News
US Supreme Court rules Trump can’t be barred from ballot
US Supreme Court overturns decision Of Colorado court barring Trump from ballot.
Opinion
Standing and the NC Supreme Court: Rediscovering our legal heritage
Standing is probably one of the most disliked doctrines in American law. Basically, it requires private plaintiffs in federal court (most state courts, including in NC, have similar rules) to show that they have been individually harmed by an action before they can sue to stop it. Since it is a procedural limit, standing often...
Opinion
Separation of powers protects freedom
Has there even been a point of time in which so many public controversies rest on a single, abstract principle of constitutional government? I can’t think of one. The principle in question is the separation of powers. Here are only some of its recent political manifestations: • The U.S. Supreme Court has just blocked President...
News
Political experts: Pending abortion ruling unlikely to sway N.C. midterm elections
The U.S. Supreme Court’s pending ruling on national abortion law is unlikely to significantly impact races up and down the ballot for Congress and the General Assembly in North Carolina, political experts say. That analysis lands despite claims by Democrats that they have found an issue to run on headed into a midterm cycle that is...
News
U.S. Supreme Court backs donor privacy rights
The U.S. Supreme Court backed donor privacy in a decision released Thursday, July 1. The closely watched ruling was based on a case from California in which the state’s then-Attorney General Kamala Harris tried to require nonprofit organizations to disclose the identities of donors by requiring them to file an unredacted “Schedule B” with their...
News
Skeptical Justices Consider Judicial Retention Law
Several state Supreme Court justices showed skepticism during a Wednesday hearing over the constitutionality of a recent law establishing “retention” elections for appellate court judges. While the state’s solicitor general urged the justices to reverse a lower court ruling and allow the retention law to take effect, the plaintiffs’ attorney told the high court that...
News
Appeal of Boone ETJ Act Could Affect Land Use Regulation Statewide
The state’s highest court on Tuesday took up the issue of whether the N.C. General Assembly exceeded its constitutional limits when it revoked the Town of Boone’s extraterritorial zoning powers in 2014. Lauren Clemmons of the N.C. Department of Justice and Watauga County Attorney Stacy Eggers IV urged the N.C. Supreme Court to reverse a...
News
Justices: Sheriffs May Fire Deputies Not Donating To Campaigns
In a dispute pitting political speech against the authority of public agencies, in January the N.C. Supreme Court ruled that a sheriff could fire a deputy for refusing to make a contribution to the sheriff’s re-election campaign. In a separate opinion, the court refused to determine whether non-deputy employees of a sheriff’s department also could...
News
Duke Scholars Examine Impact of Scalia’s Passing
President Obama’s decision to nominate a replacement for the late Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia might define his legacy, will further polarize partisan electoral politics, and could swing the direction of the court and the Senate, Duke University academics say. John Aldrich and David Rohde, professors of political science, and Neil Siegel, professor of...
News
Academics: North Carolina Voters Lose In Redistricting Battle
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s death, and the resulting 4-4 philosophical divide among the remaining justices, likely swung Chief Justice John Roberts’ decision not to issue a stay in North Carolina’s congressional redistricting case, say several political science professors who follow the electoral process. The General Assembly’s decision substituting blatant partisanship for racial considerations...
News
Mapmakers Removing Race From New Congressional Districts
Members of the Joint Select Committee on Congressional Redistricting sparred for 4 ½ hours Tuesday in a meeting featuring mostly party-line votes and intense reactions from stunned Democrats after Republican leaders declared they would omit any and all racial considerations when redrawing congressional districts. Passions rose when Republicans said their main focus in adjusting congressional...
News
Legislators Get An Earful At Redistricting Hearings
Voters, candidates, and political partisans exchanged sharply divided views and occasional vitriol Monday in a marathon public hearing about North Carolina congressional redistricting in the wake of a federal court decision placing the scheduled March 15 primary in jeopardy. Members of the General Assembly’s Joint Select Committee on Congressional Redistricting did not offer comments. They...
