Republican lawmakers and other officials have criticized Democratic Party lawyer Marc Elias for his part in thwarting attempts to legislate and gerrymander Democrats out of office, but to anyone paying attention to the critical threat to democracy in the United States, Elias is a hero.
🚨BREAKING: North Carolina Supreme Court STRIKES DOWN Republican's congressional and state legislative redistricting plans. Huge victory for voters of North Carolina.@EliasLawGroup @DemRedistrict https://t.co/xJgaggIP4o
— Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) February 4, 2022
In North Carolina, two gerrymandered redistricting maps were the subject of a lawsuit filed by the North Carolina League of Conservation Voters. According to Democracy Docket, the league argued that “both maps are extreme partisan gerrymanders that entrench Republican power in violation of the North Carolina Constitution.” On Friday, the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled in their favor.
According to court documents, the justices of the court ruled that:
‘Based on the results of this analysis, the enacted congressional plan creates a durable Republican majority for North Carolina’s congressional delegation, such that even when Democrats win 50% of the statewide vote, Republicans will still be favored in 10 out of 14 (71.4%) of the congressional districts, while Democrats will only be favored in 4 out of the 14 (28.6%) districts.’
The court determined that “the enacted congressional plan subordinates the Adopted Criteria and traditional redistricting criteria for partisan advantage,” just as so many other instances that have challenged Marc Elias and made him a household name.
Twitter was quick to thank Elias, who has fought against similar laws in Georgia, Texas, Arizona, Nevada, and a whole list of other states and districts where the GOP uses Trump’s Big Lie, the one about how he really won the presidential election in 2020 but it was stolen from him, to make it more difficult for voters to cast ballots and where gerrymandering makes it harder for urban voters and, particularly, voters of color.
Read some of their comments below:
