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American Morning

High Court Upholds N.C. Congressional District

Aired April 18, 2001 - 11:35   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN ANCHOR: The case is Hunt v. Cromartie, involving North Carolina's meandering 12th Congressional district. Challenge over the years with charges its lines were drawn to create an African-American majority. Not so, says the high court today. CNN senior Washington correspondent Charles Bierbauer is there.

Charles, I'm sure they said a great deal more than that; flesh out the case and the decision for us.

CHARLES BIERBAUER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Jeanne, what the court said was that it is not constitutional to create the Congressional district lines solely and predominantly on the basis of race. But it is OK to draw those lines based on political objectives; in this case, to create a Democratic majority in North Carolina's 12th district.

As you suggest, the 12th district in North Carolina is a meandering one, traveling along Interstate 85 to create sort of a snake-like -- in fact, the court in its opinion by Justice Stephen Breyer says this is an unusually shaped district that split counties and cities, and in particular, placed almost all heavily Democratic registered, predominantly African-American voting precincts, inside the district.

But what the justices found was that this is not surprising that their African-Americans tend to vote Democratic, this district only has a 47 percent black population, while it is 60 percent Democratic. And the court said that is OK, rejecting -- actually, overruling a lower court which had responded to white voters in North Carolina, and ruling in favor of the North Carolina governor in this case and the state legislature, saying this redistricting now is OK.

Again, very simply the guidelines: racial predominance, not constitutional; political lines, that's OK -- Jeanne.

MESERVE: Charles, states have already received data from the Census department from the 2000 Census that will be used in restricting; how will this decision affect that process?

BIERBAUER: Well, here is why it is critical. This was the fourth time that the Supreme Court had heard this particular case arising out of the 1990 Census. As you point out, the 2000 Census data is now in hand. This sets a clear guideline for the states that want to redistrict. In fact, former Solicitor General Walter Dellinger (ph) who argued the case on behalf of the state of North Carolina says that this is now a huge green light for the state redistricting to go ahead.

State legislatures were in fact been waiting for this opinion to give them those kind of guidelines as to what would be acceptable out of the next round of drawing those lines for voting guidelines in the next elections -- Jeanne.

MESERVE: Charles Bierbauer at the Court. And we know, again, another 5-4 decision from the U.S. Supreme Court today.

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