THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 18, 1996 TAG: 9607180312
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY DENNIS PATTERSON, ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RALEIGH LENGTH: 63 lines
North Carolina's congressional districts can be redrawn in time for the November elections and can be designed to include two districts favoring minorities, House Republican leaders say.
``There have already been two elections under a plan that is unconstitutional,'' Rep. Richard Morgan, R-Moore, said as he unveiled a House proposal to redraw all 12 congressional districts in time for this fall's elections.
The minority districts - one in northeastern North Carolina and the other running from Charlotte to Robeson County - would provide the same number of minority districts as the state has now.
``Democratic leaders have argued throughout this case that two geographically compact minority districts could not be created and that Republicans . . . opposed minority districts,'' said Morgan, the chairman of the House Rules Committee that presented the plan.
``The House plan shows that the Democratic leaders' arguments are false,'' he said.
The House proposal came as a panel of three federal judges scheduled a hearing for July 29 to decide whether the state should redraw its congressional districts in time for the November elections or wait until 1998 to come up with a new plan.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last month that the 12th congressional district, which snakes along Interstate 85 from Gastonia toDurham, amounted to unconstitutional ``racial gerrymandering.''
The district, along with the 1st congressional district, were redrawn in 1992 to favor minority candidates. Black Democrats won in both districts that year, becoming the first blacks elected to Congress from North Carolina this century.
The House proposal would create a more compact 1st District stretching along the Virginia border in northeast North Carolina. It would retain a majority of black voters. The second minority district combines black and American Indian voters to give them a majority of the vote.
A new 7th congressional district that includes the home of current 2nd District congressman David Funderburk would stretch from Harnett County to Wilmington.
The new 3rd District would cover much of the northern coast and coastal plain.
Republican-leaning areas of Wake County and surrounding counties would form a new 2nd District, while heavily Democratic areas of Wake and counties to the west would form a new 4th District. No incumbent lives in the proposed new 4th District.
A new 8th District would take away Democratic-leaning counties along the South Carolina border and replace them with more Republican areas like Moore, Davie, Davidson and Rowan counties.
The new 9th District would be most of Union, Mecklenburg and Gaston counties, excluding most of Charlotte.
Morgan said a public hearing on the proposal will be held next Wednesday.
State election officials and a Senate committee that will help decide the new districts already have asked that the new lines be redrawn next year to be used in the 1998 elections.
They argue that the election process is too far along this year to start over, especially since voters already have chosen candidates and those candidates have spent thousands of dollars on campaigns.
KEYWORDS: REDISTRICTING by CNB