-14 sessions, Republican John Blust failed to move independent redistricting commission legislation forward even though his party held legislative control. 

Nobody can successfully change the system alone, Plexico said, and they have to be willing to pay politically for the attempt.

“You can make a point, but that’s about all you’re going to do,” he said. 

If passed, the Fair Maps Act would be placed on the ballot for North Carolina voters to decide whether they want an independent redistricting commission. 

If they did, the process would include at least 25 public meetings of the commission. Commission applicants would have to go through the state auditor, State Ethics Commission and General Assembly before being selected. Those with political connections, including lobbyists, political donors and relatives of legislators, would be barred. 

To help them draw maps, members would be trained on the guidelines and laws that inform the redistricting process, like the Voting Rights Act.

For a map to pass muster, at least nine of 15 members, and three from each party subgroup, would have to agree. If they couldn’t agree, they could hire a special master to draw districts.

So, could this be the year? 

Or is this all a pipe dream?

‘Not just an ugly map’

Eight years ago, on an October morning in Asheville, runners raced along the boundary between North Carolina’s 10th and 11th Congressional Districts. They zigzagged between yards in a seemingly random route to the finish line. 

They were participating in the Gerrymander 5K, a visual experiment conducted by the League of Women Voters to demonstrate how precisely lawmakers could draw maps to include — or exclude — specific streets or homes in a district for political gain. 

State Rep. Lindsey Prather, D-Buncombe, said lawmakers in favor of redistricting reform need creative methods like this to educate the populace about gerrymandering and its impact if they ever want things to change. 

“It’s not just an ugly map,” said Prather, who is a primary sponsor of the Fair Maps Act. “It’s not just an insider term that people like to throw around. It really changes who it is that’s representing you and how representative of a government we have.” 

North Carolina has a long history of redistricting drama, going back to the late 1970s and 1980s. More recently, maps drawn by the legislature have faced a seemingly endless series of court battles for being partisan gerrymanders. 

For example, there have been four maps drawn for the state since the 2020 census, and there very well could be more by the time 2030 arrives. 

Independent redistricting commissions, though, might just reverse that trend. When the group creating the voting map is nonpartisan, the best ideas usually win, explained Democrat Zack Hawkins, a state senator who represents Durham.

Gerrymandered maps allow for more “extreme” ideas to see the light of day, he added. Representatives who are no longer in competitive districts don’t have to work with members of both parties to secure reelection and maintain political power.

To Hawkins, the most egregious example of gerrymandering is North Carolina’s congressional maps. Republican lawmakers took a map that had seven Democratic districts and seven Republican ones and redrew it. The new version featured 10 solid Republican districts and just four Democratic ones. 

“Now, that should never be on the table for any legislature, no matter who’s in the majority, to do that because it’s not reflective of the state,” Hawkins said. 

Getting closer

State Rep. Allen Buansi, a cosponsor of the Fair Maps Act, is in the business of hope. 

He remembers being in law school and discussing how dangerous the redistricting process was in the hands of partisan lawmakers. 

“Talking with other young people at that time, other law school students, I see the hunger for a different approach on many levels in different aspects of our society,” Buansi said. 

But according to Prather, it’s an “open secret” that passing any legislation requires the support of Republican leadership. Democrats don’t have it this year, so they’re thinking more long term. 

“I’m not naive,” Prather said. “I don’t think that this is necessarily going to pass this term, but I think we’re going to get closer and closer every term that we file it.”

The more lawmakers discuss the issue, Prather hopes constituents will talk to their representatives about support for the legislation. 

Speaking of support, polls consistently show where the public stands on independent redistricting commissions. 

“Poll after poll after poll shows that if it were on the ballot, it would pass,” said Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University. “People tend to like the idea of independent redistricting reform. Democrats like it a little bit more than Republicans, but both parties tend to support it.” 

Ten states have some form of nonpartisan redistricting commissions. But Cooper said they have something North Carolina doesn’t: The ability of citizens to directly present an idea to the people through a ballot initiative. 

“Every time it’s passed, it’s passed because the people brought it to the ballot, the people got enough signatures, and we don’t have that mechanism in our state,” Cooper said. 

But Democrats aren’t giving up. And although they’ve rejected Republican attempts at redistricting reform while they were the party in power, they insist that if they’re in charge in the future, they’re committed to change. 

“My party hopefully will be in the majority of the House in 2030,” Hawkins said. “And if they are, then our goal is to pass this bill.” 

This article first appeared on Carolina Public Press and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

The post Redistricting reform in NC has a long history of failed attempts appeared first on carolinapublicpress.org