At times it appears Greensboro gets overlooked down in Raleigh.
However, that is not the case when it comes to the latest round of redistricting.
The NC Supreme Court found the districts passed by the legislature in 2021 unconstitutional and gave the legislature until Friday, Feb. 18 to submit new maps.
Thursday, Feb. 17, the state legislature passed new maps for congressional and state legislative districts.
However, those maps don’t go directly back to the NC Supreme Court for approval but to the three-judge panel that ruled the 2021 districts constitutional. That ruling was appealed to the NC Supreme Court, which by a 4-3 straight party line vote ruled the districts unconstitutional because they were overly partisan.
The three-judge panel, named three former judges as “special masters” to study the maps and make a recommendation on whether they meet the criteria set forth by the NC Supreme Court in its most recent ruling.
The three special masters are former Supreme Court Justices Bob Orr and Bob Edmunds and former Superior Court Judge Tom Ross.
Edmunds grew up in Greensboro and is currently an attorney with Fox Rothchild. He began his legal career as an assistant district attorney in Greensboro and was an assistant US attorney and then US attorney for the Middle District of North Carolina in Greensboro before being elected to the NC Court of Appeals and then NC Supreme Court.
Ross is a native of Greensboro and was a North Carolina Superior Court judge in Greensboro for 17 years. He has also served chairman of the University of North Carolina Greensboro Board of Trustees and president of the University of North Carolina system.
So, of the three special masters who will make a recommendation on the newly drawn congressional and state legislative districts, two have deep roots in Greensboro.
The new congressional redistricting map splits Guilford County with the larger and eastern portion in the 6th District and a smaller western portion in the 8th District. The redistricting map that was ruled unconstitutional split Guilford County into three congressional districts.
