Former state Supreme Court Justice Bob Orr behind new redistricting lawsuit

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) – – Another legitimate test is coming to North Carolina’s recently GOP-drawn legislative guides, this opportunity approaching from somebody who once served on the state’s most elevated court himself.

This challenge, in contrast to other challenges that have focused on partisan challenges or voting discrimination based on race, argues that North Carolinians have the right to fair elections under the state constitution.

It is something the state has battled with for quite a long time. Democratic-drawn NC maps were challenged and accused of unfair gerrymandering in the 1990s and early 2000s. In recent times, Republicans have held the line-drawing power and have faced legal challenges regarding the new congressional and legislative districts.

The man behind this suit, is previous State Partner High Court Equity Weave Orr, a previous conservative who served on the high court for very nearly 10 years and later turned into an unaffiliated elector. Orr says that he hopes his fellow judges will listen to the facts by transcending politics and using a group of voters to make a strict constitutional case for why gerrymandering violates voters’ rights.

“The ideological groups have battled about the guides. This isn’t about ideological groups this is about the freedoms of individual residents of the citizens in extremely circumspect locale, and I simply believe there’s been an assumption that races should be fair and thus, we have not seen any suit seek after this hypothesis,” Orr said.

The lawsuit was filed in Wake County Superior Court, and if it succeeds, it may be taken to the state Supreme Court for consideration of the legal theory.

In practice, even though it might not change anything, at least not during the current election cycle, it might change in the future.

“It appears that the best way to get any change on this is for the party in charge to decide…there may be a possibility that we lose at some point. Also, we don’t want to be in the same situation as we were in the past, where we got the short end of the stick, so let’s change the way things are done. I don’t believe we’re there the present moment, yet this claim might be essential for the most common way of getting us there,” said Mitch Kokai with the John Locke Establishment.

Judge Orr was likewise important for the board of extraordinary experts who redrew the state’s legislative guide for 2022 to be all the more fair after the underlying GOP-drawn plan was tossed out. That election resulted in a 7-7 split in the congressional delegation; however, when Republican control of the Supreme Court came to an end, the decision was reversed, and the new lines were closer to those that had been drawn.

Past political information shows conservatives are leaned toward in 10 or even 11 of the 14 seats in 2024.