House committee approves Senate Bill 249 to redraw NC congressional Districts 1 and 3 after hour of public comment

The House Select Committee on Redistricting voted 10-7 to give a favorable report to Senate Bill 249, sending the measure to the Rules Committee after roughly an hour of public comment and more than 10,900 written submissions to the committee portal.

The bill would redraw only North Carolina’s 1st and 3rd congressional districts. Committee members who sponsored and defended the plan said it was drawn to increase Republican performance in eastern North Carolina and that racial data was not used in the drawing. Opponents — including current and former elected officials, civil-rights organizations and dozens of public commenters at the hearing — said the changes would dilute Black voting strength in longstanding majority-Black communities and described the mid-decade redraw as partisan gerrymandering.

Senator Hise, who presented the plan to the committee, said the “motivation behind this draw was to produce a new map that will bring an additional Republican seat to North Carolina’s congressional delegation,” and described the development as a response to redistricting actions in other states. He told the committee the plan alters only CD-1 and CD-3, moving Beaufort, Carteret, Craven, Dare, Hyde and Pamlico…