On Tuesday, Gov. Roy Cooper announced more than 75 appointments to state boards and commissions. The appointments are some of more than 350 state posts over which the governor has appointment power, ranging from occupational boards to issue advocacy groups. Among the appointments, state Rep. Michael Wray, D-Gaston, was appointed to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries...
The court's seven justices travel to Edenton to address high-profile election cases that already have produced partisan splits.
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...
A unanimous three-judge panel has upheld North Carolina’s new congressional and legislative election maps. The panel of two Republican Superior Court judges and one Democratic colleague rejected critics’ arguments that mapmakers engaged in unconstitutional partisan and racial gerrymandering. The 260-page order also grants the State Board of Elections’ request to resume candidate filing for 2022...
Democrat Party-aligned groups challenging North Carolina’s recently enacted election maps told a three-judge panel Thursday that the maps are extremely partisan. They said the maps for legislative and congressional elections are so partisan in favoring Republican candidates that they violate North Carolina’s constitutional guarantee of “free elections.” That was a key argument in closing arguments...
The lieutenant governor and the N.C. Senate’s powerful Rules Committee chairman are taking aim at the left-wing group leading the charge against voter ID in North Carolina. Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson and Sen. Bill Rabon, R-Brunswick, issued statements Wednesday, April 21, criticizing the Southern Coalition for Social Justice. Robinson and Rabon specifically referenced the coalition’s...
During day two of a trial in a lawsuit challenging North Carolina’s voter identification law, Senate Republicans highlighted supportive comments uttered by Democrats when the General Assembly approved the law in 2018. “Lawyers for the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, a left-wing legal organization, have attempted to characterize the law and those who backed it...
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 official press release about a school safety committee's final recommendations omits a key point.
Remarks during a celebration of the N.C. Supreme Court's 200th anniversary point away from party-line splits on judicial decisions.
North Carolina’s new voter ID law is headed to court. This week the N.C. General Assembly overrode Gov. Roy Cooper’s Dec. 14 veto of Senate Bill 824, Implementation of Voter I.D. Constitutional Amendment. Now, the Southern Coalition for Social Justice and the N.C. NAACP are suing over allegations of racial discrimination and burdens on voting...
