Court To Hear Voting District Fight (Associated Press)

By Laurie Asseo, Associated Press Writer
Monday, June 26, 2000

The Supreme Court agreed to hear a voting-rights dispute over a North Carolina congressional district, possibly to try clarifying how to determine when race played too large a role in drawing election districts.

The court said Monday it will study an appeal in which state officials argue that politics – not race – was the main factor in drawing the 12th congressional district.

A three-judge court invalidated that district and ordered it redrawn, but Monday's action puts that order on hold until the justices hear arguments and issue a ruling.

North Carolina's 12th District is represented by Democrat Mel Watt, one of two blacks elected to Congress in 1992 from a state that had not sent an African American to Washington since 1901.

Disputes over the district have led to three previous Supreme Court rulings, starting with a 1993 decision that said voting districts designed to help minorities can be invalidated if they violate white voters' rights.

In 1996, the Supreme Court declared that an earlier version of the district, which had a 57 percent majority of blacks among registered voters, was unlawfully based on race.

State lawmakers redrew the district in 1997, creating one 71 miles long in which blacks comprised 46 percent of registered voters. A federal court ruled it unconstitutional in 1998, and the primaries were delayed so the Legislature could go back to the drawing table.

Last year, the Supreme Court reversed the 1998 ruling, saying the lower court wrongly decided the case without first holding a trial.

In March, the three-judge panel again ruled the 12th District unlawful, saying legislators "utilized race as the predominant factor in drawing the district." The state did not offer compelling reasons to justify such use of race, the three-judge court said. It concluded that the district was "an impermissible and unconstitutional racial gerrymander."

State officials and voters who supported the district as drawn appealed to the Supreme Court. The state's appeal said the lower court "wrongly equated mere consideration of race with racial gerrymandering," and argued that lawmakers were mainly concerned with creating a safe Democratic district.

The state's lawyers also said it would be too disruptive to require the district redrawn with this fall's election only months away.

Lawyers for those who challenged the district said trial evidence showed that "race was the only explanation" for the way the 12th District was drawn.

The cases are Hunt vs. Cromartie, 99-1864, and Smallwood vs. Cromartie, 99-1865.
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