The North Carolina General Assembly will hold public hearings across the state Tuesday to discuss the proposed legislative maps for congressional redistricting.
The House of Representatives' select committee on redistricting and the Senate's redistricting committee will meet at 4 p.m. to hear public comments. Rules for public comments can be found here.
The hearings will be held in Raleigh, Charlotte, Fayetteville, Hudson, Jamestown and Weldon. More site information can be found here.
Bob Phillips, executive director of Common Cause NC, said the chosen locations leave out a large portion of the state impacted by redistricting in a statement Thursday.
"Having just one hearing location east of Raleigh makes participation unduly burdensome for concerned citizens in that region," Phillips said. "We respectfully ask the committee to add more hearing locations so that a greater number of citizens can have a fair chance to present their comments to lawmakers."
Phillips also asked legislators to release maps before the hearings to allow citizens sufficient time to review them.
A federal court ordered the General Assembly to remedy maps by Sept. 1.
The redistricting committee held a meeting Aug. 10 and adopted criteria for legislative redistricting, which includes prohibiting the consideration of race in the drawing of new maps, while permitting precincts to be split for partisan advantage, the protection of incumbents and “political consideration” of election results data.
Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, president of the North Carolina NAACP, said the General Assembly acted in bad faith.
