The Democrat-controlled Supreme Court of North Carolina ruled along partisan lines that enough electoral districts of the Republican-dominated state legislature were so racially gerrymandered that the lawmakers may have lacked the authority to move two state constitutional amendments forward.
The same court ruled earlier this year that the state electoral maps drawn by the North Carolina General Assembly were “unlawful partisan gerrymanders” that would have unfairly given Republicans an advantage in elections.
The two amendments, the Voter ID Amendment and the Tax Cap Amendment, were approved by the General Assembly and ratified by the voters in 2018. One amendment requires that voters present photo identification to vote in person; the other lowered the maximum state income tax from 10 percent to 7 percent.
Lower courts enjoined the two amendments but appeals courts lifted the injunctions.
Justice Anita Earls, a Democrat, wrote in the court’s majority opinion that “the principles of popular sovereignty and democratic self-rule” were at stake in the case.
“The issue is whether legislators elected from unconstitutionally racially gerrymandered districts possess unreviewable authority to initiate the process of changing the North Carolina Constitution, including in ways that would allow those same legislators to entrench their own power, insulate themselves from political accountability, or discriminate against the same racial group who were excluded from the democratic process by the unconstitutionally racially gerrymandered districts,” Earls wrote.
Although the North Carolina Constitution limits lawmakers’ authority to initiate the amendment process “under these circumstances,” the trial court’s order invalidating the amendments “swept too broadly,” she wrote. Because the legislators have the authority to act to avoid “chaos and confusion in government,” the trial court ought to have considered whether voiding the amendments was necessary “upon balancing the equities” of the situation, the justice wrote, citing a 1963 federal appeals court decision.
The trial court should have looked at whether the votes of lawmakers from “unconstitutionally gerrymandered districts could have been decisive” in the legislative process, Earls wrote, reversing the Court of Appeals and remanding the case to the lower court “for further proceedings consistent with the guidance set forth in this opinion.”
Justice Philip Berger, a Republican, filed a dissenting opinion.
“At issue today is not what our constitution says. The people of North Carolina settled that question when they amended the constitution to include the Voter ID and Tax Cap Amendments,” Berger wrote. “Instead, the majority engages in an inquiry that is judicially forbidden—what should our constitution say? This question is designated solely to the people and the legislature.”
The court majority admitted that constitutional procedures were followed, “yet they invalidate more than 4.1 million votes and disenfranchise more than 55 percent of North Carolina’s electorate,” according to Berger.
“One could argue that this Court has circumvented the will of the people and subverted our republican form of government,” he wrote. ”The legislature alone is textually granted the power to determine the qualifications of its members.”
Local media outlets quoted Deborah Maxwell, president of the North Carolina NAACP, which brought the original lawsuit, praising the new ruling.
“Today’s decision sends a watershed message in favor of accountability and North Carolina democracy,” Maxwell said. “Rigging elections by trampling on the rights of Black voters has consequences.”
Former Department of Justice civil rights attorney J. Christian Adams was sharply critical of the Supreme Court of North Carolina’s decision.
The ruling “is off the deep end,” Adams, who’s president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), told The Epoch Times by email.
“It is an example why state courts have to be subject to the elections clause [in the U.S. Constitution] that gives state legislatures the power to draw district lines,” Adams said. “Anita Earls offers a radical alternative reality that gives power to the people.”
They say the U.S. Constitution has always directly authorized state legislatures to make rules for the conduct of elections, including presidential elections. Democrats say this idea, encompassed by the independent state legislature doctrine, is a fringe conservative legal theory that could endanger voting rights. The Supreme Court has reportedly never ruled on the doctrine.
A date for oral arguments hasn’t yet been scheduled.
PILF describes itself as “the nation’s only public interest law firm dedicated wholly to election integrity.” The nonprofit organization “exists to assist states and others to aid the cause of election integrity, and fight against lawlessness in American elections.”
