North Carolinians want their election laws to include a photo ID requirement. They’ve made this clear many times. In 2018, a large majority of voters chose to add such a requirement to the state constitution. Critics of voter ID know full well they represent a small minority of North Carolinians. They don’t care. Defining the...
The North Carolina Supreme Court heard a case Wednesday of a black Forsyth County man on death row who alleges that a training document nicknamed a “cheat sheet” was used to keep potential black jurors off the jury that heard his case.
Most of the nine justices on the United States Supreme Court espouse some version of the originalist school of constitutional interpretation. Starting early next year, most of the seven justices on the North Carolina Supreme Court will be originalists, too. I know many politicians and activists find these developments worrisome. Some are in a panic....
The plaintiffs in the long-running Leandro school funding case have asked the court to bypass the legislature and order the state government to transfer $1.7 billion to begin funding components of the plan. The plaintiffs made the request in a court filing obtained by WRAL-TV in Raleigh. The transfer would fund years two and three...
A group of retired N.C. State Court of Appeals Judges, all Democrats who chaired the N.C. Judicial Standards Commission has joined forces with fellow Democrats on the N.C. Supreme Court in supporting forcibly removing two GOP justices from a critical constitutional amendments case. The Judicial Standards Commission was created in 1971, now codified as Article...
A lawsuit challenging N.C. constitutional amendments for voter identification and a lower state income tax cap has been removed from today’s calendar of state Supreme Court oral arguments. As recently as Monday, the court’s website listed the case NAACP v. Moore as the first item on the docket for the court’s consideration today. As of...
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday overturned a ruling by the N.C. Supreme Court that prevented sex offenders from using social media. In Packingham v. North Carolina, a convicted sex offender was arrested for using Facebook. The man, Lester Packingham, claimed a violation of his First Amendment rights. In the court’s opinion, social media websites are an essential forum in the...
If we want to retain judicial election, then restore partisan affiliation to the ballot so that voters have something to go on other than name recognition and guesswork.
Redistricting comes back to bite the Democrats.
