N. Carolina Supreme Court to rehear voter ID, redistricting

By GARY D. ROBERTSON
Associated Press

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The new Republican majority on North Carolina’s Supreme Court has agreed to rehear redistricting and voter identification cases less than two months after the court’s previous edition controlled by Democrats blocked a voter ID mandate and a district map. The court granted the requests of Republican legislative leaders on Friday and set hearings for mid-March. The decisions are extraordinary and come mere weeks after a new edition of the court took their seats. Five of the seven justices are now Republicans. It was a 4-3 Democratic majority when the court previously ruled in those cases. The remaining Democratic justices criticized Friday’s order as based merely on the court’s political composition.