GUEST: Brent Laurenz, deputy director of Common Cause North Carolina

BACKGROUND: A North Carolina trial court has determined their state's severely gerrymandered districts have to be redrawn.

This was just months after the US Supreme Court walked away from regulating the maps.

Republicans have so effectively drawn district maps to benefit their party that they are retaining political power in North Carolina despite losing the popular vote.

But three state court judges just issued a 357-page unanimous ruling concluding that the existing maps, "do not permit voters to freely choose their representative, but rather representatives are choosing voters based upon sophisticated partisan sorting."

The NC judges had access to a trove of files belonging to a Republican operative named Thomas Hofeller who recently died. Now, a legal battle is shaping up over making all of Hofeller's files public.

Brent Laurenz Common Cause North Carolina Free Speech TV Gerrymandering GOP Maps North Carolina Republican Party Rising Up with Sonali Sonali Kolhatkar United States US Supreme Court