By GARY D. ROBERTSON, Associated Press
RALEIGH, N.C. — A few dozen computer files recovered from the home of a deceased Republican redistricting consultant can be offered as evidence in next week's partisan gerrymandering trial in North Carolina, state judges ruled on Friday.
The three-judge panel presiding over the trial that starts Monday sided with the election reform group Common Cause, the North Carolina Democratic Party and registered Democratic voters who are suing Republican lawmakers and challenging state House and Senate boundaries drawn in 2017.
The plaintiffs subpoenaed documents from the estranged daughter of longtime GOP mapmaker Tom Hofeller that turned out to be more than 75,000 files from 22 hard drives and thumb drives that she said she came across while looking for personal mementos. Tom Hofeller died last year.
Those who sued told the judges last week they want to offer 35 of those files that they say will show Hofeller used partisanship as a predominant motivation to help create the 2017 districts to maximize advantage for Republicans.
Lawyers for the GOP legislators argued the files mean little to the case, and can't be authenticated as authored by Hofeller because he's dead. But the judges wrote they were satisfied there was enough information from the plaintiffs, including Stephanie Hofeller's deposition testimony, to properly validate the files as coming from her father.
And "a detailed chain of custody need not be established because there is no evidence any of the Hofeller files plaintiffs seek to admit have been altered," the Superior Court judges wrote, pointing out the files still had to comply with other rules of evidence.
Content from other subpoenaed Hofeller files in this case also have ended up in separate litigation in other states challenging a plan by President Donald Trump's administration to include a citizenship question on the 2020 U.S. census.
On Friday, the Superior Court judges — Paul Ridgeway, Alma Hinton and Joseph Crosswhite — directed that the remainder of Hofeller's subpoenaed, non-personal files stay confidential temporarily while his old consulting firm reviews them to locate proprietary information they want withheld.
"No party may disseminate any of the Hofeller files to third parties without further order of his court," the judges wrote.
The judges declined to grant a request from the Republican legislators to punish the plaintiffs' lawyers for conduct related to accessing Hofeller's files, saying they could seek redress with the North Carolina State Bar if they chose.
Hofeller's documents came to light under unusual circumstances. Stephanie Hofeller testified she initially contacted Common Cause late last year seeking a legal referral for her mother. She later told Common Cause that she had found computer files they may find interesting. Those documents were formally subpoenaed in March. The plaintiffs' attorneys said they did nothing unethical.
In light of the census cases, the attorneys for the GOP lawmakers said in court last week there was no telling how many people had reviewed documents that could obtain personal and confidential information. The legislators' delay in bringing concerns before the court has contributed to any prejudice they claim to have suffered, the judges wrote.
The gerrymandering trial will begin less than three weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a separate North Carolina case that federal courts won't get involved in judging partisan gerrymandering claims. This trial, however, is in state court, and is based on alleged violations of the state constitution.
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In other news, the Arizona Eagletarian is dismayed and gravely disappointed that Congressman David Schweikert failed to vote for a motion to advance debate on a resolution to condemn the racist rants Trump unleashed in front of cameras and microphones recently against the four female freshman Congressional representatives collectively now known as "The Squad."
Not a single House Republican on Tuesday voted to proceed to debate on a Democratic resolution condemning President Donald Trump's racist attacks on progressive Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib.
The resolution (pdf)—which is on track to pass by Tuesday evening—"strongly condemns President Donald Trump's racist comments that have legitimized and increased fear and hatred of new Americans and people of color."
The procedural motion to begin debate passed by a vote of 233-190.
According to CBSNEWS, the resolution passed
The measure passed by a vote of 240 to 187, with every Democratic member voting in favor. The four Republicans who voted to approve the measure were Reps. Will Hurd of Texas, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Fred Upton of Michigan and Susan Brooks of Indiana.Notably, Schweikert, who ostensibly represents me in Congress also FAILED to vote to condemn Trump's racist screed.
UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE
The State of New York as Plaintiffs filed a motion for sanctions against Defendants United States Department of Commerce for perpetrating a fraud on the court with the false claims it made in attempting to justify adding a citizenship question to the 2020 US Census.
From the NYTimes,
WASHINGTON — Critics who sued to block the Trump administration from adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census asked a federal judge on Tuesday to punish administration officials, saying the officials had deliberately delayed the lawsuit in order to hide damning evidence — conduct they called “nothing less than a fraud on the court.”
In a motion filed in United States District Court in Manhattan, the plaintiffs charged that the conduct raised “serious questions” about the role that senior Justice Department officials played in assisting that strategy. [...]
Some of the charges are based on new evidence about deliberations over the citizenship question that were unearthed in congressional hearings this spring. But the filing also cites a 2015 study by a Republican Party redistricting strategist, Thomas B. Hofeller, now deceased, which outlined ways to boost Republican political fortunes by excluding noncitizens and persons under voting age from the population figures used for redistricting. [...]
Judge Jesse M. Furman of United States District Court issued an order on Tuesday permanently barring the Trump administration from asking respondents to the 2020 census about their citizenship status, whether through a written question or by some other means. That order also prohibited the administration from further delaying printing of 2020 census questionnaires to add a citizenship question.
The New York attorney general, Letitia James, whose office leads a coalition of plaintiffs in the suit in New York, had sought the injunction after Mr. Trump announced last week that he was abandoning efforts to add the question to the census. The Justice Department did not oppose the order.
“This motion will ensure that the Trump administration is held to its words,” Ms. James said in a statement. “It’s time to put this nightmare to bed.”From the motion,
Defendants’ misconduct here compels a full and complete statement of the true facts by the Court. Among other things, it is important to clarify the roles of specific senior government personnel—including Secretary Ross, Attorney General Sessions, Gore, Uthmeier, Davidson, and Jones—as well as key external advisors (including Neuman and Hofeller) in advancing the pretextual [IOW, fraudulent] VRA rationale as well as what these individuals knew about and whether they adopted Hofeller’s improper and discriminatory reasons for adding a citizenship question to the census. [...]
Defendants invoked privileges to withhold evidence of their machinations and their plot to obstruct inquiry into the real purpose of adding the citizenship question by propounding a false rationale: (1) the plotting by senior Commerce Department officials to approach DOJ to request the question with the VRA rationale [...]
CONCLUSION
As the Solicitor General has recognized “counsel have a duty to zealously advocate on behalf of their client, but they also have duties to this Court and to the Bar.” Hargan v. Garza, No. 17-654 Cert. Pet. at 28. And as the Supreme Court wrote, “[e]specially in fast-paced, emergency proceedings like those at issue here, it is critical that lawyers and courts alike be able to rely on one another’s representations.” Azar v. Garza, 138 S. Ct. 1790, 1793 (2018). For these reasons, the Court should authorize discovery and should impose appropriate sanctions on Defendants for their misconduct.
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