A North Carolina Senate committee moved forward a bill on Thursday that would put three constitutional amendments on the November general election ballot. The original version of Senate Bill 630 included a proposed amendment specifying that only US citizens may vote in elections. But the measure was amended during the committee meeting to include two additional amendments....
It all started over a decade ago. The year was 2013, and North Carolina inaugurated its first Republican governor in decades. He would work alongside a majority-Republican state legislature, the first double Republican leadership in over a century, after nearly 150 years of domination by Democrats. Soon thereafter, reports started to emerge, murmurs that within...
Democrats on the state Supreme Court told more than three million voters to drop dead by canceling their votes for two constitutional amendments placed on the ballot in 2018. Democrats continued their wrecking ball on the separation of powers by declaring that the people of North Carolina can’t choose to amend their constitution by a...
A second court has blocked voter ID in North Carolina — a move policymakers and analysts denounce as riddled with substantive and procedural problems. A state Court of Appeals three-judge panel has temporarily banned a law requiring voter ID in North Carolina elections. This comes after a U.S. District Court judge blocked the same law...
Barring a successful and rapid appeal, North Carolina’s voter ID requirement for the March 2020 primary looks dead. U.S. District Court Judge Loretta Biggs blocked Senate Bill 824 in an order issued Tuesday, Dec. 31. Biggs said racial motivation was a likely factor in the General Assembly’s crafting of the voter ID law. The N.C....
A federal court gave North Carolinians who adopted a constitutional amendment requiring voter ID a late lump of coal. U.S. District Court Judge Loretta Biggs and Magistrate Judge Patrick Auld issued a notice Thursday, Dec. 26, saying the court will put the law implementing the constitutional amendment on hold. They’re presiding over a lawsuit challenging...
The N.C. House voted 72-40 Wednesday to override Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of Senate Bill 824, legislation implementing a constitutional amendment mandating voters present approved state-approved photo identification. The Senate’s vote Tuesday was 32-13, so the measure will become law. Debate in the House broke along partisan lines. Republicans argued that the legislation honored the...
Lawmakers are developing rules for the freshly passed voter ID constitutional amendment. But nobody believes the law will take effect without a pitched court battle. One voting law expert has a suggestion. “I would recommend that the state legislature include a provision in any enabling legislation that gives the legislature the power to appoint a...
The House Rules Committee passed two potential constitutional amendments Thursday. If added to the House calendar, and passed by at least 72 members of the House (three-fifths of the chamber), the amendments will appear on the November ballot. The committee passed Senate Bill 677, which would enshrine the right to hunt and fish, by a...
