Federal judge rejects racial gerrymandering challenge to NC Senate map

Kyle Ingram, The News & Observer on Sep 30, 2025

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RALEIGH, N.C. — A federal judge upheld North Carolina’s Senate map Tuesday, rejecting claims that Republican lawmakers had illegally drawn the districts to dilute the voting power of Black voters.

Challengers to the map argued that it split up Black communities in the northeastern part of the state, but U.S. District Judge James C. Dever III, an appointee of President George W. Bush, ruled that this did not rise to a violation of the Voting Rights Act.

He further wrote that he declined to direct the legislature to “engage in the odious practice of sorting voters by race in order to create a majority-Black Senate district.”

In his 126-page ruling, Dever wrote that key experts presented by plaintiffs were not credible and said that given the “paucity of contemporary evidence of intentional discrimination concerning the right to vote against Black voters, the court gives plaintiff’s evidence little weight.”

“It is not 1965 or 1982 in North Carolina. It is 2025,” Dever later wrote. “... Plaintiffs ignore the progress that North Carolina has made over the past 60 years and seek to use (the Voting Rights Act) to sort voters by race in order to squeeze one more Democratic Senate district into the map.”

The ruling comes nearly two years after the General Assembly redrew the state’s electoral districts to favor Republicans, following a decision from the state Supreme Court said partisan gerrymandering was a political question that could not be remedied by the courts.

A variety of advocacy groups, including the North Carolina NAACP, filed several lawsuits over the maps, arguing that they violated federal law and the U.S. Constitution by engaging in racial gerrymandering.

Tuesday’s decision comes from a more narrow lawsuit filed by two voters in Eastern North Carolina. One of the plaintiffs, Rodney Pierce, is now a Democratic lawmaker in the state House.

Dever’s ruling comes amid speculation that Republican lawmakers may redraw the state’s congressional map to further benefit their party ahead of the midterms.

Senate leader Phil Berger floated the possibility last week, but denied rumors that he would do so in exchange for President Donald Trump’s endorsement.