February 2, 2001

Drawing new boundaries for congressional and legislative districts will be one of the hardest tasks the General Assembly will face this year. Besides carving new boundaries for all 170 House and Senate seats, the legislature also must redraw the state's congressional districts and do so in a way that will accommodate creation of the new 13th seat in Congress that North Carolina was awarded after the 2000 census.

(Of course, that's assuming that Utah, which thought it should have been awarded an additional seat in Congress, doesn't prevail in its lawsuit against the Census Bureau. State Attorney General Roy Cooper has petitioned to intervene in that lawsuit.)  

No one yet knows what the new legislative and congressional district maps will look. But observers say a couple of major issues will drive the debate. The first is politics, particularly in the House where Democrats cling to a 4-vote majority. House Speaker Jim Black (D-Mecklenburg) was forced to appoint a redistricting committee with an equal number of Democratic and Republican members.

But the biggest issue in redistricting may be geographical. In short, redistricting may be less a battle between Republicans and Democrats as one between urban and rural areas. That's because the state's population has grown by about 1.4 million people since the last redistricting a decade ago. The vast majority of these new residents live in the state's major metro areas. Many rural counties have seen little population grown and a few have even lost population.

The number of House and Senate seats will remain constant but the number of constituents each districts contains will change. For example, in 1990, when North Carolina had roughly 6.4 million residents, a House single-seat district included about 55,200 residents. This time, with just over 8 million residents, a single-seat House district will include about 67,100 residents.

In rural areas that have had little or no population growth, House districts will have to be drawn larger in order to include 67,100 people instead of 55,200. On the other hand, many urban districts whose populations have soared will have to be drawn smaller to include the required number of residents.

In short, rural North Carolina will lose several seats in the House and probably a few in the Senate. The Triad, the Triangle and Charlotte are expected to pick up several legislative seats.

There are some firm rules the General Assembly must follow in redistricting. Each district must be at least approximately equal in population to every other such district. For state House and State Senate districts, that means you take the percentage of population that the largest district deviates from the average district population size and add to that the percentage of population that the smallest district deviates from the average district population size, and those two percentages cannot add up to more than 10 percent. For congressional districts, the test of equality is much stricter. Multi-member legislative districts are measured from the average district population size times the number of persons to be elected from the district.

The federal Voting Rights Act and court cases decided under it forbid drawing districts that dilute minority voting strength. For the 40 counties in North Carolina covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, this means avoiding “retrogression,” or worsening the position of racial minorities with respect to the effective exercise of their voting rights. All 100 counties are subject to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which may require drawing districts which contain a majority minority population if three threshold conditions are present: 1) a minority group is large enough and lives closely enough together so that a relatively compact district in which the group constitutes a majority can be drawn, 2) the minority group has a history of political cohesiveness or voting as a group, and 3) the white majority has a history of voting as a group sufficient to allow it to usually defeat the minority group’s preferred candidate. The totality of circumstances, including a past history of discrimination that continues to affect the exercise of a minority group’s right to vote, must also be taken into consideration. These rules come from Thornburg v. Gingles, a landmark U.S. Supreme Court Voting Rights Act case arising from North Carolina in the 1980s.

The General Assembly and its redistricting plans are also subject to lawsuits if considerations of race impermissibly dominate the redistricting process. This may occur when non-compact majority-minority districts are drawn in such a manner that traditional redistricting principles, such as compactness, contiguity, respect for political subdivisions or communities of interest, are substantially ignored. Where the Voting Rights Act threshold factors exist, a majority-minority district may be justified if it is tailored to address the threshold factors. These rules come from Shaw v. Reno, another landmark U.S. Supreme Court case arising from North Carolina in the 1990s.

Redistricting starts with appointment of special committees in the House and Senate. These committees likely will hold public hearings to receive comment from the citizens. Once both houses of the General Assembly ratify a redistricting bill, that bill, unlike most bills, is not subject to the governor’s veto. The bill cannot be implemented, however, until it has received the approval of the U.S. Justice Department under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. 

Once a redistricting plan is enacted by the General Assembly and approved by the U.S. Justice Department, it remains in effect until the next federal census.

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State population growth facts
source: U.S. Census Bureau

North Carolina had a population of 7.2 million people in 1995 and  7.8 million people in 2000.  By 2025, it is projected to have 9.3 million residents. Over the three decades, North Carolina’s net gain ranks as the 7^th largest.  Its rate of population change, at 29.9 percent, ranks as the 16^th largest.

North Carolina is expected to gain 199,000 people through international migration between 1995 and 2025, placing it 18^th largest among the net international migration gains among the 50 states and District of Columbia.

North Carolina is projected to rank 3^rd largest among  the 50 states and District of Columbia in the number of persons gained through net internal migration between 1995 and 2025, gaining 1.3 million persons

During the 1995 to 2025 period, North Carolina could have 3 million births and 2.6 million deaths.  Among the 50 states and District of Columbia, the state could rank 11^th largest in births and 9^th largest in deaths.   

The number and proportion of North Carolina’s population that is aged 18 and over is expected to increase from 5.4 million or 75 percent in 1995 to 5.9 million or 75.5 percent in 2000.  This population is expected to increase to 7.4 million or 79.3 percent in 2025.

The percentage of North Carolina’s population classified as youth is projected to decrease from 27.7 percent in 1995 to 23.2 percent in 2025.

The proportion of North Carolina’s population classified as elderly is expected to increase from 12.5 percent in 1995 to 21.4 percent in 2025.  

By 2025, non-Hispanic whites would comprise 71 percent of North Carolina’s population, down from 74.4 percent in 1995. Non-Hispanic African Americans would comprise 23.8 percent of the state population in 2025, up from 22.1 percent in 1995. Non-Hispanic American Indians, Eskimos, and Aleut would comprise 1.2 percent of the 1995 state population and 1.1 percent of the 2025 state population. Persons of Hispanic origin, who may be of any race, is projected to increase from 1.4 percent of the 1995 state population to 2.2 percent of the 2025 state population.

The numeric change in North Carolina’s non-Hispanic white population from 1995 to 2025 ranks as the 4^th largest gain among the 50 states and District of Columbia.  In the same period, the non-Hispanic African American population change ranks as the 6^th largest gain.