August 5, 2021
The Joint House and Senate Redistricting Committee met this afternoon to provide a roadmap for the state’s redistricting process following the 2020 census. The North Carolina General Assembly is statutorily required to redraw districts following each decennial census due to population changes and the need to maintain equal representation.
Chairs of the Joint House and Senate Redistricting Committee laid out plans and expectations for the redistricting process this year, highlighting the need for bipartisanship, transparency, and public input. There have been several contentious redistricting legal battles over the last decade due to racial and partisan gerrymandering, but the 2019 map redrawing process was largely acknowledged as being the most transparent. Committee chairs plan to stick to a similar format for redistricting this year. The redistricting process will also be interesting to follow this year given that North Carolina will receive a 14th seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. It is unknown where the new Congressional district will be created, but many speculate either in Wake or Mecklenburg County given that they are the state’s two most populous counties.
Due to the U.S. Census Bureau delaying its field operations during the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress approved a delayed release of census data by 120 days. States are now expected to receive updated census data by August 16, 2021 – nearly four months behind schedule – and will work on an expedited schedule to redraw maps in time for the December 6th candidate filing deadlines for the 2022 U.S. House and U.S. Senate primaries. The State Board of Elections needs at least three weeks lead time before the December 6th candidate filing deadline, and the committee plans to have the maps completed by early November.
Legislative staff at the General Assembly gave an overview of the policies in place for this year’s redistricting process. Information Systems Division (ISD) staff at the General Assembly will be available to help legislators and the public navigate the software used to draw district maps. ISD will provide at least one public access room where the general public and legislators may build their own district plans, and the public may use the public access room from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, by appointment only. All plans created by the general public on the public access workstations will be considered public information, and all plans created on the workstations will be archived on legislative data network storage devices.
ISD will also provide a comment form on the General Assembly’s website for the purpose of soliciting public input on the redistricting process. The public comment portal will open today using the redistricting criteria from 2019, but chairs of the Committee will propose new criteria that will be discussed and approved by the full Committee next week. Proposed district plans and the related statistical material before a redistricting meeting must be posted on the Committee’s webpage, and the NCGA website will be the primary means of distribution for bills, maps, and statistics on statewide plans considered by the General Assembly.
As referenced above, the Committee plans to meet several times next week to discuss the chairs’ proposed criteria for the redistricting process this year. The Committee will meet on Monday afternoon for legislators to review the proposed redistricting criteria, and will hold a public comment session on the criteria on Tuesday morning beginning at 8:30 a.m. Next Thursday afternoon, the chairs intend for the Committee to vote on a set of criteria. The Committee will then use the remaining weeks in August to set up a public hearing schedule, both at the legislative building in Raleigh and in other locations across the state.
The next few months will be busy as legislators focus on fairly redrawing district maps on a compacted timeline, and legislators have committed to providing a process that is transparent, bipartisan, and open to public input. Duke State Relations will track the redistricting process as it unfolds in the coming weeks and will post additional updates as they become available. Interested individuals can sign up for the Joint House and Senate Redistricting Committee meetings here.