Butterfield, like several other members involved in drafting the new bill, has a deep history in redistricting and election issues. His father was elected to the Wilson, N.C., city council in 1953, a rarity for a Black man in the state at the time. But the city switched from a ward-based council to an at-large system, and his father lost reelection in 1957.

“No. 1, it was because of the color of his skin, but also because of the change in election procedure,” Butterfield said. “And I began to understand that any election system, the way it’s constructed, can really influence the outcome of the election.”

Decades at the bar

Through his decades of litigating redistricting and voting rights cases, Butterfield has seen the system evolve, including a 1980 Supreme Court decision that made proving violations of the Voting Rights Act more difficult and a 1982 change enacted by Congress that swung the law back the other way.

Butterfield points to success at the local level. In the 1980s, the Justice Department stepped in using Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act when Rocky Mount, N.C., tried to annex a nearby town. Section 5 allows the Justice Department to “preclear” election law changes in certain states and counties to ensure voting rights aren’t affected by the changes. The annexation would have diluted the power of Black voters in Rocky Mount, where they made up almost half the population, and the city switched from an at-large council to a ward system.

“Section 5 and Section 2 have leveled the playing field, they have transformed electoral politics in the South,” Butterfield said, referring to the section that allows the DOJ, or citizens, to challenge an election law change after the fact for being discriminatory.