By Andrew Chung and Lawrence Hurley
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday allowed North Carolina and Pennsylvania to use electoral maps approved by state courts to replace ones deemed to have given Republicans unfair advantages, improving Democratic chances of retaining control of the U.S. House of Representatives in November.
The justices denied Republican requests to put on hold lower court rulings that adopted court-drawn boundaries for North Carolina’s 14 House districts and Pennsylvania’s 17 House districts to replace electoral maps devised by Republican-controlled legislatures in the two states.
Republicans are seeking to regain control of the House, which is narrowly controlled by President Joe Biden’s fellow Democrats, in the Nov. 8 midterm elections. Party primaries in Pennsylvania and North Carolina are set for May 17.
The disputes in North Carolina and Pennsylvania are among the numerous court battles nationwide over the composition of electoral districts, which are redrawn each decade to reflect population changes as measured by a national census, last taken in 2020.
In most states, such redistricting is done by the party in power, which can lead to map manipulation for partisan gain. In a major 2019 ruling, the Supreme Court barred federal judges from curbing the practice, known as partisan gerrymandering.
Democratic voters and an environmental group sued after North Carolina’s legislature approved an electoral map in November, with the plaintiffs objecting to how the various House districts were configured.
The North Carolina Supreme Court struck down the map on Feb. 4, concluding that it was intentionally biased against Democrats, diluting their “fundamental right to equal voting power” in violation of the state constitution’s free elections and freedom of assembly provisions, among others.
In Pennsylvania, Governor Tom Wolf vetoed a congressional map approved by the Republican-controlled state legislature, saying the configuration of the House districts gave an unfair advantage to Republicans.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, acting on a lawsuit filed by Democratic voters on Feb. 23, subsequently approved a new map that eliminated one Republican-leaning district approved by the legislature and, Republicans have argued, creates a statewide map that is advantageous to Democrats.
(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York and Lawrence Hurley in Washington; Editing by Will Dunham)
