With one request denied, North Carolina leaders are now pleading with the U.S. Supreme Court to pause enforcement of a ruling that declared the 1st and 12th congressional districts racially gerrymandered.

A three-judge panel in North Carolina’s Middle District ordered the 1st and 12th congressional districts be redrawn by Feb. 19 because of gerrymandering in 2011 by state legislators. The ruling gave North Carolina two weeks to come up with new maps and halted congressional elections. With elections one month away and absentee voting underway, state officials hoped to halt enforcement until after 2016 elections, and asked the Middle District Court for a stay.

Rowan County’s local legislators called the initial ruling “short-sighted” and said judges demonstrated a “lack of understanding” about North Carolina elections.

The request to hold off on enforcement was denied Tuesday. If a similar request submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court also gets denied, North Carolina legislators would have just over a week to redraw the 1st and 12th congressional districts, potentially affecting the entire state’s representation in the U.S. House. House Speaker Tim Moore has tentatively scheduled a special session for Monday and Tuesday.  Meanwhile, officials are encouraging voters to continue submitting and filling out absentee ballots as usual.

In addition to the request to delay enforcement, North Carolina leaders have also appealed the lower court’s decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Any decision poses significant potential for Rowan County and surrounding areas to see a shake-up in congressional representation. The 12th Congressional District, represented by U.S. Rep. Alma Adams, snakes through the center of Rowan County. The district includes East Spencer, Spencer and most of Salisbury. It misses Granite Quarry and curves around around China Grove, Landis and Kannapolis.

Rowan County’s State House members say the court-decided timeline is hardly enough to overhaul North Carolina’s congressional maps.

“I think that the three-judge panel’s decision demonstrates a severe lack of understanding of North Carolina’s elections,” said Rep. Harry Warren, R-77. “It would be problematic and nearly impossible to redraw maps in a two-week period.”

Warren said state legislators will be tasked with redrawing more than simply the 12th and 1st congressional districts.

“Each district touches a number of surrounding districts,” Warren said. “If you’re adding precincts or deleting them, you’ve got to add precincts or delete precincts from a neighboring district. Then you’re going to affect the neighboring district and possibly the neighboring district’s neighboring district. It’s like a domino effect.”

Rep. Carl Ford, R-76, noted that thousands of absentee ballots have already been distributed statewide. Some have already been completed and turned in. Early voting begins March 3.

“Good grief,” Ford said. “Surely there is a judge somewhere or someone that will say, ‘We made a mistake, and we’re going to have to wait until later.'”

At a minimum, Ford said it would be beneficial to postpone redrawing districts until after the March 15 party primaries. In the first request to delay enforcement, attorneys for the state wrote that halting all elections until new maps are drawn “is likely to cause significant voter confusion and irreparable harm to the citizens of North Carolina and the elections process that is already underway.”

In response to the request, Judge William Osteen Jr. called the plea vague.

“What is clear is that the deprivation of a fundamental right, such as limiting the right to vote in a manner that violates the Equal Protection Clause, constitutes irreparable harm,” Osteen wrote.

Ford said that the 12th Congressional District has always been shaped strangely. Its strange shape dates back to before Republicans took control of both the State Senate and State House.

“It’s gerrymandered and it’s always been,” Ford said. “The Democrats were in control for 140 years. The Republicans drew the maps one time and it’s a problem.”

In fact, the 12th District has been litigated more than once since the state re-established it in 1992 after gaining a U.S. House seat following the 1990 Census.

Federal judges in Friday’s ruling noted in the most recent redrawing an increase in the district’s black voting age population from about 44 percent to nearly 51 percent. Critics have argued the GOP majority in Raleigh sought to minimize the impact of African-American voters by further concentrating them into majority-minority districts.

Ford and Warren counter that the current congressional district maps were approved by the U.S. Department of Justice.

If legislators are ordered to follow the court’s ruling, Warren said the state should open another filing period. A person who filed for one congressional race might be redrawn into another district that he or she feels is winnable, Warren said.

“It’s just an incredibly short-sighted decision to think that you could redraw the congressional districts in such a short period of time,” he said

Regardless of which district the person lives in, North Carolina residents can run for any of the state’s seats in the U.S. House.

Contact reporter Josh Bergeron at 704-797-4246.