Former NC justice offers a way to outlaw gerrymandering. Will courts listen? | Opinion

Bob Orr thinks he has found a way to end gerrymandering.

The problem is getting people – especially judges – to listen. “It has been very difficult to get anybody to pay attention,” the former North Carolina Supreme Court Justice told me.

Given that Texas outrageously wants to redraw its congressional districts mid-decade to gain five GOP seats in the 2026 election, Orr thinks there ought to be interest in a way to ban politicians from effectively predetermining the results of elections.

“With all this stuff going on in Texas and around the country and everyone talking about fair elections, I think we actually have raised this issue,” he said.

Orr put his idea into a lawsuit. Rather than making the familiar argument that gerrymandered district maps do not reflect the political balance in a state, Orr is focused on what he contends is the government’s misbehavior in producing such maps.

The lawsuit doesn’t seek to have statewide district maps tossed. It zeroes in on three North Carolina congressional districts and two legislative districts and shows how the General Assembly put “its thumb on the scale” to unfairly change the political weight of the districts.

For Orr, the process of moving groups of voters in and out of districts based on their voting patterns is the equivalent to stuffing the ballot box or tossing legitimate votes, and it should be illegal.

Orr’s appeal argues that voters have a right to have an “election process free from the government’s purposeful action to influence or pre-determine the outcome.”

Fair elections, Orr contends, should require that election districts be drawn without using partisan data. “It should be a neutral process, not a politically intentional process,” he said.

It’s a new way of looking at a long-disputed practice and one that Orr thinks has a solid legal foundation. “I’ve had enough smart lawyers look at the theory and say, ‘I agree with you,’ ” he said.

Judges, however, are not saying that. Indeed, they say they’re not in position to say anything.

At the trial court level, a panel of Superior Court judges dismissed the case by falling back on what the U.S. Supreme Court said in another North Carolina case, Rucho v. Common Cause. The judges said gerrymandering is a “political issue” that should be decided by elected officials. It is not a matter for courts to rule on, they said.

Orr appealed the dismissal and his case is on the N.C. Court of Appeals calendar this week, but the three Republican judges who are considering it — Julee Flood, Christopher Freeman and Donna Stroud — did not ask to hear oral arguments. That suggests they’ll uphold the lower court’s ruling.

Even if he can’t prevail, Orr was hopeful his lawsuit would provoke more discussion in the media and attract amicus briefs. “I’m not saying it would move the outcome, but it forces the judges to be more careful in what they say,” he said.

Orr doesn’t expect the appeals court to agree with him. He just wants his case sent back to the lower court for trial “where we can put up evidence that the government rigged the election. Just give me a chance to make the case.”

That Orr’s chances of getting a hearing are long says a lot about how broken both the political and judicial system are when it comes to gerrymandering.

Polls show the public is strongly opposed to politicians picking their voters. Yet even a former state Supreme Court justice – and a former Republican – can’t get a hearing on how to stop a practice that undermines democracy and unfairly distributes political power.

Ned Barnett is an opinion editor and writer for McClatchy and the News & Observer of Raleigh. He can be reached at 919-404-7583, or nbarnett@newsobserver.com

This story was originally published August 14, 2025 at 1:17 PM with the headline "Former NC justice offers a way to outlaw gerrymandering. Will courts listen? | Opinion."