A three-judge panel on Wednesday permitted North Carolina to adopt a redrawn congressional map that is expected to favor the Republican Party.
The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina unanimously ruled against the plaintiffs’ request for an injunction against legislation approved in October by the state’s General Assembly that critics say threaten one federal congressional district, specifically Congressional District 1, which represented by Democrat Don Davis.
In their 57-page ruling on Wednesday, the three Republican-appointed judges said the plaintiffs failed to prove that the state’s General Assembly enacted the legislation, Senate Bill 249, with the intent to “minimize or cancel out the voting potential” of Black North Carolinians as they had claimed.
The ruling comes in protracted litigation that began in 2023, when the Republican-led state sought to redraw some of the districts for electing representatives to the state Senate and federal Congress.
The plaintiffs, who include the North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, sued that December. In October, amid litigation on the maps, the state’s General Assembly passed legislation to swap counties between Congressional District 1 and Congressional District 3.
The plaintiffs again sued the state, alleging the legislation was unconstitutional and asking the court to enjoin S.B. 249.
Earlier this month, the same three-judge panel issued a ruling approving the changes to the map put forward in 2023.
A hearing on S.B. 249 was held Nov. 19, during which the plaintiffs argued that the speed with which the General Assembly passed the 2025 plan was evidence of discriminatory intent.
But the panel of judges disagreed, stating “they have offered no reason to believe that the speed of the 2025 process indicates an intent to discriminate on the basis of race. Nor do they explain what weight we are supposed to assign to what they call ‘the near uniform outcry among North Carolina voters against the map and the process.'”
The ruling comes amid something of a gerrymandering race in the United States that began in earnest when Texas this summer — under pressure of President Donald Trump — sought a mid-decade redraw of its maps to make them more favorable to the Republican Party.
California is in the process of redrawing its maps in retaliation and other states under control of both parties have followed with similar plans.
