Guilford Democrats stunned by Raleigh-imposed redistricting plan

Commissioner Bruce Davis called a redistricting map enacted by the NC General Assembly today "an injustice to the people of High Point."

A committee of the Guilford County Commission held a hearing this evening to determine new district lines despite the fact that the NC House had only hours earlier approved a plan that became state law and imposed a map (link) by state fiat.

“It has been, as far as I’m concerned, a devastating day,” Rep. Alma Adams, a Greensboro Democrat, told the committee. Her Republican colleagues from the Guilford delegation, Reps. John Faircloth and John Blust, voted for the plan.

In a surreal hearing, Republican activists spoke from remarks that appeared to have been prepared before they knew that the Republican leadership in Raleigh had short-circuited the local process.

“Why would we want compact, cohesive, competitive and community-based districts?” asked Ernie Wittenborn, who is active with Conservatives for Guilford County. “In short, such districts would encourage large numbers of the electorate to become engaged in the process, thus improving the depth and width of our democratic process.”

His wife, Joanne, offered, “Some proposed district maps are an embarrassment. A glance at the proposed maps is all that is required to quickly identify gerrymandering. One of the speakers pointed out what good looks like. Chairman Alston’s map illustrates what bad looks like. Bad can be measured by rambling district lines, distorted neighborhood patterns, and obvious selectivity to ensure a predetermined outcome of elections.”

Jim Lewis encouraged the emasculated commission to demonstrate transparency and requested “the commissioners to explain the reasoning behind why they like one map over another and how this specific map could possibly benefit their constituents.”

Commissioner Bruce Davis, a Democrat who represents a majority-black district based in High Point, was taken aback by what he heard.

“Some of the comments that were made were that communities should be kept together, communities should not be separated or violated, or whatever terminology was used,” he said. “But the map that’s proposed that they’re celebrating – maybe they haven’t seen this map. Maybe they have not seen how it divides communities.”

Davis singled out for scorn District 2, which some commissioners joked should be considered an at-large seat because of the way it travels around the county.

“Under the proposal from the General Assembly, you’ve got District 2 coming from the east side of the county, wraps around High Point, comes up through the west side of High Point, goes through Jamestown and Greensboro, makes a fishhook somewhere around I-40. And that seems to be something to celebrate. Give me a break!”

One of the few speakers to strike a discordant note in the hearing was Keith Brown, a Republican from High Point, who had submitted a map (link) for consideration by the commission.

“One of the things that I didn’t do that everybody else wants to do – it just amazes me – is this High Point hook,” Brown said. “Everybody wants to come around High Point and split High Point three ways. My map actually guarantees that a High Point representative will be in that district.”

The Republican leadership in Raleigh gutted an unsuccessful house bill yesterday, inserted language for an omnibus local elections bill affecting Guilford, Mecklenburg, Buncombe and Lenoir counties, approved it in the Judiciary II committee and passed in through the Senate on two votes. A final Senate vote took place this morning, and then a House vote made it law.

Skip Alston, the Democratic chair of the board, noted that he had worked out a deal with NC Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger in June that would allow the commission to redraw its own district lines, but mandated that the number of seats and districts be reduced. The deal, reflected in a previous session law, set a deadline for the commission to produce a map, which was set to expire next month.

“I talked to Phil Berger, the president of the Senate, last night and he said the reason he did it is because he had gotten calls from constituents in Guilford County and some of our county commissioners saying they didn’t think they were going to get a fair process,” Alston recounted.

“I informed him that he made a promise,” Alston continued. “The only thing a politician really has is really the value of his word. When you give your word as a politician, then you better keep it. Mr. Berger gave us his word, and the state Senate gave us their word, and the state House gave us their word that they were allowing us to draw those lines…. I told him last night: ‘Shame on you. If you can’t keep your word to the people of Guilford County, you can’t keep your word to anybody.’”

Berger’s home precinct is in Eden, and his Senate district reaches down into rural Guilford County. A new Senate redistricting plan moves his district into urban parts of Greensboro, drawing in Democratic Sen. Don Vaughan. The intervention from Raleigh and disruption of Democratic leadership in Greensboro sets up a potential backlash next year when many Greensboro residents will be voting in Berger’s district.

“I understand where y’all are coming from,” said Commissioner Linda Shaw, the lone Republican on the redistricting committee. “The Republicans have been there. I’ve heard two wrongs don’t make a right. We do have Republican control in Raleigh. I hope we will look at this as a board and not as ‘get even.’ And let’s move forward…. This is the map, and I support the map. I would hope that we would move forward without lawsuits or anything else, Mr. Chair.”

County Attorney Mark Payne noted that the map approved by the General Assembly today appears to be the same as one submitted by Shaw to the local redistricting committee that was drawn by the NC Republican Party.

After the meeting, Shaw allowed that the maps were “very similar,” but said she didn’t believe they were the same. When the two maps were placed in front of her, she could not point out any differences. She protested that she had only received the map ultimately approved by the General Assembly yesterday on her Blackberry.

Shaw called the map she submitted to the county commission redistricting committee a “four-four” map, meaning that it would result in four seats held by Republicans and four seats held by Democrats.

Referring to the map approved by the General Assembly, she said, “This is supposed to be five favoring Republicans and three favoring Democrats. They told me the district they’ve got me in is leaning slightly Democratic.”

Shaw’s math doesn’t quite add up: The three minority-majority districts are considered a lock for Democrats. There are five remaining districts. A truer gauge may be voting history: A certain percentage of white Democrats in North Carolina can be expected to cross party lines and vote Republican.

Vaughan said today that the plan enacted by the General Assembly “packs” African-American voters into the three minority-majority precincts and that in two of them the African-American population is as high as 63 percent. Democratic lawmakers have charged that Republican redistricting plans demonstrate a pattern of “segregating” black voters to bleed them out of adjacent districts and maximize the odds for Republican candidates to win.

County Attorney Mark Payne said the county is required by law to submit the map approved by the General Assembly to the US Justice Department for preclearance under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

Alston said the county commission might consider submitting an alternative map to the US Department of Justice, in case the federal government rejects the map imposed by Raleigh, and would consult with the county attorney about its options.

“We are a part of the state, and if the state tells us to do something, we will have to do it,” he said. “But at the same time we are also a part of the federal government. We have our rights there also. We will exercise those, whatever they might be. If there’s nothing we can do, then there’s nothing we can do. But at the same time we’re not going to not fight a fight that can be fought.”

Democratic commission Chairman Skip Alston accused NC Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger of breaking his word, while Republican Commissioner Linda Shaw, a onetime ally, defended the redistricting plan.