RALEIGH — North Carolina Speaker of the House Destin Hall (R-Granite Falls) and Senate Leader Phil Berger (R-Eden) announced they will take up congressional redistricting plans to “thwart blue state attempts to steal Congress.”
According to Hall’s press release, legislative leaders have agreed to hold votes during the upcoming October session scheduled to start Monday, Oct. 20.
“President (Donald) Trump earned a clear mandate from the voters of North Carolina and the rest of the country, and we intend to defend it by drawing an additional Republican Congressional seat,” said Hall. “Our state won’t stand by while Democrats like Gavin Newsom redraw districts to aid in their effort to obtain a majority in the U.S. House. We will not allow them to undermine the will of the voters and President Trump’s agenda.”
“President Trump delivered countless victories during his first term in office, and nine months into his second term he continues to achieve unprecedented wins. We are doing everything we can to protect President Trump’s agenda, which means safeguarding Republican control of Congress,” Berger said. “Picking up where Texas left off, we will hold votes in our October session to redraw North Carolina’s congressional map to ensure Gavin Newsom doesn’t decide the congressional majority.”
Trump has pushed for redistricting in red states following California’s announcement it would add Democrat seats in the wake of Texas’ redistricting plans.
Likely related to the push for redistricting is the push for a new census. In an April post on Truth Social, Trump said he had ordered the Department of Commerce to work on a new census, one that would exclude illegal immigrants and noncitizens from being counted.
Chairs of the redistricting committees in both chambers also issued statements.
“We’re stepping into this redistricting battle because California and the radical left are attempting to rig the system to handpick who runs Congress. This ploy is nothing new, and North Carolina will not stand by while they attempt to stack the deck,” House Redistricting Chairmen Brenden Jones (R-Columbus) and Hugh Blackwell (R-Burke) said. “President Trump has called on us to fight back, and North Carolina stands ready to level the playing field.”
“North Carolina was at the forefront of the Democrats’ sue-until-blue scheme, and we’re prepared to bring forward a new Congressional map to defeat this new scheme,” said Senate Redistricting Chairman Ralph Hise (R-Mitchell).
North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton responded to the news by calling Hall and Berger “bootlickers.”
“Big daddy Trump calls and Phil Berger and Destin hall answer the call like the BOOTLICKERS that they are — North Carolina voters ain’t letting y’all get away with this bulls–t,” wrote Clayton in a post on X.
In a second post responding directly to Berger’s press release, Clayton simply wrote in all caps, “BOOTLICKERS.”
House Minority Leader Rep. Robert Reives (D-Wake) issued a formal statement through his press office.
“Republican lawmakers made clear today that they plan to come back to Raleigh and disenfranchise the voters of this state,” he said. “Instead of lowering costs for families or ensuring Medicaid can stay afloat, they are hellbent on consolidating as much power as they can. Call it what it is: They are stealing a congressional district in order to shield themselves from accountability at the ballot box.”
In a statement posted to X, Gov. Josh Stein said, “The General Assembly should be working for you, not taking away your freedoms. Here’s my statement on their shameless plan to redraw North Carolina’s Congressional maps.
“The Republican leadership in the General Assembly has failed to pass a budget, failed to pay our teachers and law enforcement what they deserve, and failed to fully fund Medicaid. Now they are failing you, the voters. These shameless politicians are abusing their power to take away yours.
“I will always fight for you because the voters should choose their representatives, not the other way around.”
While the legislature has not passed a current budget, state law dictates that current funding levels be maintained until a new budget is passed. That means that teachers, law enforcement and other state employees will still be paid, albeit at their current rates.
Each chamber has passed a Medicaid Rebase funding bill but has not yet sent a consolidated bill to the governor.
The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) instituted Medicaid rate hikes that Hall blamed on Stein in an Oct. 1 press release, with Hall saying cuts were “self-imposed” and on an “arbitrary October 1st deadline.”
“Governor Stein’s arbitrary Medicaid cuts are unjustifiable, clearly intended to manufacture a crisis,” said Hall. “The legislature has given funds to sustain Medicaid well into 2026. This breathtakingly cynical move ignores years of precedent where the rebase has been supplemented even later in the fiscal year.”
Hall’s Oct. 1 release said Medicaid has “sufficient funding to last into the new year” and that Stein “has the tools to provide additional financing immediately without legislative approval.” Hall said options such as redirecting lapsed salary funding from NCDHHS and other agencies could avoid the cuts or by “utilizing $18 million through an intergovernmental transfer.”
