Lawmakers can intervene in federal suit against Watauga districts
Republican state legislative leaders will be able to intervene in a federal lawsuit filed against districts the General Assembly drew for local Watauga County elections.
A court order filed Tuesday granted lawmakers’ request to take part in the case as defendants.
The court has not yet addressed a Nov. 3 motion seeking an injunction to block the districts for upcoming elections.
Plaintiffs led by a group called the Watauga Voting Rights Task Force filed suit in October against the Watauga County Board of Elections. Neither the plaintiffs nor the county elections board objected to the Republican legislative leaders taking part in the case.
The complaint challenges new voting districts for county commissioner and school board elections spelled out in Senate Bill 759 in 2023 and Senate Bill 912 in 2024.
“The Proposed Intervenors have a clear interest in upholding the validity of state statutes designed to reapportion districts and regulate election activity in the State,” lawyers representing Republican leaders of the state House and Senate wrote in November. “Despite the allegations in the Complaint being largely aimed at the General Assembly’s enactments of S.B. 759 and S.B. 912, Plaintiffs chose not to sue Proposed Intervenors, who are in the best position to defend the validity of the laws in question.”
“North Carolina law expressly permits intervention by the President Pro Tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives on behalf of the General Assembly as a matter of right in any action challenging a North Carolina statute,” the court filing continued. “The Supreme Court of the United States recently held that this law plainly authorizes intervention by these Legislative Defendants in a case like this.”
“Simply put, the Watauga County Board of Elections did not pass the two statutes at issue here,” legislators’ lawyers added. “Plaintiffs bring intent-based claims, which requires evidence from the legislative body that actually enacted the laws at issue. As such, any defense by the named defendants in this case cannot be fulsome because they lack the necessary information to adequately assess and defend Plaintiffs’ intent claims. S.B. 759 and S.B. 912, like all other legislation enacted by the people’s chamber, are entitled to a vigorous defense.”
A separate court filing rejected much of the plaintiffs’ case. “Proposed Intervenors deny that Plaintiffs are entitled to any relief whatsoever,” legislative lawyers wrote.
A group called the Watauga County Voting Rights Task Force joined with left-of-center activist group Common Cause and seven individual voters to file suit against the Watauga elections board. A court filing last month justified their request for an injunction.
“Without this Court’s intervention, the voters of Watauga County will, against their clearly expressed will, be forced to use the legislature’s unconstitutional maps to elect members of the County Commission and Board of Education in 2026,” the plaintiffs’ lawyers wrote.
“In 2023, the North Carolina General Assembly enacted Senate Bill 759 on strict party lines,” according to the original complaint. “That legislation replaced Watauga County’s longstanding system for electing its County Commission from residency districts, and imposed unconstitutional, malapportioned electoral districts with large population deviations.”
The General Assembly approved SB 759 in October 2023 with votes of 28-18 in the Senate and 64-40 in the House. No Democratic legislators voted for the bill.
“The new districts were drawn without meaningful local input,” the complaint continued. “The legislation packed disfavored voters into two overpopulated districts while creating three underpopulated districts for favored voters. The maximum population deviation from largest to smallest district is just under 10%, the threshold at which population deviations become presumptively unconstitutional.”
“The County Commission recognized that the General Assembly’s plan was unnecessary and unpopular, so in June 2024, the Commission used the statutory process available to all North Carolina counties in N.C. General Statutes §§ 153A-58 … to propose a new plan for selecting the County Commission that voters could approve by referendum in the 2024 general election,” the plaintiffs’ lawyers added. “The referendum proposed that three Commission members be elected from electoral districts with much smaller population deviations than those drawn by the General Assembly, and that voters from across the county elect two members at-large.”
“In response to the planned referendum, the General Assembly enacted a second bill just days after the referendum was announced,” the complaint continued. “That bill, Senate Bill 912, barred any referendum approved by Watauga County voters under N.C. General Statute § 153A-61 from taking effect until the 2034 elections, after the next decennial census. The voters of Watauga County would still vote on the referendum approved by the County Commission, but if a majority cast their votes in favor, the referendum would not take effect.”
The General Assembly approved SB 912 in June 2024 with votes of 30-19 in the Senate and 75-39 in the House. Seven House Democrats supported the measure.
“Senate Bill 912 also imposed the General Assembly’s unconstitutional local districts on the Watauga County Board of Education,” the plaintiffs argued. “As it did with the County Commission, the General Assembly replaced the county’s longstanding practice of electing Board of Education members from residency districts with the same malapportioned, unconstitutional electoral districts.”
Watauga voters approved the county commissioners’ plan with 71% of the vote in the November 2024 referendum.
“But the referendum results will have no effect, and the voters of Watauga County will be stuck with unconstitutional districts for their County Commission and Board of Education, unless this Court intervenes,” according to the complaint.
“The General Assembly’s interference in Watauga County local elections violates Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights in several ways,” the plaintiffs argued. “The districts themselves violate the Equal Protection Clause’s guarantee to all citizens of a vote on equal grounds. The prohibition on giving effect to resolutions and referenda regarding the manner of selecting the Watauga County Commission violates plaintiffs’ right to equal protection, burdens their right to vote, discriminates against them based on their viewpoint, and amounts to unconstitutional retaliation.”
“Fundamentally, the people of Watauga County have no choice but to petition this Court for urgently needed relief from Defendants’ ongoing violations of their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights,” the complaint added.
“Lawmakers can intervene in federal suit against Watauga districts” was originally published on www.carolinajournal.com.
