Legal issues raised by North Carolina's attorney general and a state Supreme Court justice deserve further scrutiny.
State Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls is dropping her federal lawsuit against the North Carolina Judicial Standards Commission. Earls indicated Wednesday the commission had dismissed a complaint against her that could have led to discipline from her colleagues.
As a conservative commentator, I rarely find agreement with Democrat NC Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls. However, today I do. The North Carolina Judicial Standards Commission should not be in the business of policing political speech. As reported by Carolina Journal, Earls — the most liberal and outspoken member of the state Supreme Court — has filed...
On November 6, 2018, the people of North Carolina voted to amend their state constitution. By a 57% to 43% margin, they added a provision to protect the right to hunt and fish. By the same percentages, they also modified a section about the state’s income tax, setting the highest possible rate at 7% instead...
Do campaign contributions from special interest groups influence judicial candidates when they reach the bench? If you ask North Carolina progressives, the answer will be: it depends. Their answer will depend on whichever answer helps advance their cause at the moment. This has become clear in the recent debate over whether state Supreme Court Justice...
The NC Supreme Court was certainly digging to find reasons to reject the lower court’s ruling on the NC General Assembly’s redistricting maps. One of the questions directed at the NCGA’s counsel that stood out to me came from Associate Justice Anita Earls when she was basically advocating for proportionality among political parties. She used...
The Democratic frontrunner in North Carolina’s U.S. Senate race and a sitting state Supreme Court justice both appear on a high-profile shortlist of candidates to replace U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. CNN also includes one of them, Justice Anita Earls, on its list of eight potential replacements. Breyer, 83, is expected to announce soon...
A new N.C. Supreme Court order confirms that the court’s justices are considering whether to remove two colleagues from hearing a high-profile case involving voter ID. Carolina Journal was first to report that the court’s four Democrats were contemplating the move that would block two Republican justices from taking part in the case. It’s a...
Left-wing activist plaintiffs have filed another motion to block a Republican Supreme Court justice from hearing a high-profile election-related lawsuit. But they lost one of their lawyers along the way. The lawyer, a Democrat and former state solicitor general, asked the Supreme Court to be removed from the case roughly 70 minutes before the controversial...
Whatever the three-judge Superior Court panel decides about Common Cause v. Lewis, a challenge to the constitutionality of North Carolina’s legislative districts, is relevant only if the plaintiffs win. That’s because we would get new legislative maps for 2020 elections — drawn to the liking of the state Democratic Party and left-leaning groups who sued the...
The results of this month’s legislative elections haven’t been certified. Yet Common Cause, the N.C. Democratic Party, and 22 individual plaintiffs are seeking a court order to overturn some of those General Assembly districts. The parties filed the lawsuit Tuesday, Nov. 13, in Wake County Superior Court. The lawsuit challenges legislative maps drawn in 2017...
