October 14, 2025 • 30 mins
Tune in here to this Tuesday's edition of Breaking With Brett Jensen!
Filling in for Breaking Brett Jensen is Nick Craig from The Carolina News Hour to kick the show off by talking about redistricting and its national political implications. With lawmakers set to return to Raleigh on October 20th, Craig outlined the announcement from House Speaker Destin Hall and Senate Leader Phil Berger that the North Carolina General Assembly will redraw congressional maps—part of a larger, nationwide redistricting battle. He traced how this trend started with Democrat-led states like Illinois and California before Republican states like Texas followed suit, triggering a tit-for-tat response. Craig argued that rather than offering better ideas to win elections, Democrats are trying to reshape electoral boundaries to gain advantage. He emphasized the partisan nature of redistricting across the country, pushing back on accusations of gerrymandering being exclusive to Republicans.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
It's freaking with Brett Jensen, Newstock eleven, ten ninety nine
to three WBT. As you can obviously tell, I am
not Brett Jensen. My name is Nick Craig. I host
the Carolina Journal News Hour, which you can hear weekday mornings,
well thirteen hours Agost five to six am right here
on WBT. I also host the Nick Craig Show podcast,
available in all of your favorite podcast apps. So we've
(00:29):
got a busy hour ahead, a lot to get into
North Carolina news. About twenty four hours or so ago,
a major announcement made here in North Carolina coming from
the leaders of the General Assembly Speaker House Speaker Dustin Hall,
the Republican from Caldwell County, and the Senate leader in
(00:49):
Phil Berger, the Republican out of Rockingham County, that next week,
on October the twentieth, when lawmakers are back in Raleigh,
they will in fact be jumping into the national debate
that is redistricting. So before we get into some of
the North Carolina details, and we're going to catch up
with doctor Andy Jackson from the John Locke Foundation coming
(01:12):
up a little bit later on in the show.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Here, just a.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Little bit, let's look at why we are in the
position that we are now where redistricting is this major
political discussion that's going on. And you have to go
back to earlier this year, as Democrats continue to lick
their wounds from the twenty twenty four election, they were
trying to figure out, well, how can we win, how
(01:37):
can we take back control of the United States House
in twenty twenty six. And to me, the simple solution,
and the simple answer to that question is well, have
better ideas than the Republicans, have better policies, have better platforms,
have better issues, have better ideas than the opposition. If you,
in fact have that, then you are likely to prevail
(01:58):
in an election. That would be, to me, the logical
way to handle this. However, those on the political f
determined that we're not going to take that logical approach,
and they decided they were going to start the discussion
about redrawing congressional maps in a variety of different states.
The two that you originally saw a commentary from were
(02:21):
Minnesota and Illinois. Illinois, by the way, has some of
the most jerry mandered political maps in United States history.
Don't believe me, just do a quick Google search and
take a look at what the congressional maps look like
in the state of Illinois, and it looks like you
threw up on a piece of paper.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
The lines are all over the place. So you had.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
States like Illinois, which by the way, I think has
ten to eleven Democrat representatives to just two or three
Republicans trying to figure out, okay, how can we edge
out another Democrat seed in here? And you had similar
discussions and conversations taking place in Minnesota as well. So
and Donald Trump obviously got a little wind as to
(03:02):
what was going on, maybe reading a little bit of
the online commentary, getting some information from his advisors in
the Oval Office, and he said, okay, well, if states
like Illinois and Minnesota are going to begin the discussions
about redrawing congressional maps ahead of the midterm elections, two
can play at that game.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
To can tango here.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
So he reached out to his colleagues in the great
state of Texas and said, hey, guys, what's going on?
Any interest in redrawing some maps. So by mid July
of this year, you had Texas Governor and Greg Abbott
call a special session of the Texas Legislature to deal
with redistricting. Talking about some of the issues ongoing throughout
(03:49):
the rest of the nation, some of the concerns of redistricting,
redistrict maps, redrawn maps, and some other states, Greg Abbott said, Okay,
let's take a look, let's see if we can do
anything here. And so that's exactly what Texas did. And
of course you'll remember in the month of it was
either late July or early August, you had Democrats fleeing
(04:11):
the state of Texas to make sure that there was
not a quorum available to have a vote, and they
fled to states like Illinois. You had literally over a
dozen Democrat lawmakers in the state of Texas that were
acting as if they were asylum seekers in the state
of Illinois, so that the Texas legislature could not conduct
(04:33):
its business. It's a one heck of a way to govern,
I guess. And then immediately preceding the ongoings in Texas,
you had Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, say okay, well,
if this is what we're going to do, let's do it.
And now there's a ballot proposition on the ballot for
California voters to temporarily suspend an independent redistricting commission that
(04:58):
they've got literally have a constitutional I don't even know
if it's a constitution month. So they have all these
weird prop votes in California. If you've ever seen a
picture online of what a California ballot looks like, there'd
be like seventeen prop proposition votes on a ballot. So
one of the prop votes in the upcoming election in
California this year is to redraw their maps, to temporarily
(05:24):
suspend the rules in the state of California and in
suspend its independent redistricting Commission and allow the state legislature
to enact new maps just before the twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Six general election or midterm elections, I should say. So
that's a little.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Summary of everything that's been kind of going on behind
the scenes over the last couple of months since Texas
made their move in California responded back. You've seen a
variety of other Republican and Democrat states jump into the
fray and say, hey, if Democrat states are going to redraw,
we're going to redraw. Democrats states doing the same thing, saying, well,
Republican states are going to redraw, So are we approaching
(06:06):
some level of I guess a mutual destruction at this point.
So yesterday we got a statement from House Speaker Deston Hall,
again the Republican from Caldwell County. It reads as follows,
President Trump earned a clear mandate from voters of North
Carolina in the rest of the country, and we intend
to defend it by drawing an additional Republican congressional seat.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Our state.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Won't stand by while Democrats like Gavin Newsom redraw districts
to aid in their effort to obtain a majority in
the US House. We will not allow them to undermine
the will of voters and President Trump's agenda. That was
the immediate commentary from House Speaker Deston Hall.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Phil Berger, his counterpart over.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
In the North Carolina Senate, also released a statement yesterday
afternoon and said, in part, President Trump delivered countless victories
during his first term in office, and nine months into
his second, he continues to achieve unprecedented wins. We are
doing everything that we can to protect President Trump's agenda,
which means safeguarding Republican control of Congress, picking off where
(07:12):
Texas left off. We will hold votes in our October session,
which I'll note starts Monday, October the twentieth to redraw
North Carolina's congressional maps to ensure that Gavin Newsom doesn't
decide the congressional majority. And so as we look at
the North Carolina Legislator next week, the word and the
(07:35):
term redistricting, you'll probably also hear one of my other
favorite political words, jerry mandering, especially partisan jerry mandering. That's
one of my favorites. It's always really rubbed me the
wrong way. You hear predominantly those on the left say, oh, well,
Republicans are taking place in partisan jerry mandering. Yet you
(07:57):
look at whose responsibility is to draw maps in the
vast majority of the states across the US, it is
the partisan legislature. Meaning, if you've got Republicans in charge,
guess what, folks, they draw maps that favor Republicans. If
you've got Democrats in charge, like you do in the
(08:18):
state of Illinois, they draw maps that favor Democrats. So
it's not partisan jerrymandering when Democrats draw seats to help democrats,
but it is partisan jerrymandering and a threat to our democracy.
When Republicans draw maps that help republicans, it is inherently
(08:40):
a very political topic. As in most states, not all,
but most like here in North Carolina, it is the legislature.
Those individuals are incredibly partisan. You have a split in
the General Assembly Republicans and Democrats. Republicans hold the majority.
It is by definition a very partisan thing that takes place,
(09:02):
and so they are going to do what they believe
that the voter sent them to Raleigh to do, which
is redraw maps. We've got a lot more to get
into on this topic. Andy Jackson from the John Locke
Foundation will join us coming up here in just a
little bit. Welcome back to Breaking with Brent Jensen, Newstock eleven, ten,
(09:35):
ninety nine three WBT. I'm Nick Craig, I host the
Carolina Journal News Hour and the Nick Craig Show podcast
in for Bretta this evening. You can textra call be
part of the program. Seven oh four five seven h
eleven ten. As we continued the discussion of what is
said to be a very busy week in the North
Carolina legislature next week, the announcement from not only the
(09:56):
leader of the North Carolina House, but the North Carolina
Senate as well that Republicans, who do hold a supermajority
in the Senate, a simple majority will actually just one
vote shy of a supermajority in the House that they
will in fact take place or be taking up the
issue of redistricting. Next week, we'll talk to doctor Andy
(10:17):
Jackson from the John Locke Foundation coming up here after
the bottom of the hour. And so this whole discussion,
as I talked about in the first segment, revolves around
the fact that Democrats don't have any ideas, don't have
any better policies than those that are being proposed by
the Republicans, and they are terrified that they're not going
(10:39):
to win the midterm elections, which, by the way, from
a purely historical standpoint, should be a slam dunk for them.
The party that is in charge in this case, it
is the GOP. You've got a Republican president, a Republican
majority in the Senate, a Republican majority in the House.
The party that is in charge always gets hammered during
(11:01):
a midterm election. It has been that way forever. So
this should be a lay up, a slam dunk for
those on the Democrats side of the eye. It should
not be a big issue for them to gain a
majority in the House. And I think what is the
I don't even know what the number is right now.
It's like three or four votes that Republicans have the
(11:22):
majority with. It's very, very slim. They're not going to
flip the Senate. If you look at the Senate races
and Senate seats that are up in twenty twenty six,
including the one here in North Carolina in which Senator
Tom Tillis is retiring, you're going to see likely a
general election battle between Roy Cooper, the former Democrat governor,
and the former head of the North Carolina Republican Party
(11:44):
are in cea chairman Michael Wattley, still a primary March,
but that's likely who the general election candidates are going
to be. Even if Democrats are successful here in North Carolina,
they would have to flip an incredible amount of seats
for them to take a majority in the Senate. That's
not going to happen. Now, never say never politics. Anybody
(12:05):
that in politics that says, oh, there's a zero percent
chance of that happening has not been involved in the
process long enough. But the math just does not look
very good for the United States Senate. So then of
course you turn your attention to the House, and unlike
the Senate, where you just elect two senators from each state,
there's no maps or lines outside of physical boundaries and
(12:28):
jurisdictions of each state. You then look at the House
of Representatives, where you've got districts throughout all of the
states that are drawn in most cases by a state legislature.
Here in North Carolina, it is in fact the responsibility
according to the state constitution, that the General Assembly is
(12:48):
in fact in charge of redrawing maps. It is the
same way in Texas. In the state of California, it
is not. There's an independent redistricting commission. However, there is
a prop proposition on the ballot special election this year
that is asking Californians to essentially dissolve that independent commission
(13:09):
and have the California legislature, which as you can imagine,
is as deep blue as it gets, put them in
charge of redrawing the maps. And so this overall discussion
over redrawing maps jerry mandering is a term that you've
probably heard from time to time.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
This is nothing new when.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
You look even just at North Carolina. The discussion of
redrawing maps and redistricting and jerry mandering and lawsuits. It's
been going on for like thirty or forty years. It
is nothing new. There have been I don't know if
there's been any cycles in modern North Carolina history where
maps have stayed in place for ten years. That's what
(13:50):
they're supposed to be. When you get new census data
every decade based on population growth and changes in population
in various areas. Typically maps are redrawn to rematch up
with population growth or population decline, to make sure that
you've got a close to equal representation of your population
(14:10):
in each congressional district in the state. That is one
of the important factors when you look at congressional maps
is population and an even balance. That's why large metropolitan
areas can have sometimes one, two, maybe even three congressional
districts that make them up. And then you look at
other parts of the state, like Congressional District one, which
(14:32):
is the one that is likely to be discussed as
it is a flip toss up district that is a
very large area. There are dozens of counties within the
first congressional district because the population is so much more
scarce in those portions of North Carolina. It's nothing new,
it's not a conversation that has just popped up yesterday
(14:56):
and now all of a sudden, this is a hot
new political topic for longtime political observers here in North Carolina.
You are well aware of the discussion of redistricting lawsuits
after maps are drawn. Calls them partisan jerry mandering from
one side or the other. It is a very very
common thing, and it's going to be very interesting to
(15:17):
see what the legislature does as they get back. We'll
get some more common and reaction from individuals in the state,
including Governor Josh Stein chiming in on it as well
Robert Reeves chiming in as Democrats obviously are not in
favor of Republicans drawing an addition additional congressional district. We'll
get into those details coming up. Plus, we'll chat with
(15:39):
doctor Andy Jackson from the John Locke Foundation. He'll join
us coming up here. It's breaking with Brett Jensen, Newstock eleven, ten,
ninety nine three WBT. I'm Nick Craig, host of the
Carolina Journal News Hour and The Nick greg Show podcast,
(16:01):
sitting in this evening on WBT. Great to have you
alongside seven oh four or five seven eleven ten. If
you'd like to text call be part of the program
this evening. As the major North Carolina political discussion unfolding
over the last twenty four hours or so is redistricting.
As members of the North Carolina General Assembly leadership, they
(16:21):
are announcing that they will take it up next week
when they are back in Raleigh. So let's get some
more insight on this. Doctor Andy Jackson is with the
John Locke Foundation. He has been covering redistricting for a
significant period of time now, and Andy, I guess before
we get into any of the actual pertinent details of
what's coming up in Raleigh next week, my first question
(16:42):
to you, are you surprised by the news that we
are hearing from lawmakers that they're going to take a
look at these maps?
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Again, not especially shocked. North Carolina has kind of been
on the front line of these redistricting wars for a
while now, and it was pretty clear that, you know,
they could weazon out another Republican district. They really could
have written an eleven three district last time around, or
eleven three map last time around. So I guess with
(17:10):
all the stuff happening with California and Texas, it was
almost inevitable.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Let me ask you, and you mentioned this, and this
has been something that has been mentioned by a lot
of folks that have been following this, in some cases
for twenty or thirty years. You said, North Carolina is
kind of unique in the way in which our redistricting
has continually boiled to the top. It's something that's only
supposed to happen really every ten years when you get
new data from the census. Yet, Andy, if you look
back at just the last decade, we've seen a whole
(17:38):
bunch of redistricting here in North Carolina.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
What gives.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
Yeah, it's been decades since we've had a complete set
of maps state house, state Senate, and congressional maps that
have lasted a whole decade, maybe the nineteen seventies. I'd
have to go back and check. I only go back
as far as the eighties, and it never happens. Usually
it's for a result of a court decision where there's
been either mainly what we can call racial gerrymandering, sometimes
(18:08):
political jerrymanderin or that's been thrown out by the courts recently.
And so you know, over and over and over again,
there's been some problem with redistricting in North Carolina. The
good news is for state legislative districts the House and
the Senate, unless there's a court case, they can only
draw those districts, you know, once a decade after the census.
(18:29):
The constitution requires that once that's drawn, they can't do
it again until the next census. There is no such
restriction for congressional districts, so they can redraw them, you know,
after every election, if that's what they want to do,
once they get that new set of election data.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
And so as we look at the process that is
likely to unfold next week in the General Assembly, as
all eyes appear to be on Congressional District number one,
that's in the northeast half of the state. Democrat Don
Davis is currently the representative there. He is a Democrat
serving in Washington. D c walks through some of the
details on that district in why that is something that
(19:07):
the General Assembly is likely to look at well.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
The first district is one of the two traditional Voting
Rights Act districts. For lack of a better word, it's
the ones where Blacks and Democrats are most likely to
represent or elect the candidate of their choice. The other
one was the twelfth district. That's the twelfth district is
the one that used to snake all the way from
Durham to Charlotte. Now it's concentrated in Charlotte. The first
(19:34):
district is up in that northeast corner. And it is
also the only really competitive district in the state. Last
time I took a look at it, we rated it
a D plus zero, which means that it very very
barely leans Democratic by less than half a percentage point.
(19:55):
And so it's a competitive district as it is, Don
Davis always has a editive race against whoever the Republicans
throw up against them. But now they're going to look
at tweaking that there's a few ways they can do it,
and certainly the first would be the easiest one to change,
to change it over to say a Republican plus four,
(20:16):
maybe a plus five, and make it more likely to
beat Davis next year.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
And so one of the terms that you have been
using over the last couple of days describing this is
dummy mandering. Andy. If you're going to make the first
congressional district an R plus five, you're going to have
to find and draw in those Republican voters from somewhere
else geographically close to the first congressional district. Is it
accurate to say that you then have to weaken a
(20:41):
district for a Republican to add some more Republican elect
or conservative voters to that first district.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
Yeah. If you look at the map and you take
a look at the voter distribution there, the two bordering
districts are the thirteenth and the third, and out of
those two, it's much easier to take Republican leaning areas
out of the third. They can go and take some
of those beach communities. Take Darek County for example, move
(21:11):
that over and then in exchange, either take parts of
Pitt County from the third or or some of these
other counties that are a little bit more in the
middle of the state. To do that, you're going to
end up reducing the Republican advantage. Republicans are about nine
percentage point advantage currently in the third district. So if
(21:32):
you are going to move the first district up, then
make it say an our four district, Well then and
you're taking that all out of the third, then the
third is going to go down on R five And
what makes this a dummy Mander potentially is that twenty
twenty six is a midterm election with the Republican in
the White House. Republicans generally suffer in those kind of elections,
(21:55):
as do Democrats when there's a Democrat in the White House,
and so if Democrats can nominate decent, a decent Canadate
in the third they would have a real shot at
winning that race. So unless Republicans plan on redrawing the
entire map for Mattiodo Murphy, then they're looking at making
the third district much more competitive than it is right now.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
And so as we watch this process again likely to unfold,
at least from what we've been told in the General
Assembly early next week, Andy, one of the other things
that you've oppined on is that we're seemingly, regardless of
what ends up happening, there will be litigation that are
brought against the maps drawn by the Republican led General Assembly.
As the state has a long history with redistricting, it
(22:38):
also has a long track record and history of lawsuits
in the immediate aftermaths of maps being redrawn. What would
something like that even look like, is candidate filing for
these districts are going to open up here in early December.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
Yeah, what's probably going to happen is that Democrats will
will ask for a preliminary injunction against the map, assuming
that it gets written in the next month or two.
That will likely fail because the most recent cases that
we've had have failed, and so to win a poliminary
(23:12):
injunction you have to demonstrate that you're likely to succeed.
And we just had a case in the same part
of the state with North Carolina Senate districts where they
where that lawsuit was thrown out. The judge said that
they didn't really prove their case, and since there's a
lot of geographic overlap between that suit and any suit
about the first district, I'm expecting that they'll probably fail
(23:35):
getting a preliminary junction. They'll have the election in twenty
six based on the new map, and then this case
will probably be settled in twenty twenty seven. Whether or
not they win depends a lot on what happens within
that district. So, for example, if they end up making
the district less black in the course of making it
(23:57):
more Republican, and they make it so that you split
more counties, or they make it less compact. They make
it so that the plaintiffs could demonstrate, hey, they could
have drawn a much better map that has more black
voters in it, Well, then they might succeed in that case.
That's we had a similar case in Alabama either a
(24:18):
year or two ago, where they showed way, you could
draw a more compact district that has a majority black
voters in it than you did. And so that's what
I'm expecting that plaintiffs are going to try to demonstrate here.
And it really requires the General Assembly to have some
skill in drawing this because they're not supposed to be
(24:39):
using racial data. They've been successfully avoiding using racial data.
But to draw a map where you don't really affect
the number of blacks even though you don't know precisely
where they are, it's going to be difficult.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
And one of the terms that has been used as
this national discussion has been growing over the last couple
of months andy is jerrymandering. A couple of different kinds
of jerry mannering, but the two that will focus on
is you've got partisan jerry mandering, which the courts have
essentially said is not a valid argument. There's really nothing here.
The party that is in charge draws the maps. The other, however,
(25:13):
is racial jerry mandering, and that is a completely different ballgame.
And as you were just talking about in that case
in Alabama, that is a legal argument that even over
the last couple of years, has been successful for some
plaintiffs suing against map drawers.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Yeah. Well, and we have a case coming up that
some people say it's going to be a big test
case coming out of Louisiana where they drew a second
majority black district. There's kind of a bracket that we
have that you have. You need to be able to
demonstrate that you can draw reasonably compact districts that have
(25:50):
majority black or a big proportion of black voters that
they can elect candidates of their choice, but you can't
show at you have made race the primary motive for
drawing the district. And so that cuts both ways. We've
had cases where we've had a majority back black district
(26:11):
that was thrown out because they were over concentrating on
race in violation of the fourteenth Amendment equal protection clause,
which cuts both ways. So people that are drawing these
maps and plaintiffs that are suing these maps are kind
of in a kind of a narrow band between the
Voting Rights Act, where they're trying to get more black
(26:33):
majority districts or districts where they can elect candidates that
they like, and the Fourteenth Amendment, which says you can't
really consider race when drawing districts, and that is a
very narrow path both for drawing districts and succeeding in lawsuits.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
And so obviously this is going to be a very
interesting situation to watch unfold in the coming weeks and
potentially months here in North Carolina. We appreciate the insight
and the information this morning from doctor or this evening,
i should say, from doctor Andy Jackson from the John
Locke Foundation. Will of course keep a close eye on
that on the Carolina Journal News Hour, which you can
hear weekday mornings five to six right here on WBT,
(27:25):
it's Breaking with Brett Jensen News Talk eleven ten ninety
nine three WBT. I'm Nick Craig sitting in for Bretta
this evening, seven oh four five, seven eleven ten. If
you'd like to jump in here in our final a
few minutes, We've got Sandra texting in on our WBT
hotline Driven by Liberty buick GMC. She says Nick three
times today, fantastic, Thanks Sandra for listening. Of course, we've
(27:47):
got the Carolina Journal News Hour. You can hear that
weekday mornings five to six right here on WBT. If
that's too early in the morning for you, believe me,
I completely understand. You can check it out in all
of your favorite podcast apps and the Nick Show podcast,
which is also available in all of your favorite apps.
So rounding out the discussion over redistricting, we heard from
House Speaker Destin Hall, We've heard from Senate Leader Phil Berger,
(28:12):
both of them saying, Hey, Democrats want to read draw
apps in California, want to read draw apps in other states,
whether it's Illinois or Minnesota, the litany of other states
that have now decided that they're going to get into
this fight. We'll do the same thing here in North Carolina.
Josh Stein, however, the current Democrat governor of the state,
not satisfied with what he is hearing from Republican lawmakers
(28:35):
in Raleigh, saying, quote, the General Assembly works for North Carolina,
not Donald Trump. The Republican leadership and the General Assembly
has failed to pass a budget, failed to pay our teachers,
in law enforcement what they deserve and failed to fully
fund Medicaid. Now they are failing you, the voters. Also
getting some additional commentary in from the House Minority leader
(28:58):
in Robert Reeves. He released statements saying, quote, Republican lawmakers
made clear today that they plan to come back to
Raleigh and disenfranchise the voters of this state. Instead of
lowering the cost for families or ensuring Medicaid can stay afloat,
they are hell bent on consolidating as much power as
they can. Call it what it is, they are stealing
(29:20):
a congressional district in order to shield themselves from accountability
at the ballot box. So you've heard from Stein, you've
heard from Hall, you've heard from Phil Berger, and now
you've heard from the House Democrat leader in Robert Reeves.
And it is very obvious how this conversation is going
to play out starting early next week when lawmakers are
(29:43):
back in Raleigh. Republicans making the claim, if other states
want to redraw maps, we're happy to do it. Democrats
like Governor Stein and more accurately, hear Leader Robert Reeves
saying they're stealing elections Republicans in the General Assembly are
steal elections from the voters.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
That's going to do it. For Breaking with Brett Jensen.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
I'm Nick Craig, host of the Carolina Journal News Hour
and The Nick Craig Show Podcast. Great being with you
this evening on Newstalk eleven ten and ninety nine three
WBT
It's freaking with Brett Jensen, Newstock eleven, ten ninety nine
to three WBT. As you can obviously tell, I am
not Brett Jensen. My name is Nick Craig. I host
the Carolina Journal News Hour, which you can hear weekday mornings,
well thirteen hours Agost five to six am right here
on WBT. I also host the Nick Craig Show podcast,
available in all of your favorite podcast apps. So we've
(00:29):
got a busy hour ahead, a lot to get into
North Carolina news. About twenty four hours or so ago,
a major announcement made here in North Carolina coming from
the leaders of the General Assembly Speaker House Speaker Dustin Hall,
the Republican from Caldwell County, and the Senate leader in
(00:49):
Phil Berger, the Republican out of Rockingham County, that next week,
on October the twentieth, when lawmakers are back in Raleigh,
they will in fact be jumping into the national debate
that is redistricting. So before we get into some of
the North Carolina details, and we're going to catch up
with doctor Andy Jackson from the John Locke Foundation coming
(01:12):
up a little bit later on in the show.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Here, just a.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Little bit, let's look at why we are in the
position that we are now where redistricting is this major
political discussion that's going on. And you have to go
back to earlier this year, as Democrats continue to lick
their wounds from the twenty twenty four election, they were
trying to figure out, well, how can we win, how
(01:37):
can we take back control of the United States House
in twenty twenty six. And to me, the simple solution,
and the simple answer to that question is well, have
better ideas than the Republicans, have better policies, have better platforms,
have better issues, have better ideas than the opposition. If you,
in fact have that, then you are likely to prevail
(01:58):
in an election. That would be, to me, the logical
way to handle this. However, those on the political f
determined that we're not going to take that logical approach,
and they decided they were going to start the discussion
about redrawing congressional maps in a variety of different states.
The two that you originally saw a commentary from were
(02:21):
Minnesota and Illinois. Illinois, by the way, has some of
the most jerry mandered political maps in United States history.
Don't believe me, just do a quick Google search and
take a look at what the congressional maps look like
in the state of Illinois, and it looks like you
threw up on a piece of paper.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
The lines are all over the place. So you had.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
States like Illinois, which by the way, I think has
ten to eleven Democrat representatives to just two or three
Republicans trying to figure out, okay, how can we edge
out another Democrat seed in here? And you had similar
discussions and conversations taking place in Minnesota as well. So
and Donald Trump obviously got a little wind as to
(03:02):
what was going on, maybe reading a little bit of
the online commentary, getting some information from his advisors in
the Oval Office, and he said, okay, well, if states
like Illinois and Minnesota are going to begin the discussions
about redrawing congressional maps ahead of the midterm elections, two
can play at that game.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
To can tango here.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
So he reached out to his colleagues in the great
state of Texas and said, hey, guys, what's going on?
Any interest in redrawing some maps. So by mid July
of this year, you had Texas Governor and Greg Abbott
call a special session of the Texas Legislature to deal
with redistricting. Talking about some of the issues ongoing throughout
(03:49):
the rest of the nation, some of the concerns of redistricting,
redistrict maps, redrawn maps, and some other states, Greg Abbott said, Okay,
let's take a look, let's see if we can do
anything here. And so that's exactly what Texas did. And
of course you'll remember in the month of it was
either late July or early August, you had Democrats fleeing
(04:11):
the state of Texas to make sure that there was
not a quorum available to have a vote, and they
fled to states like Illinois. You had literally over a
dozen Democrat lawmakers in the state of Texas that were
acting as if they were asylum seekers in the state
of Illinois, so that the Texas legislature could not conduct
(04:33):
its business. It's a one heck of a way to govern,
I guess. And then immediately preceding the ongoings in Texas,
you had Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, say okay, well,
if this is what we're going to do, let's do it.
And now there's a ballot proposition on the ballot for
California voters to temporarily suspend an independent redistricting commission that
(04:58):
they've got literally have a constitutional I don't even know
if it's a constitution month. So they have all these
weird prop votes in California. If you've ever seen a
picture online of what a California ballot looks like, there'd
be like seventeen prop proposition votes on a ballot. So
one of the prop votes in the upcoming election in
California this year is to redraw their maps, to temporarily
(05:24):
suspend the rules in the state of California and in
suspend its independent redistricting Commission and allow the state legislature
to enact new maps just before the twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Six general election or midterm elections, I should say. So
that's a little.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Summary of everything that's been kind of going on behind
the scenes over the last couple of months since Texas
made their move in California responded back. You've seen a
variety of other Republican and Democrat states jump into the
fray and say, hey, if Democrat states are going to redraw,
we're going to redraw. Democrats states doing the same thing, saying, well,
Republican states are going to redraw, So are we approaching
(06:06):
some level of I guess a mutual destruction at this point.
So yesterday we got a statement from House Speaker Deston Hall,
again the Republican from Caldwell County. It reads as follows,
President Trump earned a clear mandate from voters of North
Carolina in the rest of the country, and we intend
to defend it by drawing an additional Republican congressional seat.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Our state.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Won't stand by while Democrats like Gavin Newsom redraw districts
to aid in their effort to obtain a majority in
the US House. We will not allow them to undermine
the will of voters and President Trump's agenda. That was
the immediate commentary from House Speaker Deston Hall.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Phil Berger, his counterpart over.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
In the North Carolina Senate, also released a statement yesterday
afternoon and said, in part, President Trump delivered countless victories
during his first term in office, and nine months into
his second, he continues to achieve unprecedented wins. We are
doing everything that we can to protect President Trump's agenda,
which means safeguarding Republican control of Congress, picking off where
(07:12):
Texas left off. We will hold votes in our October session,
which I'll note starts Monday, October the twentieth to redraw
North Carolina's congressional maps to ensure that Gavin Newsom doesn't
decide the congressional majority. And so as we look at
the North Carolina Legislator next week, the word and the
(07:35):
term redistricting, you'll probably also hear one of my other
favorite political words, jerry mandering, especially partisan jerry mandering. That's
one of my favorites. It's always really rubbed me the
wrong way. You hear predominantly those on the left say, oh, well,
Republicans are taking place in partisan jerry mandering. Yet you
(07:57):
look at whose responsibility is to draw maps in the
vast majority of the states across the US, it is
the partisan legislature. Meaning, if you've got Republicans in charge,
guess what, folks, they draw maps that favor Republicans. If
you've got Democrats in charge, like you do in the
(08:18):
state of Illinois, they draw maps that favor Democrats. So
it's not partisan jerrymandering when Democrats draw seats to help democrats,
but it is partisan jerrymandering and a threat to our democracy.
When Republicans draw maps that help republicans, it is inherently
(08:40):
a very political topic. As in most states, not all,
but most like here in North Carolina, it is the legislature.
Those individuals are incredibly partisan. You have a split in
the General Assembly Republicans and Democrats. Republicans hold the majority.
It is by definition a very partisan thing that takes place,
(09:02):
and so they are going to do what they believe
that the voter sent them to Raleigh to do, which
is redraw maps. We've got a lot more to get
into on this topic. Andy Jackson from the John Locke
Foundation will join us coming up here in just a
little bit. Welcome back to Breaking with Brent Jensen, Newstock eleven, ten,
(09:35):
ninety nine three WBT. I'm Nick Craig, I host the
Carolina Journal News Hour and the Nick Craig Show podcast
in for Bretta this evening. You can textra call be
part of the program. Seven oh four five seven h
eleven ten. As we continued the discussion of what is
said to be a very busy week in the North
Carolina legislature next week, the announcement from not only the
(09:56):
leader of the North Carolina House, but the North Carolina
Senate as well that Republicans, who do hold a supermajority
in the Senate, a simple majority will actually just one
vote shy of a supermajority in the House that they
will in fact take place or be taking up the
issue of redistricting. Next week, we'll talk to doctor Andy
(10:17):
Jackson from the John Locke Foundation coming up here after
the bottom of the hour. And so this whole discussion,
as I talked about in the first segment, revolves around
the fact that Democrats don't have any ideas, don't have
any better policies than those that are being proposed by
the Republicans, and they are terrified that they're not going
(10:39):
to win the midterm elections, which, by the way, from
a purely historical standpoint, should be a slam dunk for them.
The party that is in charge in this case, it
is the GOP. You've got a Republican president, a Republican
majority in the Senate, a Republican majority in the House.
The party that is in charge always gets hammered during
(11:01):
a midterm election. It has been that way forever. So
this should be a lay up, a slam dunk for
those on the Democrats side of the eye. It should
not be a big issue for them to gain a
majority in the House. And I think what is the
I don't even know what the number is right now.
It's like three or four votes that Republicans have the
(11:22):
majority with. It's very, very slim. They're not going to
flip the Senate. If you look at the Senate races
and Senate seats that are up in twenty twenty six,
including the one here in North Carolina in which Senator
Tom Tillis is retiring, you're going to see likely a
general election battle between Roy Cooper, the former Democrat governor,
and the former head of the North Carolina Republican Party
(11:44):
are in cea chairman Michael Wattley, still a primary March,
but that's likely who the general election candidates are going
to be. Even if Democrats are successful here in North Carolina,
they would have to flip an incredible amount of seats
for them to take a majority in the Senate. That's
not going to happen. Now, never say never politics. Anybody
(12:05):
that in politics that says, oh, there's a zero percent
chance of that happening has not been involved in the
process long enough. But the math just does not look
very good for the United States Senate. So then of
course you turn your attention to the House, and unlike
the Senate, where you just elect two senators from each state,
there's no maps or lines outside of physical boundaries and
(12:28):
jurisdictions of each state. You then look at the House
of Representatives, where you've got districts throughout all of the
states that are drawn in most cases by a state legislature.
Here in North Carolina, it is in fact the responsibility
according to the state constitution, that the General Assembly is
(12:48):
in fact in charge of redrawing maps. It is the
same way in Texas. In the state of California, it
is not. There's an independent redistricting commission. However, there is
a prop proposition on the ballot special election this year
that is asking Californians to essentially dissolve that independent commission
(13:09):
and have the California legislature, which as you can imagine,
is as deep blue as it gets, put them in
charge of redrawing the maps. And so this overall discussion
over redrawing maps jerry mandering is a term that you've
probably heard from time to time.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
This is nothing new when.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
You look even just at North Carolina. The discussion of
redrawing maps and redistricting and jerry mandering and lawsuits. It's
been going on for like thirty or forty years. It
is nothing new. There have been I don't know if
there's been any cycles in modern North Carolina history where
maps have stayed in place for ten years. That's what
(13:50):
they're supposed to be. When you get new census data
every decade based on population growth and changes in population
in various areas. Typically maps are redrawn to rematch up
with population growth or population decline, to make sure that
you've got a close to equal representation of your population
(14:10):
in each congressional district in the state. That is one
of the important factors when you look at congressional maps
is population and an even balance. That's why large metropolitan
areas can have sometimes one, two, maybe even three congressional
districts that make them up. And then you look at
other parts of the state, like Congressional District one, which
(14:32):
is the one that is likely to be discussed as
it is a flip toss up district that is a
very large area. There are dozens of counties within the
first congressional district because the population is so much more
scarce in those portions of North Carolina. It's nothing new,
it's not a conversation that has just popped up yesterday
(14:56):
and now all of a sudden, this is a hot
new political topic for longtime political observers here in North Carolina.
You are well aware of the discussion of redistricting lawsuits
after maps are drawn. Calls them partisan jerry mandering from
one side or the other. It is a very very
common thing, and it's going to be very interesting to
(15:17):
see what the legislature does as they get back. We'll
get some more common and reaction from individuals in the state,
including Governor Josh Stein chiming in on it as well
Robert Reeves chiming in as Democrats obviously are not in
favor of Republicans drawing an addition additional congressional district. We'll
get into those details coming up. Plus, we'll chat with
(15:39):
doctor Andy Jackson from the John Locke Foundation. He'll join
us coming up here. It's breaking with Brett Jensen, Newstock eleven, ten,
ninety nine three WBT. I'm Nick Craig, host of the
Carolina Journal News Hour and The Nick greg Show podcast,
(16:01):
sitting in this evening on WBT. Great to have you
alongside seven oh four or five seven eleven ten. If
you'd like to text call be part of the program
this evening. As the major North Carolina political discussion unfolding
over the last twenty four hours or so is redistricting.
As members of the North Carolina General Assembly leadership, they
(16:21):
are announcing that they will take it up next week
when they are back in Raleigh. So let's get some
more insight on this. Doctor Andy Jackson is with the
John Locke Foundation. He has been covering redistricting for a
significant period of time now, and Andy, I guess before
we get into any of the actual pertinent details of
what's coming up in Raleigh next week, my first question
(16:42):
to you, are you surprised by the news that we
are hearing from lawmakers that they're going to take a
look at these maps?
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Again, not especially shocked. North Carolina has kind of been
on the front line of these redistricting wars for a
while now, and it was pretty clear that, you know,
they could weazon out another Republican district. They really could
have written an eleven three district last time around, or
eleven three map last time around. So I guess with
(17:10):
all the stuff happening with California and Texas, it was
almost inevitable.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Let me ask you, and you mentioned this, and this
has been something that has been mentioned by a lot
of folks that have been following this, in some cases
for twenty or thirty years. You said, North Carolina is
kind of unique in the way in which our redistricting
has continually boiled to the top. It's something that's only
supposed to happen really every ten years when you get
new data from the census. Yet, Andy, if you look
back at just the last decade, we've seen a whole
(17:38):
bunch of redistricting here in North Carolina.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
What gives.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
Yeah, it's been decades since we've had a complete set
of maps state house, state Senate, and congressional maps that
have lasted a whole decade, maybe the nineteen seventies. I'd
have to go back and check. I only go back
as far as the eighties, and it never happens. Usually
it's for a result of a court decision where there's
been either mainly what we can call racial gerrymandering, sometimes
(18:08):
political jerrymanderin or that's been thrown out by the courts recently.
And so you know, over and over and over again,
there's been some problem with redistricting in North Carolina. The
good news is for state legislative districts the House and
the Senate, unless there's a court case, they can only
draw those districts, you know, once a decade after the census.
(18:29):
The constitution requires that once that's drawn, they can't do
it again until the next census. There is no such
restriction for congressional districts, so they can redraw them, you know,
after every election, if that's what they want to do,
once they get that new set of election data.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
And so as we look at the process that is
likely to unfold next week in the General Assembly, as
all eyes appear to be on Congressional District number one,
that's in the northeast half of the state. Democrat Don
Davis is currently the representative there. He is a Democrat
serving in Washington. D c walks through some of the
details on that district in why that is something that
(19:07):
the General Assembly is likely to look at well.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
The first district is one of the two traditional Voting
Rights Act districts. For lack of a better word, it's
the ones where Blacks and Democrats are most likely to
represent or elect the candidate of their choice. The other
one was the twelfth district. That's the twelfth district is
the one that used to snake all the way from
Durham to Charlotte. Now it's concentrated in Charlotte. The first
(19:34):
district is up in that northeast corner. And it is
also the only really competitive district in the state. Last
time I took a look at it, we rated it
a D plus zero, which means that it very very
barely leans Democratic by less than half a percentage point.
(19:55):
And so it's a competitive district as it is, Don
Davis always has a editive race against whoever the Republicans
throw up against them. But now they're going to look
at tweaking that there's a few ways they can do it,
and certainly the first would be the easiest one to change,
to change it over to say a Republican plus four,
(20:16):
maybe a plus five, and make it more likely to
beat Davis next year.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
And so one of the terms that you have been
using over the last couple of days describing this is
dummy mandering. Andy. If you're going to make the first
congressional district an R plus five, you're going to have
to find and draw in those Republican voters from somewhere
else geographically close to the first congressional district. Is it
accurate to say that you then have to weaken a
(20:41):
district for a Republican to add some more Republican elect
or conservative voters to that first district.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
Yeah. If you look at the map and you take
a look at the voter distribution there, the two bordering
districts are the thirteenth and the third, and out of
those two, it's much easier to take Republican leaning areas
out of the third. They can go and take some
of those beach communities. Take Darek County for example, move
(21:11):
that over and then in exchange, either take parts of
Pitt County from the third or or some of these
other counties that are a little bit more in the
middle of the state. To do that, you're going to
end up reducing the Republican advantage. Republicans are about nine
percentage point advantage currently in the third district. So if
(21:32):
you are going to move the first district up, then
make it say an our four district, Well then and
you're taking that all out of the third, then the
third is going to go down on R five And
what makes this a dummy Mander potentially is that twenty
twenty six is a midterm election with the Republican in
the White House. Republicans generally suffer in those kind of elections,
(21:55):
as do Democrats when there's a Democrat in the White House,
and so if Democrats can nominate decent, a decent Canadate
in the third they would have a real shot at
winning that race. So unless Republicans plan on redrawing the
entire map for Mattiodo Murphy, then they're looking at making
the third district much more competitive than it is right now.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
And so as we watch this process again likely to unfold,
at least from what we've been told in the General
Assembly early next week, Andy, one of the other things
that you've oppined on is that we're seemingly, regardless of
what ends up happening, there will be litigation that are
brought against the maps drawn by the Republican led General Assembly.
As the state has a long history with redistricting, it
(22:38):
also has a long track record and history of lawsuits
in the immediate aftermaths of maps being redrawn. What would
something like that even look like, is candidate filing for
these districts are going to open up here in early December.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
Yeah, what's probably going to happen is that Democrats will
will ask for a preliminary injunction against the map, assuming
that it gets written in the next month or two.
That will likely fail because the most recent cases that
we've had have failed, and so to win a poliminary
(23:12):
injunction you have to demonstrate that you're likely to succeed.
And we just had a case in the same part
of the state with North Carolina Senate districts where they
where that lawsuit was thrown out. The judge said that
they didn't really prove their case, and since there's a
lot of geographic overlap between that suit and any suit
about the first district, I'm expecting that they'll probably fail
(23:35):
getting a preliminary junction. They'll have the election in twenty
six based on the new map, and then this case
will probably be settled in twenty twenty seven. Whether or
not they win depends a lot on what happens within
that district. So, for example, if they end up making
the district less black in the course of making it
(23:57):
more Republican, and they make it so that you split
more counties, or they make it less compact. They make
it so that the plaintiffs could demonstrate, hey, they could
have drawn a much better map that has more black
voters in it, Well, then they might succeed in that case.
That's we had a similar case in Alabama either a
(24:18):
year or two ago, where they showed way, you could
draw a more compact district that has a majority black
voters in it than you did. And so that's what
I'm expecting that plaintiffs are going to try to demonstrate here.
And it really requires the General Assembly to have some
skill in drawing this because they're not supposed to be
(24:39):
using racial data. They've been successfully avoiding using racial data.
But to draw a map where you don't really affect
the number of blacks even though you don't know precisely
where they are, it's going to be difficult.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
And one of the terms that has been used as
this national discussion has been growing over the last couple
of months andy is jerrymandering. A couple of different kinds
of jerry mannering, but the two that will focus on
is you've got partisan jerry mandering, which the courts have
essentially said is not a valid argument. There's really nothing here.
The party that is in charge draws the maps. The other, however,
(25:13):
is racial jerry mandering, and that is a completely different ballgame.
And as you were just talking about in that case
in Alabama, that is a legal argument that even over
the last couple of years, has been successful for some
plaintiffs suing against map drawers.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Yeah. Well, and we have a case coming up that
some people say it's going to be a big test
case coming out of Louisiana where they drew a second
majority black district. There's kind of a bracket that we
have that you have. You need to be able to
demonstrate that you can draw reasonably compact districts that have
(25:50):
majority black or a big proportion of black voters that
they can elect candidates of their choice, but you can't
show at you have made race the primary motive for
drawing the district. And so that cuts both ways. We've
had cases where we've had a majority back black district
(26:11):
that was thrown out because they were over concentrating on
race in violation of the fourteenth Amendment equal protection clause,
which cuts both ways. So people that are drawing these
maps and plaintiffs that are suing these maps are kind
of in a kind of a narrow band between the
Voting Rights Act, where they're trying to get more black
(26:33):
majority districts or districts where they can elect candidates that
they like, and the Fourteenth Amendment, which says you can't
really consider race when drawing districts, and that is a
very narrow path both for drawing districts and succeeding in lawsuits.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
And so obviously this is going to be a very
interesting situation to watch unfold in the coming weeks and
potentially months here in North Carolina. We appreciate the insight
and the information this morning from doctor or this evening,
i should say, from doctor Andy Jackson from the John
Locke Foundation. Will of course keep a close eye on
that on the Carolina Journal News Hour, which you can
hear weekday mornings five to six right here on WBT,
(27:25):
it's Breaking with Brett Jensen News Talk eleven ten ninety
nine three WBT. I'm Nick Craig sitting in for Bretta
this evening, seven oh four five, seven eleven ten. If
you'd like to jump in here in our final a
few minutes, We've got Sandra texting in on our WBT
hotline Driven by Liberty buick GMC. She says Nick three
times today, fantastic, Thanks Sandra for listening. Of course, we've
(27:47):
got the Carolina Journal News Hour. You can hear that
weekday mornings five to six right here on WBT. If
that's too early in the morning for you, believe me,
I completely understand. You can check it out in all
of your favorite podcast apps and the Nick Show podcast,
which is also available in all of your favorite apps.
So rounding out the discussion over redistricting, we heard from
House Speaker Destin Hall, We've heard from Senate Leader Phil Berger,
(28:12):
both of them saying, Hey, Democrats want to read draw
apps in California, want to read draw apps in other states,
whether it's Illinois or Minnesota, the litany of other states
that have now decided that they're going to get into
this fight. We'll do the same thing here in North Carolina.
Josh Stein, however, the current Democrat governor of the state,
not satisfied with what he is hearing from Republican lawmakers
(28:35):
in Raleigh, saying, quote, the General Assembly works for North Carolina,
not Donald Trump. The Republican leadership and the General Assembly
has failed to pass a budget, failed to pay our teachers,
in law enforcement what they deserve and failed to fully
fund Medicaid. Now they are failing you, the voters. Also
getting some additional commentary in from the House Minority leader
(28:58):
in Robert Reeves. He released statements saying, quote, Republican lawmakers
made clear today that they plan to come back to
Raleigh and disenfranchise the voters of this state. Instead of
lowering the cost for families or ensuring Medicaid can stay afloat,
they are hell bent on consolidating as much power as
they can. Call it what it is, they are stealing
(29:20):
a congressional district in order to shield themselves from accountability
at the ballot box. So you've heard from Stein, you've
heard from Hall, you've heard from Phil Berger, and now
you've heard from the House Democrat leader in Robert Reeves.
And it is very obvious how this conversation is going
to play out starting early next week when lawmakers are
(29:43):
back in Raleigh. Republicans making the claim, if other states
want to redraw maps, we're happy to do it. Democrats
like Governor Stein and more accurately, hear Leader Robert Reeves
saying they're stealing elections Republicans in the General Assembly are
steal elections from the voters.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
That's going to do it. For Breaking with Brett Jensen.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
I'm Nick Craig, host of the Carolina Journal News Hour
and The Nick Craig Show Podcast. Great being with you
this evening on Newstalk eleven ten and ninety nine three
WBT
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