North Carolina v. Covington
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 28, 2018 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Decided
- June 28, 2018
- Term
- October Term 2017
- Vote
- 8–0
- Issue area
- Civil Rights
- Disposition
- Affirmed and reversed (or vacated) in part
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
PER CURIAM. This appeal arises from a remedial redistricting order entered by the District Court in a racial gerrymandering case we have seen before. The case concerns the redistricting of state legislative districts by the North Carolina General Assembly in 2011, in response to the 2010 census. A group of plaintiff voters, appellees here, alleged that the General Assembly racially gerrymandered their districts when-in an ostensible effort to comply with the requirements of the Voting Rights Act of 1965-it drew 28 State Senate and State House of Representatives districts comprising majorities of black voters. The District Court granted judgment to the plaintiffs, and we summarily affirmed that judgment. See Covington v. North Carolina, 316 F.R.D. 117 (M.D.N.C.2016), summarily aff'd, 581 U.S. ----, 137 S.Ct. 2211, 198 L.Ed.2d 655 (2017). At the same time, however, we vacated the District Court's remedial order, which directed the General Assembly to adopt new districting maps, shortened by one year the terms of the legislators currently serving in the gerrymandered districts, called for special elections in those districts, and suspended two provisions of the North Carolina Constitution. See North Carolina v. Covington, 581 U.S. ----, ----, 137 S.Ct. 1624, 1625-1626, 198 L.Ed.2d 110 (2017) (per curiam ). The District Court ordered all of this, we noted, after undertaking only…
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