North Carolina’s SCOTUS reverses previous rulings on redistricting and restores some voting safeguards
This is potentially important:
In a trio of rulings Friday, the N.C. Supreme Court restored the state’s voter ID law, took state courts out of partisan gerrymandering disputes, and ended voting for felons who have not completed their sentences.
Each ruling split the court, 5-2. Republican justices supported the majority decisions. Democrats dissented.
The rulings will affect North Carolina’s upcoming elections, including the next set of congressional and legislative election maps.
In a trio of opinions totaling 436 pages, the N.C. Supreme Court has restored North Carolina’s voter ID law, ruled that state courts cannot consider partisan gerrymandering claims, and ended voting for felons who have not completed their sentences.
What happened to cause the reversal? An election. The previous court had a 4-3 Democrat majority. There was an election in November, and two of the Democrat justices were replaced by Republican ones, giving the court its present 5-2 Republican split.
It’s another reminder that justice is not blind, especially in cases such as these which directly concern politics and elections. Interestingly, the present court casts this as a retreat from politics by the court, because the previous decisions were judicial overreach in which the court negated actions by the legislature:
“There is no legal recourse available for vindication of political interests, but this Court is yet again confronted with ‘a partisan legislative disagreement that has spilled out . . . into the courts.’ This Court once again stands as a bulwark against that spillover, so that even in the most divisive cases, we reassure the public that our state’s courts follow the law, not the political winds of the day,” wrote Justice Phil Berger Jr. for the majority.
The voter ID law had been passed by the NC legislature and rejected by the previous NC Supreme Court. The legislature also is in charge of redistricting, but the previous court had thrown out the maps drawn by the Republican-dominated legislature. This new court adds that “state courts will no longer hear lawsuits challenging election maps because of claims of excessive partisanship.” The power rests in the legislative branch. The court stated:
The constitution does not require or permit a standard [for redistricting fairness] known only to four justices. Finally, creating partisan redistricting standards is rife with policy decisions. Policy decisions belong to the legislative branch, not the judiciary.
This would not be happening now but for the recent election in North Carolina that put Republicans in charge of the court. I’d like to know how it was that there was a Democrat majority in that court in that state to begin with, and then how the voters became convinced that the party balance of the court needed changing during the 2022 campaign. Was it about personalities, or general policy? Can the GOP in other states learn from the experience?
If you want to know how many states elect judges and how many don’t, it’s complicated because there are a great many different systems for it. Here’s a list and chart.
Bonchie points out that this ruling is likely to affect the next election:
What that means is that the map that was ultimately adopted for the 2022 election was drawn in such a way as to guarantee a near-neutral split between Republican and Democrat seats. That allowed Democrats to win several seats they would have otherwise lost…
The GOP has a very slim majority in the House of Representatives right now. All it would have taken were a few bad candidates or scandals to arise during the next election to hand the gavel over to Hakeem Jeffries. Having a high probability of an extra four seats in North Carolina is just the breathing room Republicans need to ensure they hold onto power, no matter what happens with the presidential election in 2024.
It isn’t activist judging to undo activist judging.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/north-carolina-supreme-court-gerrymandering-voter-id-paul-newby-5a2f11aa
Does this mean that those laws are going to change back and forth every time the balance of power changes in the NC Supreme Court?
bof, I don’t think so. The presenting cases are now finished.
I agree with the NC Court that the previous rulings were the activist political ones, and the reversal is correct.
North Carolina, which a few decades ago was solidly Democrat, has been slowly changing for a while. I know personally several old-style Southerners who used to be conservative Democrats, but who found that the national and state parties left them. People here have an independent streak which makes them unhappy with the nanny state pushed by the left. The lockdowns and school closures pushed by our Democrat governor made people angry.
The NC state GOP did very well over several election cycles on judicial slots. It takes a while because judges are elected for a term of several years. The GOP recruited good judicial nominees who are well-respected, and they did extensive fund-raising and advertising specifically focused on judicial elections.
Also, although Republicans lost most Wake County (Raleigh area) local elections, the GOTV effort brought out enough Republicans to make the difference in those statewide elections.
Ultimately, this is defensive. The notion that voter ID is ‘racially biased’ is a blatant fraud.
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IMO, there are fairly impersonal and stereotyped processes which allow you to avoid gerrymandering in redistricting. However, they only work well if (1) you concede that some amount of variation in district population is permissible (Robert Bork had an amusing story of working on a redistricting map as a special master when the idiot court in question had insisted districts could vary only +/- 1% in population) and (2) you’re not in the race patronage business. Of course, our appellate judges have insisted on both.
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Every policy question the judiciary touches, they make worse.
I am especially amused by NC Democrats complaints that the court enabled gerrymandering. It wasn’t too long ago that Democrats were in charge and gerrymandering was extreme. There was a congressional district that ran from Greensboro down I-85, just a few miles on each side of the highway, to Charlotte, which was constructed to ensure a black Democrat seat. If the Dems ever take over the legislature again, we will surely see them gerrymandering happily. The districts that the Republicans drew were at least reasonably compact, respecting county and city lines to the extent possible.
“Every policy question the judiciary touches, they make worse.” That’s exactly what the NC Supreme Court said in all three cases. Policy is a legislative function, not a judicial one.
Judicial elections in Washington state are non-partisan. Ha. There is often only one candidate for the position. Lots of choice. 🙁 And the qualifications listed are usually so, opaque you have no idea what their judicial philosophy is. It is the most difficult part of the ballot for me. So very important and yet, so hard to know what you’re voting for.
Neo, you asked “I’d like to know how it was that there was a Democrat majority in that court in that state to begin with, and then how the voters became convinced that the party balance of the court needed changing during the 2022 campaign. Was it about personalities, or general policy? Can the GOP in other states learn from the experience?”
One of the two justices (both Dems) who voted against this is a leftist activist, Anita Earls. Notice the vote tallies below. She won with less 50% of the vote. The two Rep judges together had slightly over 50%. If the 2nd Rep, who had to have known that he hadn’t a snowball’s chance in Hell of winning, had left the race, Earls would have lost (I’ll assume). Another example of the Reps defeating themselves. They have to develop some party discipline, or this will continue.
Earls defeated incumbent Barbara Jackson in 2018.
Anita Earls (D) Candidate 49.6 1,812,751
Barbara Jackson (R) 34.1 1,246,263
Chris Anglin (R) 16.4 598,753
“The constitution does not require or permit a standard [for redistricting fairness] known only to four justices.”
That’s an elegant way of saying the previous majority simply pulled a rule out of their butts.
Abraham Franklin, that’s exactly what they did. “Fair” meant, more Democrats win.
Chris Anglin, the man who came in third in the election which put the terrible Anita Earls on the NC Supreme Court, was a registered Democrat until he switched right before putting himself on the ballot. Republicans who knew thought of him as a Dem plant, but he pulled enough votes to elect Earl.
State-level races are certainly worth engaging in, and its’ what anyone who wants to oppose the Left needs to concentrate on. It’s never one-and-done with the Left, so unless you want new judges to undo what old judges did you can never take your eye off the ball.
The national level unfortunately is hopeless–the Electoral College* has locked the Presidency and Congress is dominated by the Uniparty.
But if Right-leaning people consolidate their hold on states where they have control, changing the rules to keep control where necessary, in time they can recover and maybe change things at the national level.
*All states Trump won in 2020, plus Georgia, plus Wisconsin and Michigan are necessary. It will not matter who is nominated for the Republicans, the election is already fortified for the Dems in every other state, and it’s not plausible that both Wisconsin and Michigan will flip back. Vote for the Republican in November 2024 if it makes you feel better, but you won’t help anybody unless you focus on state and local races and don’t get distracted by culture war. Maybe you need to move to a state where you can do some good.
Kate, thank you for the update in that election that saw Earls elected. I was living out of the US during this election, and didn’t know this about Anglin. Sounds like Dem dishonesty again.
One of the activist Democrats on the NC Supreme Ct was a Davidson classmate of mine, Jimmy Ervin. Jimmy is the grandson of Sam Ervin, who was best known for his racism and work in the Senate to take down Nixon.
One of the activist Democrats on the NC Supreme Ct was a Davidson classmate of mine, Jimmy Ervin. Jimmy is the grandson of Sam Ervin, who was best known for his racism and work in the Senate to take down Nixon.
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Ervin’s views on policy questions were standard for Southern politicians of his vintage. I don’t believe he was known as a race baiter. He was a critic of civil rights laws and remained so until the end of his days, long after it. was politically useful to him. He placed an article in Modern Age ca. 1983 on the subject. He’d been out of office for eight years at that point. (The title of the article was, IIRC, ‘Civil Rights and Constitutional Wrongs’).
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As for the Senate Watergate Committee, it had on it four Democrats and three Republicans. The Senators on the committee were selected by their respective floor leaders. Two of the Democrats were Southerners whose policy preferences were likely closer to the median of the Republican caucus than to the median of the Democratic caucus. A third was Joseph Montoya, who read his questions off of index cards (prepared by his staff?) and did not ask follow up questions of much use. The big showboat on the committee was Lowell Weicker, a liberal Republican from Connecticut (who, among the committee’s members and counsel, is the only one still living).
My understanding is in Pennsylvania it is also the state legislative who makes the precincts boundaries and our Leftists on the State Supreme Court took over and left a Leftist make them up without the legislative body.
SCOTUS — Supreme Court of the UNITED STATES
Therefore, there is no North Carolina SCOTUS. There is a SCOTNC, but no SCOT_US_
Thank you.
Sam Ervin was considered a leader of the anti-civil rights coalition.
” Ervin served as the principal legal adviser to the segregationist bloc in the Senate and voted against virtually every civil rights bill.”
” Ervin’s battles against civil rights legislation dominated his time and energy.”
Just a couple of quotes from different academic studies from a quick search.
Al Gore, Sr and Sam Ervin were particularly noted in their leadership of the southern opposition to civil rights in the senate.