- In the last few days, North Carolina has made national news with legislative action regarding congressional maps.

District lines have been redrawn to favor Republicans in midterm election.

And we have Senator Murdock here today to share details about the move and talk about the implications for North Carolina voters.

Senator Natalie Murdock, thank you so much for being here.

- Thank you for having me.

- Let's talk about what's going on.

And you know, when we look at this national redistricting war, voters haven't really had a say in what's been happening in North Carolina.

What's happened?

- Yes, voters have not really had a say.

So first Texas, Utah, people forget about that one.

Missouri, Indiana is considering it and now North Carolina.

We now have 14 congressional seats here in North Carolina.

We already lost three to extreme gerrymanders.

Now we could lose another one.

So we went from an even seven, seven split.

For a 50, 50 state to what makes this one so harmful is this is the black belt of North Carolina.

This is congressional district one that Eva Clayton has represented along with GK Butterfield.

And since 1992, they have had black representation out East that they have had to fight for.

They still run for office every two years.

But now the deck will be stacked against black voters in Eastern North Carolina, diluting their votes, putting that district with very red counties to the East of them to basically cancel out the will of black voters.

- So for some people I've talked to is confusing.

They're like, I don't understand this map thing.

So share, why is there a creation of these maps and what does that set up for voters to do?

- And to put it in perspective, in nine years in North Carolina, our congressional maps have changed seven times.

Imagine how confusing that is to the public as a Senator.

My map has changed three times in five years.

So first-- - And that just means who you represent.

- Who you represent.

So your member of Congress changes a lot along with your state, House and Senate.

But these maps are about congressional power.

So just like with Texas, you literally have the White House that made a call and said, hey, we want another district to lean Republican.

And this was a competitive district.

This was congressional district one represented by Congressman Don Davis.

This was a district that Congressman Don Davis won as a Democrat, but Donald Trump also won the district.

So it's a very competitive district.

It's not a safe seat.

So they're taking a seat that's competitive and moving it to a solid R column.

And so those voters of congressional district one have had no real input.

They had the ability to provide comments online.

No public hearings were held east of 95.

They have not had the ability to even speak out against this extreme gerrymander.

- Now, historically though, North Carolina, we've always seen this gerrymandering happening.

So what's so different about this time?

- What makes this different, in my opinion, is we now have gutted the Voting Rights Act.

So at the same time, you have the Supreme Court looking at the Voting Rights Act.

So back when we still had Dr.

King and Congressman John Lewis with us, they fought for Voting Rights Act under LBJ years ago.

It was a part of the Civil Rights Movement.

Now you no longer have something called federal preclearance that basically says the federal government should ensure maps are fair.

That is gone.

We're now currently arguing in Section Two of the Voting Rights Act that looks at racial gerrymandering.

So if you don't have those federal laws to protect the states, this is the first time that we potentially will have a map under this newly gutted Voting Rights Act.

So it's actually worse than the gerrymanders of the past because you no longer have federal legislation that's preventing it from happening.

Or a state Supreme Court that can fight back against this as well.

The last redraw occurred when additional Republicans joined the state Supreme Court.

They came in and redrew the maps as well.

Typically every 10 years is when you redraw maps.

All this redrawing in two years, and three years, and five years, it's not normal.

- I hear it over and over again.

People say my vote doesn't matter.

I think, tell me if I'm wrong, this almost supports that feeling.

What can we do if there's anything that we can do?

- The, it is a huge complex question because gerrymandering takes time.

It doesn't just happen overnight.

Our best, next steps of action here in North Carolina is to change the Supreme Court.

We need to have justices that are not gonna support these extreme gerrymanders.

And so as we pick up seats on the Supreme Court over time, they do have the power to strike down these maps.

- Well, Senator Natalie Murdock, thank you so much.

I mean, hopefully that was a good breakdown for our viewers to kind of understand what's happening.

There's more to come 'cause it's not final, however.

- Yes.

- More than likely will happen, correct?

- Yes, more to come.

We definitely will see lawsuits around this again with the backdrop of the Federal Voting Rights Act being gutted, but we still will fight this in court.

- Well, thank you so much for being here and for the fight.

- Thank you.

- And we thank you for watching.

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