In one of the most gerrymandered states in the country, GOP leaders are taking new measures to shield redistricting records from public view.

The changes to public records laws first came to light when North Carolinaā€™s Republican-controlled General Assembly released its $30 billion budget on Wednesday, following months of negotiations. The bill includes raises for state employees, cuts to income taxes, and an expanded school voucher program ā€” as well as sneaky language that will deal a major blow to government transparency in the state.

Buried deep in the 625-page budget is a provision overturning a state law that made legislatorsā€™ redistricting communications and drafting documents part of the public record once the new electoral maps became law.

The repeal of that provision will go into effect in 10 days, dropping a veil of secrecy over a contentious issue that has roiled North Carolina state politics for decades.

ā€œElectoral maps are the core of representative democracy. Itā€™s critical to understand from the publicā€™s perspective how rules related to voting and elections come into being,ā€ said Brooks Fuller, director of the North Carolina Open Government Coalition. ā€œThis was a really important carve-out, and itā€™s very clear from the way that itā€™s written that the General Assembly thought this was important to North Carolinians. Apparently thatā€™s changed.ā€

While the stateā€™s public records act grants broad exemptions for messages sent between lawmakers and their staff during the legislative drafting process, one statute included a special carve-out for redistricting. The law noted that ā€œpresent and former legislative employees may be required to disclose information otherwise protectedā€ by legislative confidentiality laws if that information pertained to redistricting plans that had been enacted.

After both chambers of the Legislature swiftly voted to pass the budget on Thursday, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper announced Friday morning that he would let it go into effect without his signature, citing the billā€™s failure to expand Medicaid. While Cooper had initially said he was ā€œstrongly consideringā€ vetoing the budget, Republicans hold an overriding, veto-proof majority in both chambers of the Legislature. (The House gained its Republican supermajority after Rep. Tricia Cotham controversially changed her party affiliation in April.)

Additional sections of the budget chip away at the stateā€™s public records act more broadly, stipulating that legislators have sole discretion over whether to ā€œreveal any document, supporting document, drafting request, or information request made or received by that legislator while a legislator.ā€

North Carolina lawmakers were already designated custodians of their own records but had to claim a specific exemption in order to withhold requested documents. The new language tightens the legislative privileges that were already in place, granting lawmakers the authority to decide which of their records they want to make public and which they want to destroy or dispose of.

ā€œThis is profoundly contrary to the stateā€™s commitment to open and transparent government,ā€ said Sarah Ludington, director of the First Amendment Clinic at the Duke University School of Law. ā€œThere is literally nothing to be gained by increasing the secrecy of government actions.ā€ Supreme Court Case

The move to shield legislative records from the public, particularly those related to redistricting, is especially troubling given the long and heated legal battle over gerrymandering in the state.

On June 27, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 against North Carolina state legislators in a key redistricting case, Moore v. Harper. The suit made its way to the nationā€™s highest court after Republican lawmakers appealed the North Carolina Supreme Courtā€™s 2022 decision to strike down a gerrymandered congressional map, ruling that it violated the stateā€™s constitution.

The U.S. Supreme Court case was closely watched by legal scholars, as the petitioners invoked an extreme reading of the controversial ā€œindependent state legislature theoryā€ to argue their side.

North Carolina Republicans contended that the United States Constitution grants state legislatures unchecked authority over the administration and regulation of federal elections ā€” even if it entails partisan gerrymandering that flies in the face of judicial rulings. The same theory was also pushed by President Donald Trumpā€™s allies in their attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. As House speaker, Rep. Tim Moore led the Republicansā€™ Supreme Court appeal ā€” a case that bears his name ā€” and now serves as a central figure in the state budget negotiations.

While the Supreme Court decision marked a cautious victory for the democratic process, the North Carolina high court had already reversed its own ruling on the gerrymandering case in April. ā€œCourts are not intended to meddle in policy matters,ā€ Chief Justice Paul Newby wrote in the majority decision.

The ruling cleared the way for the Republican-dominated Legislature to draw electoral districts that would heavily favor the party. It also spoke to the see-sawing nature of North Carolina state politics: The state Supreme Court struck down the gerrymander in 2022, when it held a Democratic majority. Following the 2022 midterm elections, Republicans flipped the court and proceeded to reverse the decision.

ā€œOur state is so incredibly purple,ā€ said Ludington. ā€œIf our state was districted so that our state representatives actually mirrored the voter registrations in the state, we would have razor-thin majorities in both House and Senate at the state level.ā€

Ludington emphasized that the public records changes in the budget are a ā€œtransparency and accountability issueā€ rather than a partisan one. ā€œWhichever partyā€™s in charge, the only way to hold them accountable is to have robust rights of access to documents that show their deliberations,ā€ she said.

North Carolinaā€™s Democratic Party has also participated in legally dubious gerrymandering over the course of the stateā€™s history. In a major 1993 case, the Supreme Court found that a ā€œbizarreā€ Democratic-drawn congressional map violated the Constitution as an act of racial gerrymandering because it attempted to combine as many Black voters as possible into a single district across 160 miles.

Democrats ruled the state Legislature for more than 100 years until 2010, when the Republican Party took control and redrew the electoral maps to give their party an edge. Since then, redistricting has sparked a spate of lawsuits from groups like the NAACP and Common Cause.

The public records law was broad enough to allow lawyers to get discovery documents for cases like the recent constitutional litigation, but the new changes will restrict everyoneā€™s access to the records, including reporters investigating government wrongdoing.

ā€œFormerly we could use the public records act to compel disclosure of critical public information,ā€ said Fuller, the North Carolina Open Government Coalition director. ā€œNow, weā€™re totally at the whims of our benevolent legislators, if they choose to be. We donā€™t have a lot under these new laws thatā€™s going to compel the sharing of information.ā€

  • zynlyn@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I grew up in NC and there are a lot of things to like about that region. But this is one of the big reasons Iā€™d never live there again as an adult. The disenfranchisement is unacceptable, and sadly almost all my my highschool cohort has left the state for better conditions elsewhere, as well. Sometimes I lament not staying to contribute to pushing back against this stuff, but ultimately I have to prioritize my familyā€™s well being, so we now live in a much less cynical state.