NC Democrats dismiss gerrymandering lawsuit following Supreme Court voting rights ruling

North Carolina Democrats have dismissed a gerrymandering lawsuit challenging the state’s Republican-drawn state Senate map in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision weakening the Voting Rights Act, according to the Raleigh News & Observer.

Rep. Rodney Pierce of Halifax County and a co-plaintiff filed notice on May 11 that they were voluntarily dismissing the suit, which had accused the legislature of diluting the voting power of Black residents in northeastern North Carolina, the News & Observer reported.

“The Supreme Court effectively made the (Voting Rights Act) a meaningless law with no teeth,” Pierce said in a statement. “Because of that decision, there is no longer a path open to us to protect the voting rights of Black citizens in my part of the state, so we have dismissed the suit.”

The lawsuit challenged North Carolina’s 2023 state Senate redistricting plan — not the congressional map — the News & Observer reported. Last fall, a federal judge ruled against Pierce, writing that he declined to direct the legislature to “engage in the odious practice of sorting voters by race in order to create a majority-Black Senate district.” Pierce had appealed that ruling to the Fourth Circuit but has now opted to abandon the case entirely.

The dismissal follows last month’s Supreme Court decision striking down Louisiana’s congressional map as a racial gerrymander, a ruling whose dissent, written by Justice Elena Kagan, warned that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act was now “all but a dead letter,” the News & Observer reported. Since the ruling, Republican-led states including Tennessee have moved to redraw congressional maps that eliminate Democrat-leaning majority-minority districts.