Will our state leadership join Trump's lapdogs

North Carolina’s legislative leaders are more than three-and one-half months late in passing a state budget because the Republican leadership cannot agree. Teachers and state employees aren’t getting pay raises, thousands of our citizens don’t have the assurance of health insurance because lawmakers cannot resolve differences over Medicaid , DMV clients aren’t getting faster service, disaster victims aren’t getting help and the list of  other important stalled tasks grows, all because the 170 folks we elected to represent us in “the people’s assembly” can’t put their own agendas aside in order to do what is best for all of us.

But they can apparently agree on the need to re-stack the deck on congressional districts in our state. At President Trump’s urging they want to draw new district maps to elect more Republicans in the U.S. House. Never mind our congressional delegation went from 7 Democrats and 7 Republicans in 2022 to 10 Republicans and 4 Democrats currently. They want more.

It’s all about the math. Currently the U.S. House contains 219 Republicans and 214 Republicans. Conventional wisdom (if such a thing still exists) reveals that the party of the president loses congressional seats in the mid-term elections and, given Mr. Trump’s current national popularity of 41 percent (and trending downward), there is plenty of reason for Republicans to be worried about losing control of the House majority. If that did occur, we might we actually see Congress grow a backbone and do their jobs by standing up to the bully Trump.

So, if you can’t win the game by following the rules, change the rules. Republicans in Texas, Missouri and Indiana are heeding Trump’s call and redistricting to get more of their party elected. California, a decidedly blue state said two could play that game and is enacting new districts of their own.

Trump is calling on North Carolina to kiss the ring and give him at least one more congressman. Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger (who used to be adamantly against gerrymandering before he was for it) and House Speaker Destin Hall agreed to follow Fearless Leader’s urging. After all, they remind us, Trump received a mandate in 2024, getting 2,898.423 votes or 50.86 percent of the votes cast for president in our state.

Have they forgotten these same voters gave Josh Stein 3,069,309 votes in that election, 54.90 percent of the votes cast? Obviously, those numbers don’t count as a mandate. What the numbers do say is that our state is pretty evenly divided.

Andrew Dunn, a GOP strategist and columnist, says North Carolina’s Republican majorities are more fragile than they look, adding that “a healthy majority resists doing everything it can do just because it can….If Republicans want an eleventh seat, the most North Carolina way to get it is to go earn it.”  The four seats now held by Democrats are in so-called toss-up districts; Republicans could easily capture one or more of them with good candidates and hard work.

Redistricting to add that 11^th seat is not without risks. Map drawers will have to remove some Republicans from current safe districts and add them into the four districts where Democrats are incumbents. The subtraction of Republicans might backfire, allowing a well-qualified and financed Democrat to sneak in.

There is also some risk that the newly drawn districts might not be valid for the 2026 elections, defeating the real purpose of the redistricting.

For starters, any newly created seat must be filled by an election in the next federal election cycle, which will be the 2026 mid-term election. Candidate filing for that election begins in fewer than 45 days (December 1), with the primary election on March 5^th of next year. But the general election won’t be until November 3^rd.

Any new maps must adhere to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prohibits redistricting plans that intentionally or inadvertently discriminate on the basis of race. The new maps traditionally require pre-clearance before being implemented. This presents a real challenge since nobody is working (due to the government shutdown) and that clearance is problematic.

Further, you better believe there will be lawsuits aplenty arising from this gerrymandering. Republicans laughingly say Democrats attempt to “sue until blue,” but you can count on it in a new district. Courts move slowly and might prohibit the new districts from being implemented. The courts have upheld the right to gerrymander voting districts due to political party affiliation but will not be able to ignore claims of racial prejudice.

If the Republican majority in our legislature goes through with this highly irregular gerrymandering, they will be further disenfranchising voters in our state and silencing voices to “shield themselves from accountability,” as House minority leader Robert Reives said.

Must our state Republicans join the list of Trump’s lap dogs?

Tom Campbell is a Hall of Fame North Carolina broadcaster and columnist who has covered North Carolina public policy issues since 1965.  Contact him at tomcamp@carolinabroadcasting.com