Following up on this post about today’s state court ruling, North Carolina Republicans have thrown in the towel:
Why aren’t the Republicans continuing to fight this, given the unrelenting path they’ve taken before? Here are a few possibilities:
- They know they will lose in the Democratic-dominated state supreme court, and there is no viable path to federal court review.
- They would rather NOT get a holding from the state Supreme Court (this was a three-judge trial court ruling), which would have greater precedential value.
- They hope they would have a better chance to have their “nonpartisan” map accepted by the Supreme Court if they throw in the towel (that is, they are trying to avoid a worse court-drawn map).
- They will use this ruling to run against the Supreme Court and try for a state constitutional amendment to give them the right to engage in partisan gerrymandering after the 2020 census.