Republicans release proposed state legislative maps

The proposed NC Senate districts map.

The proposed NC House districts map.

Staff and wire report

RALEIGH — Republican legislators on Tuesday proposed General Assembly districts for the next decade that would give more political influence to areas in and around Raleigh and Charlotte and appear to help retain new GOP majorities while taking swipes at longtime Democratic incumbents.

A draft of state House districts would place former House Speaker Joe Hackney, D-Orange, and Minority Whips Rick Glazier of Cumberland County and Deborah Ross of Wake County each into districts with Democratic colleagues in their own counties, a Republican mapmaker confirmed Tuesday night. If the maps are approved, the lawmakers would be forced to run against another incumbent in primaries next year or leave the Legislature.

The boundaries for the 50 Senate seats and 120 House seats are changing to reflect a population increase of 1.5 million people in the state since 2000. They also reflect the power Republicans have since winning a majority in the chamber last fall for the first time in 140 years.

Locally, Rowan County would be split between two state Senate districts.

Republican Sen. Andrew Brock would continue to represent all of Davie County and most of Rowan. His 34th District, currently composed of those two whole counties, also would stretch into northern and eastern Iredell County.

N.C. Sen. William Purcell, a Democrat who currently represents Anson, Richmond, Scotland and Stanly counties, would see his 25th District expanded into southeastern Rowan County.

Brock said it can be good for a county to be represented by two different senators, because they can work together to fight for local issues.

“If Purcell is representing that area, he’s inheriting a great group of people that live in that part of Rowan County,” he said.

Still, Brock said he wishes the two whole counties could have been kept together. The redistricting committees — Brock is vice chairman of the one in the Senate — had to create districts of roughly equal size based on Census 2010 population numbers.

“If there were a few hundred more people in the district, I think we would have been the only district to stay the same,” he said. “But Davie and Rowan counties did not grow as fast as others in the state ... especially compared to Mecklenburg and Wake counties.”

In state House, Rowan County would share one of its two state representatives with Cabarrus County and see the other gain ground at home.

Rep. Fred Steen would pick up a large northeastern portion of Cabarrus in the 76th district under the proposal. He also would lose parts of Rowan to the 77th district.

That district, represented by Rep. Harry Warren, would extend fully down Rowan County’s western border and reach further into the central part of the county.

Warren said Tuesday he is excited to represent more people in the county. The 77th district would pick up more GOP-dominated areas, he said, to balance its current Democratic leaning.

“I think this makes this a fairer district as far as the political demographic,” he said. “It may weight it little more to Republican side, but ... the balance of power still lies in voter turnout.”

Warren said he doesn’t think splitting the 76th district between two counties will hurt Steen’s Rowan constituents.

Steen did not return a phone call from the Post on Tuesday evening.

Statewide, Republicans didn’t sidestep district pairings of their own lawmakers. Current Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, and Sen. Don Vaughan, D-Guilford, would be in the same two-county district whose voting patterns would appear to favor Berger. House Speaker Pro Tempore Dale Folwell also would live in the same district as fellow Forsyth County GOP Rep. Larry Brown, a House member said.

“A lot of Republican members are being caught up in the same population shifts that have driven the lion’s share of this,” said Rep. Nelson Dollar, R-Wake, co-chairman of the House Redistricting Committee. Other so-called “double bunking” occurred because lawmakers live close to each other, he said.

All told, 14 pairs of House members and five pairs of senators from both parties could potentially face each other in a primary or general election in 2012, Republicans said.

The law requires each Senate and House district to be nearly equal in population — Senate districts of roughly 191,000 people and House districts of about 79,500 people. So mapmakers had to shift district lines to reflect population patterns converging on the Piedmont.

Wake County had a 43 percent population increase over the past decade. It would be represented by two more House members to total 11 and an additional senator, making five.

Mecklenburg County would remain at five senators but increase the number of House members representing it from 10 to 12. Johnston County, adjoining Raleigh, would be represented by a second senator and third House member.

Counties that didn’t grow as fast as the state average lost representation. Guilford in the Piedmont and Haywood in the mountains would have one fewer senator under the proposed plan. Cumberland County would drop from five House districts to four.

Election data of recent statewide races presented with the maps is often an indicator of how districts would perform in future elections. It put Republicans in an improved situation to keep control of the Senate and House.

Democrats complain Republican mapmakers go too far in amassing a high percentage of black registered voters in certain, blotched-shaped districts to isolate them and make surrounding districts benefit GOP candidates more. A new state Senate district, for example, would combine Hoke County with portions of Cumberland County with an outline that resembles a bird’s talon.

“The grotesque shapes of some of these districts are absolutely repulsive,” said Sen. Dan Blue, D-Wake. “They’re shaped that way without any forceful legal reason for it ... other than maximizing the Republican probabilities of winning districts.”

Hackney, now the minority leader, released a statement that said the House proposal “cynically reflects a time decades ago when our state had very little African-American representation and when the racial divide in politics was more the norm than the exception.”

The General Assembly is expected to approve legislative and congressional maps by July 28. A session designed to vote on the districts was scheduled to begin today. A public hearing on the General Assembly district proposal was set for next Monday. Litigation may lie ahead.

The senior chairmen of the redistricting committees released maps last month for more than 30 state House and Senate seats they say complied with the law by allowing black voters to elect favored candidates. In a statement, Sen. Bob Rucho, R-Mecklenburg and Rep. David Lewis, R-Harnett, said they adjusted some of those districts in response to comments received in public hearings.

“Our primary goal is to propose maps that will survive any possible legal challenge,” the statement said.

The four other pairs of Senate incumbents who would be placed in the same districts are Republican Pete Brunstetter and Democrat Linda Garrou in Forsyth County; Democrats Ellie Kinnaird and Bob Atwater in Chatham and Orange counties; Republicans Jerry Tillman and Harris Blake in Moore County and portions of Randolph County; and Republicans Debbie Clary and Warren Daniel in Burke and Cleveland counties. Clary already has announced she’s leaving the Senate this year.