Litigation

Litigation | North Carolina

Dickson v. Rucho

Jan. 4, 2019

CASE SUMMARY

On November 3, 2011, a coalition of nonprofit organizations and North Carolinian voters filed a lawsuit against the State of North Carolina, the North Carolina State Board of Elections, and various state legislators, challenging the constitutionality of the state's congressional and legislative plans, which were enacted in 2011. The plaintiffs alleged that the congressional and legislative plans violated the Equal Protection Clauses of the U.S. and N.C. Constitutions by assigning voters to districts based on their race beyond what the Voting Rights Act required, that the plans violated the N.C. Constitution's requirements to draw geographically compact districts that respect county boundaries and encompass communities of interest, and that the excessive partisanship which drove the plans' creation violated the N.C. Constitution's guarantee that the legislature should act for the "good of the whole." The plaintiffs requested a court declaration the legislative and congressional plans were unconstitutional under the North Carolina and U.S. Constitutions, injunctive relief barring the defendants from giving any effect to the plans, and a court order for the General Assembly to implement new, lawful plans, or for the court to implement their own plans if the General Assembly failed to do so in a timely fashion.

On July 8, 2013, the Wake County Superior Court ruled in favor of the defendants and upheld both the congressional and legislative plans as constitutional, finding that the General Assembly applied traditional and permissible redistricting principles to achieve partisan advantage and that no constitutional violations resulted. The plaintiffs appealed to the North Carolina Supreme Court, and on December 19, 2014, the North Carolina Supreme Court affirmed the trial court's ruling, finding that the challenged districts satisfied strict scrutiny.

On January 16, 2015, the plaintiffs appealed the N.C. Supreme Court's ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, and on April 20, 2015, the Supreme Court vacated and remanded the case back to the state supreme court for further consideration in light of the Court's ruling in Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama (2015). On remand, the N.C. Supreme Court again affirmed the trial court's ruling on December 18, 2015, finding that the trial court conducted the proper analysis under Alabama Legislative Black Caucus and that the challenged districts were valid as traditional and permissible redistricting criteria were the predominant motives when creating them.

The plaintiffs again appealed this ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court on June 30, 2016, and on May 30, 2017, the Court again remanded the case to the state supreme court, this time for further consideration in light of the Court's ruling in Cooper v. Harris (2017). The N.C. Supreme Court subsequently remanded the case back to the Superior Court to determine whether further proceedings were necessary on October 9, 2017.

On February 12, 2018, the Wake County Superior Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, finding that the challenged districts were unconstitutional, but given that the General Assembly had already enacted new congressional plans in 2016 following Cooper, and new legislative plans in 2017 following North Carolina v. Covington (2018), the court dismissed the plaintiffs' remaining claims as moot. The legislative defendants initially appealed this ruling to the North Carolina Supreme Court, but on January 4, 2019, the legislative defendants filed a consent motion to dismiss the appeal, which the court granted, thereby ending the case.