Court Rejects Secret Mapmaker’s Request for Protective Order
North Carolina General Assembly
Senator Warren Daniel
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Court Rejects Secret Mapmaker’s Request for Protective Order
NC League of Conservation Voters, a political action group, is asking a court to order into law maps created in secret by their own top litigator
LCV asked court for a protective order to shield their mapmaker from scrutiny on his secret process
This afternoon, the court rejected the protective order, meaning legislative lawyers can question LCV’s secret mapmaker
Raleigh, N.C. — The N.C. League of Conservation Voters (LCV), a Democratic political organization led in part by the husband of a Democratic state senator, is asking a court to throw out the state legislature’s enacted districts and order into law maps the group created in secret.
Even though LCV wants the court to enact their proposed maps into law, the group asked the court to issue a “protective order” shielding their mapmaker from any scrutiny about how he drew the maps.
This afternoon, the court rejected their request for a protective order, meaning legislative lawyers will be able to question the person who created the maps LCV wants enacted into law.
Who is the Mapmaker?
LCV admitted yesterday that the person who “directed the creation” of the maps they want the court to order into law was their own lead litigator, attorney Sam Hirsch, along with unnamed “consulting experts.”
There are ethical rules governing attorneys in a case also being fact witnesses in that case. The court today cautioned that Mr. Hirsch must “determine whether he is a necessary witness such that he would need to withdraw as counsel at the trial of this matter.”
Mr. Hirsch drew the maps LCV wants enacted into law in secret, though he previously derided secret mapmaking as “dangerous” to the legitimacy of government.
He wrote, “When citizens cannot see how their government operates and cannot affect its decision-making, popular control is lost and those governed come to mistrust those who govern in their name. Such loss of confidence is particularly dangerous in the design of basic electoral structures, like districts.”
Mr. Hirsch continued, “This leaves the public to see a process that reflects the interests of a small (and often one-sidedly partisan) group of insiders.”
Why Does LCV Want All This to Stay Secret?
There appears to be good reason for Mr. Hirsch’s and LCV’s secrecy.
An outside analysis of LCV’s proposed congressional maps concluded they would result in six Republicans and eight Democrats elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.
Dr. Jowei Chen, a Democratic expert witness in the very same case, told the court that a congressional map with eight Democratic seats is almost a statistical impossibility, with the result occurring zero times in thousands of simulated maps.
