Common Cause v. Rucho

MEMORANDUM OPINION

In these consolidated cases, two groups of Plaintiffs1 allege that North Carolina’s 2016 Congressional Redistricting Plan (the “Plan”) constitutes an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander in violation of the First Amendment, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and, in the case of the Common Cause Plaintiffs, Article I, Sections 2 and 4 of the Constitution. In particular, Plaintiffs allege that in drawing district lines, the Republican-controlled North Carolina General Assembly violated the Constitution by improperly relying on “political data”—data…