State senator: Maps a ‘step backward in time’

GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) – The Latest on a federal trial from a lawsuit challenging North Carolina state House and Senate districts (all times local):

1:45 p.m.

A longtime North Carolina legislator says Republicans at the General Assembly used outdated views on racial divisions and politics when they drew state House and Senate districts being scrutinized in a federal courtroom.

Democratic Sen. Dan Blue of Raleigh was the first person to testify in a trial Monday in Greensboro, where a three-judge panel plans to hear about a week of arguments. Voters in nine Senate districts and 19 House districts allege the black populations within the districts were needlessly high and led to illegal racial gerrymanders.

Blue says the GOP boundaries were a “step backward in time” to an era where black candidates couldn’t count on support from white voters and needed protections to elect their preferred candidates.

Attorneys for the state didn’t offer opening statements but wrote in a trial brief that the districts meet federal and state redistricting standards. Those challenging the districts want the 2011 maps redrawn.

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4 a.m.

Another North Carolina redistricting trial is getting under way, this time in federal court over a lawsuit challenging boundaries for nearly 30 state House and Senate seats.

Arguments in the weeklong trial starting Monday in Greensboro federal court are likely to match those in another federal case involving the 1st and 12th Congressional Districts. A three-judge panel in February said they were illegally gerrymandered by race and must be redrawn, which legislators did. Lawmakers also delayed the congressional primary until June.

The case centers on whether legislators created unnecessary majority-black districts when black voters have been able to choose preferred candidates in more multi-racial districts.

The state’s attorneys say the contested districts comply with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling and state redistricting criteria.

State courts previously upheld the legislative districts.

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4/11/2016 1:48:21 PM (GMT -4:00)