WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled that Republicans in North Carolina unlawfully took race into consideration when drawing congressional district boundaries, concentrating black voters in an improper bid to diminish their overall political clout. The justices upheld a lower court's February 2016 ruling that threw out two majority-black U.S. House of Representatives districts because Republican lawmakers improperly used race as a factor when redrawing the legislative map after the 2010 census. The court was unanimous on upholding the ruling on one of the districts and split 5-3 on the other, with three conservatives dissenting. "The North Carolina Republican legislature tried to rig congressional elections by drawing unconstitutional districts that discriminated against African-Americans and that's wrong," North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat took office in January, said in a statement. The decision came in one of a number of lawsuits accusing Republicans of taking steps at the state level to disenfranchise black and other minority voters who tend to back Democratic candidates. Critics accused Republicans of cramming black voters into what the NAACP civil rights group called "apartheid voting districts" to diminish their voting power and make surrounding districts more white and more likely to support Republicans. Both districts are held by the Democrats. Of North Carolina's 13 representatives in the U.S. House, 10 are Republican. https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-supreme-court-tosses-republican-drawn-districts-north-141528298.html
The ruling was unanimous. 5 so-called conservative justices and 4 so-called liberals. EDIT: Gorsuch didn't participate. But here's your hero: Conservative Clarence Thomas, the court's only black justice, joined the court's majority in both parts of the ruling.
Gorsuch wasn't on the Court to hear arguments, so didn't participate in the decision. Now the North Carolina legislature has to go back and create a new redistricting plan.
