Bartlett v. Stephenson
Chief Justice Rehnquist, acting alone as the justice overseeing emergency requests from that region, refused to pause a North Carolina Supreme Court ruling that struck down the state's 2001 legislative redistricting map for splitting counties in violation of the state constitution.
He found no realistic chance the full Court would take up the case, since the dispute mainly turned on how to read a single 1981 federal letter, and noted that no district would actually hold elections without first getting federal approval, so there was no urgent harm to prevent.
“There is not a reasonable probability that four Members of this Court will vote to grant certiorari to resolve what is largely a dispute about the meaning of a single DOJ letter from 1981.”
Explaining why the dispute did not warrant Supreme Court review.
How it got here: The North Carolina Supreme Court affirmed a trial court injunction against the 2001 map; state election officials asked a single U.S. Supreme Court justice to stay that ruling.
The Case in Depth
What happened
North Carolina's 2001 state legislative redistricting plan was challenged under the state constitution's "whole county provision," which bars splitting counties when drawing legislative districts. The state supreme court struck down the plan, ordered a new one drawn that would preserve county lines as much as federal voting-rights law allows, and required federal preclearance for districts in counties covered by the Voting Rights Act. State election officials asked the U.S. Supreme Court to halt that ruling, arguing it forced them to violate federal voting-rights law.
The question before the Court
Could North Carolina election officials get the Supreme Court to block a state court order that threw out the state's 2001 legislative redistricting map?
Why it matters
North Carolina had to move forward with redrawing its state legislative districts under a state court's supervision, on a tight timeline before the 2002 elections. The ruling meant election officials could not sidestep the redistricting process while the dispute continued, and reinforced that federal preclearance requirements still had to be satisfied before any new map could be used.
What changes now
With the stay denied, the North Carolina trial court proceeds to determine whether the legislature can draw a new redistricting plan in time for the 2002 elections, or whether the court must adopt one itself. Any new plan covering counties subject to the Voting Rights Act must still receive federal preclearance before it can be used in elections. This was a temporary emergency ruling, not a decision on the merits of the underlying redistricting dispute.
What this does not decide
The order does not resolve whether North Carolina's whole county provision conflicts with the Voting Rights Act, nor does it decide what the new redistricting plan should look like. It only denies emergency relief because no unprecleared plan was actually being used.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- A single justice acting on an emergency application will only grant a stay in extraordinary circumstances, and the threshold question is whether there is a reasonable probability that four justices would vote to hear the full case.
- The dispute here mainly concerned how to interpret a single 1981 Department of Justice letter about the whole county provision, an issue with little significance beyond this one case, so it did not meet the criteria the Court normally uses to decide which cases to hear.
- The officials pointed to past cases where the Court stayed elections held under legislative plans that had never received required federal approval, but the justice found those cases different because North Carolina's new plan would need that approval before being used.
- Because the trial court had already made clear that no map would be used in the covered counties until it received federal approval, there was no unprecleared plan actually being enforced, removing the basis for emergency relief.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Distinguishes Lopez v. Monterey County (519 U.S. 9)
Unlike that case, no unprecleared plan was actually being used to hold elections here.
Distinguishes Clark v. Roemer (500 U.S. 646)
That case involved elections actually proceeding under an unprecleared plan, unlike this one.