Editorials: The redistricting case: Dump the districts, but not until after elections | Winston-Salem Journal
North Carolina’s congressional map belongs in the trash. But practical necessity argues for keeping it for one more election. A panel of federal judges ruled Friday that the legislature violated the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause when it, in 2011, drew the 1st and 12th congressional districts [the latter of which takes in a large part of our area]. It ordered the legislature to fix them by Feb. 19. With absentee voting already begun ahead of the March 15 primary, and because changes to one district affect districts that border it, the remedy is disruptive. Yet the judges were right to point to the harm done by partisan politicians’ cynical manipulations. “Unfettered gerrymandering is negatively impacting our republican form of government,” Judge Max O. Cogburn Jr. wrote in a concurring opinion. “Elections should be decided through a contest of issues, not skillful mapmaking.”