North Carolina's 2020 elections for seats in the U.S. House of Representatives must happen under new maps, a panel of judges ruled Monday evening, saying that the current Republican-drawn maps are unfair to many voters.
The legislature will get to redraw the lines, the court ruled, instead of having an outside expert step in to take over. The judges did not set a strict deadline for the new maps to be drawn.
It's unclear if Republican lawmakers will appeal the ruling or accept the legal loss and get back to the drawing board. After losing a separate lawsuit last month over the state legislative lines, GOP lawmakers did not appeal and were able to meet the court's two-week deadline to draw new maps. They did so with unprecedented transparency, as ordered by the court, and many of the new legislative maps passed without much political controversy, although some did attract criticism from Democrats.
