WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (Reuters) - A U.S. federal court on Tuesday set a March 15 deadline for North Carolina state lawmakers to redraw legislative districts found to be racially “gerrymandered,” and ordered a new round of elections by next November for the 28 seats at stake.

In August, the same special three-judge panel ruled that nine state Senate districts and 19 state House districts, as carved out in a plan adopted by the Republican-controlled legislature in 2011, were unconstitutional.

The panel had told North Carolina’s legislature to start revamping its political maps immediately, but left the existing boundaries intact for the Nov. 8 state elections, because of time constraints.

“While special elections have costs, those costs pale in comparison to the injury caused by allowing citizens to continue to be represented by legislators elected pursuant to a racial gerrymander,” the panel wrote in its seven-page order on Tuesday.

North Carolina has already appealed the August ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, which has yet to act. Republicans also vowed to appeal Tuesday’s ruling, handed down by two U.S. district judges and one circuit judge.

The ruling is a “politically motivated” abuse of judicial authority, said state Senator Bob Rucho and Representative David Lewis, the Republican chairmen of the House and Senate redistricting committees.

If upheld, the court order “is a gross overreach that blatantly disregards the constitutional guarantee for voters to duly elect their legislators to biennial terms,” they said.

Last year, the Southern Coalition for Social Justice challenged North Carolina’s latest political maps, saying legislative district lines were drawn in 2011 so as to dilute the state’s black vote and give Republicans an advantage.

The three-judge panel that heard the case agreed, and Tuesday’s order, essentially an extension of its August opinion, was hailed by the North Carolina Democratic Party.

A separate three-judge U.S. court panel ruled in a similar case a week ago that state assembly districts in Wisconsin, as redrawn by its Republican-led legislature, were unconstitutionally gerrymandered.

Tuesday’s North Carolina ruling sets a deadline of March 15 for newly elected legislators to approve a redistricting plan that passes constitutional muster.

It also requires the state to hold special primary and general elections in the late summer and fall of 2017 to fill those 28 House and Senate seats.

Moreover, state lawmakers elected to any of the disputed General Assembly seats in 2016 will serve for just one year, instead of the normal two, the court ruled, a limit set for those elected next fall as well. </s> WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (Reuters) - A three-judge federal panel ordered congressional districts in North Carolina to be redrawn ahead of the 2018 elections, ruling on Tuesday that the current Republican-drawn map was illegal and unconstitutionally partisan.

The judges said the state legislator responsible for the 2016 map had said he drew it to give Republican candidates an advantage.

“But that is not a choice the Constitution allows legislative map drawers to make,” the court said.

Ralph Hise, North Carolina’s state Senate Redistricting Chairman, said through a spokeswoman that lawmakers would appeal.

Democrats and the groups that brought the suit applauded the ruling.

“Today’s ruling is a major victory for North Carolina and people across the state whose voices were silenced by Republicans’ unconstitutional attempts to rig the system to their partisan advantage,” North Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Wayne Goodwin said in a statement.

While prior court decisions had ruled against unconstitutional racial gerrymandering in North Carolina, Common Cause - one of the public-interest groups that filed the lawsuit - said the ruling marked the first time a court had struck down partisan gerrymandering in the state.

The U.S. Supreme Court last June upheld a lower court’s ruling that Republican lawmakers in North Carolina had mapped state legislative districts in a way that diluted the clout of black voters.

The judges gave the state until Jan. 29 to file a proposed remedial plan with the court. </s> RALEIGH, N.C. -- Federal judges ruled Tuesday that North Carolina's congressional district map drawn by legislative Republicans is illegally gerrymandered because of excessive partisanship that gave the GOP a rock-solid advantage for most seats and must quickly be redone.

The ruling marks the second time this decade that the GOP's congressional boundaries in the state have been thrown out by a three-judge panel. In 2016, another panel tossed out two majority black congressional districts initially drawn in 2011, saying there was no justification for using race as the predominant factor in forming them. The redrawn map was the basis for a new round of lawsuits.

The latest lawsuit -- filed by election advocacy groups and Democrats -- said the replacement for the racial gerrymander also contained unlawful partisan gerrymanders. Those who sued argued that Republican legislators went too far when they followed criteria designed to retain the party's 10-3 majority in the state delegation.

Tuesday's ruling marks the first time a congressional plan was struck down on partisan gerrymandering claims, according to Allison Riggs, an attorney representing the League of Women Voters of North Carolina and other plaintiffs.

All three judges agreed the "invidious partisanship" in the plan violated the Constitution's equal protection provision and direction to the state to hold congressional elections because it took the power to elect their representatives away from the people.

"We find that the General Assembly drew and enacted the 2016 plan with intent to subordinate the interests of non-Republican voters and entrench Republican control of North Carolina's congressional delegation," U.S. Circuit Court Judge Jim Wynn wrote in the majority opinion. Wynn added that the evidence shows the "plan achieved the General Assembly's discriminatory partisan objective."

The judges ordered the General Assembly to approve another set of districts by Jan. 24. Candidate filing for the November congressional elections begins Feb. 12, with primaries set for early May. A majority of the judges also agreed the panel would hire a redistricting expert to draw replacement boundaries if the legislature won't.

Through a spokeswoman, Senate Redistricting Committee Chairman Ralph Hise of Mitchell County said lawmakers plan to appeal. There's a good chance Republicans will try to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to block the ruling's enforcement until the justices rule in a similar case from Wisconsin that they heard in the fall. That case involves legislative districts.

The districts "are fair and were drawn following all known rules, and existing case law," state Republican Party Executive Director Dallas Woodhouse said in a news release.

But Bob Phillips with Common Cause, which with other voters filed a lawsuit tried with the League of Women Voters' case, said "politicians will no longer be allowed to use partisan gerrymandering in order to shield themselves from accountability to the public" if the ruling stands.

At the time of the 2016 debate, according to the order, House redistricting chief Rep. David Lewis attempted to justify the criteria by saying "I think electing Republicans is better than electing Democrats. So I drew this map to help foster what I think is better for the country."

Wynn and U.S. District Judge Earl Britt agreed that the map also violated the First Amendment rights of Democrats in each district where their favored candidate had little chance to win, burdening their freedom of speech and of association. In a separate opinion, District Judge William Osteen wrote that those who sued had failed to prove those rights had been violated.

During a trial in October in Greensboro, attorneys for Republican mapmakers argued that the plaintiffs had blown the partisanship factor out of proportion, saying aspects like incumbent protection and district compactness were considered. But Wynn, in his 191-page opinion, gave lots of credence to the number-crunching of math and political science experts who testified that the only explanation for the 2016 map was partisanship.

Wynn is on a separate three-judge panel weighing whether to accept changes to two dozen state House and Senate districts completed by a special master. Lawmakers redrew legislative maps last August after boundaries originally drawn in 2011 were struck down as racial gerrymanders, but the judges were worried unconstitutional lines remain.

Woodhouse focused his critique on Wynn, a former North Carolina state judge nominated to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals by President Barack Obama. Wynn, according to Woodhouse is "waging a personal, partisan war on North Carolina Republican voters." Osteen was nominated by President George W. Bush while President Jimmy Carter chose Britt.
A federal judge orders the state of North Carolina to redraw its legislative districts citing gerrymandering.