Which district are you in? After gerrymandering fight, Asheville, Buncombe get final state districts
Joel BurgessASHEVILLE - A recent court decision has cemented lines for Buncombe County voters and candidates in 2020 General Assembly elections, whose primaries are March 3.
Still, the confusing array of legislative and court fights over districts has left many people puzzled over how it will affect their choices in the voting booth.
Now help has arrived in the form of new maps created Oct. 30 and 31 by local expert Blake Esselstyn (and published in this article). The maps clarify the lines for state House and Senate races and help voters find exactly where they will be.
One of the more confusing points of the new districts is where three N.C. House lines come together near the center of Asheville at Interstate 240, said Esselstyn, a districts specialist who served as a technical expert for plaintiffs in an anti-gerrymandering case.
"It's interesting that the hotel going up where the 51 Grill used to be, the Shell station across Merrimon (Avenue), and Broadway's (a bar) are in three different districts," he said.
Why were districts redrawn?
The new districts follow a Sept. 3 ruling by a state three-judge panel that said several clusters of General Assembly districts were extreme partisan gerrymanders. The districts were created by Republicans who took control of the state legislature in 2010 and drew the maps to give themselves an unfair advantage, the court said.
Republicans complied with the panel's order to redraw the districts, and on Oct. 28 the judges approved those new maps.
Buncombe has three House districts: 114, 115 and 116. It has two Senate districts: 49 and 48, the latter of which also takes in Henderson and Transylvania counties.
Despite the redrawing, Common Cause — the plaintiff who brought the gerrymandering case to the panel — said it was not satisfied with some of the new House maps and might appeal. Buncombe's maps were not among those to which the group objected.
49th District candidates weigh in
Democrats running for Buncombe's main Senate seat, the 49th District, praised the change, saying it would better represent voters — though they weren't sure yet how it would affect them as candidates.
Terry Van Duyn holds that seat now; the Democrat is running for lieutenant gov
"Fixing the gerrymandered districts is really great news for North Carolina," said Travis Smith, a business software consultant and climate activist who has called for reforming the county's hotel tax.
Ben Scales, an Asheville attorney who has called for raising taxes on the wealthy to fund health care and education, said he has "friends and supporters all over the county. So, I will be comfortable with the new district."
Julie Mayfield, a city councilwoman and environmental nonprofit director, who is promoting protections for air and water as well as living wages, said she hadn't yet been able to analyze the changes in order to understand their impact.
More:
- How will Asheville, Buncombe County be affected by gerrymandering decision?
- Asheville in new congressional district? How gerrymandering decision could affect WNC
- Supreme Court: Gerrymandering in Asheville and N.C. can stay; 'Beyond the reach of courts'
No Republican candidate has emerged for the district that includes Asheville and leans heavily left. Buncombe County GOP Chair Jerry Green said he opposed changing the districts and that it would be nearly impossible to keep people from trying to garner some kind of advantage when they draw electoral lines.
"It's hard to take politics out of politics," Green said.
A different case also heard by the panel led the state judges to order the redrawing of the state's congressional maps. That came after a June 27 U.S. Supreme Court decision saying federal courts could not get involved in partisan redistricting cases — though state courts could.
The redrawn House maps for Buncombe will likely have an effect on districts for county commissioners. Six of the commissioners are elected from three districts whose lines mirror the state House districts. Unless the General Assembly passes a local law separating the lines, commissioners will find their districts shifted in the 2020 election.
The latest federal, state and county district maps will last only until 2021, however. That is when the newly elected General Assembly will redraw the lines, as prescribed in the Constitution.