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Quick tweetstorm on how Democrat NC Chief Justice Cheri Beasley's electoral defeat is the latest in a series of attempts by North Carolina Democrats to game the redistricting system to blow up spectacularly in their face Wild E. Coyote style. 1/ https://twitter.com/garydrobertson/status/1337787972893233153
For years North Carolina Democrats ruthlessly gerrymandered the state to keep their hold on power. This monstrosity is the map North Carolina Democrats drew in the 1990s. 2/
In 1996 when NC Democrats finally agreed to give the Governor of North Carolina veto power over legislation they purposely drafted the bill to prevent him from vetoing redistricting bills. This blew up spectacularly in their face in 2012 and will again in 2022. 3/
When a GOP controlled legislature drew the NC maps for 1st time ever in 2012 & didnt draw a Democratic gerrymander NC Dems when ballistic. They tried to use federal courts to overturn the legally drawn map by the NC state legislature. 4/
When the Democrats lawsuits succeed the legislature fixed the maps without changing partisan balance. The irony is if the original 2012 map was used in 2018 the Democrats probably could have picked up seats. Instead they didnt. 5/
So the Democrats went back to court to sue for new maps again. This time they sued in the state courts which they controlled. Which slowly ran through the district courts and headed to the NC Supreme Court in 2019. 6/
With an eye on this case & 2022 redistricting when the Chief Justice seat became vacant in early 2012 Gov Roy Cooper (D) bucked NC tradition & passed over the most senior member of the court for Chief Justice spot Justice Paul Newby (R) & instead picked Democrat Cheri Beasley. 7/
In June 2019 on partisan lines NC Supreme Court sided with the Democrats & forced another redrawing of maps for 2020. The Democrats goal was to use the new maps to try and win back the state legislature in time for the 2022 redrawing & broke all norms to try & accomplish this. 8/
The Democrats plan failed miserably. While the new maps allowed them to pick up 2 congressional seats in 2020 the Democrats actually lost seats in the General Assembly and GOP maintained their majority in the Senate giving them full control of the 2022 redrawing 9/
