WRAL:

Opponents of North Carolina’s new congressional districts filed a new legal challenge Monday — one that leans on a new interpretation of the U.S. Constitution in hopes of blocking the map from being used in future elections.

The new districts already face a racial gerrymandering challenge, filed a day after the map passed into law last week.

The newest challenge focuses on a new legal theory: An allegation that state lawmakers, in drawing the new map, violated the First Amendment rights of eastern North Carolina voters. The new complaint, made as part of an ongoin lawsuit over racial gerrymandering in the state, alleges that lawmakers in this newest version of the map retaliated against eastern North Carolina voters for supporting a Black Democrat in the 2024 elections.

And unless courts strike down the new map, the lawsuit argues, then this could become just the first step in what could be decades of retaliatory redistricting to follow, no matter which party is in charge, with maps redrawn potentially before every single election from here on out.

“It foreshadows a relentless game of whack-a-mole against voters, in which even a hint of dissent will cause the hammer to come down through targeted line-drawing against communities whose voters dare differ from the views of those in power,” the lawsuit says….