RALEIGH, NC (AP) — In massive victories for Republicans, North Carolina’s newly GOP-controlled Supreme Court on Friday overturned a previous ruling against tampered with voting cards and upheld a photograph-identifying voter bill that peers considered racially biased had knocked down.
The Partisan Gerrymandering Judgment should make it much easier for the Republican-dominated legislature to help the GOP win seats in the tightly divided U.S. House of Representatives when it comes to lawmakers Redefine convention boundaries for the 2024 election. Under the current map, Democrats won seven of the state’s 14 congressional seats last November.
The court, which became a Republican majority this year after electing two GOP judges, ruled after taking the unusual Step of revisiting opinions on redistribution and voter ID hit by the court’s previous iteration in December when Democrats held a 4-3 seat advantage. The court held rehearsals in March.
Friday’s 5-2 verdicts also mean that state legislatures should have greater leeway in determining General Assembly seating limits for next year’s elections and for the rest of the decade, and that the electoral law passed by lawmakers in late 2018 ID law could be implemented soon.
In another Friday court ruling on party lines, state justice authorities overturned a first-instance court decision on when to lose the right to vote people convicted of crimes are restored. That means tens of thousands of people will have to complete their probation or probation and pay all the fines to vote again.
Republican lawmakers celebrated the comprehensive series of favorable decisions that are certainly the result of the changing composition of the state’s highest court. Outside groups spent millions about the two Supreme Court campaigns in 2022.
“The decisions made today by the NC Supreme Court have ensured that our Constitution and the will of the people of North Carolina are respected,” said House Speaker Tim Moore in a press release.
But the remaining Democratic judges and their allies criticized the decisions, which reversed new precedents on re-election districts and voter cards.
Former US Attorney General Eric Holder, who heads a national Democratic group whose affiliate supported the redistricting litigation, said Friday’s mapping decision was “a function of Republican political personnel and partisan opportunism.”
“History will not be kind to the majority of this court, who will now be tainted forever for having irreparably damaged the legitimacy and reputation of North Carolina’s highest tribunal,” Holder said.
Chief Justice Paul Newby, who wrote the majority opinion in the reallocation case, said the former majority of Democrats erred when they said the state constitution prohibited extensive partisan maneuvering. The Court knocked down tickets last year The General Assembly pulled because they said it gave Republicans an outsized voting advantage compared to their suffrage.
But Newby said a partisan gerrymandering ban was absent from the plain language of the Constitution. He argued that current and former colleagues who stated the opposite had unjustly stripped power of the General Assembly, which the state constitution calls the cartographer.
“In today’s decision, the court is returning to its tradition of honoring the constitutional roles assigned to each branch,” Newby wrote. “This case is not about partisan politics, but about realigning the very roles of the judiciary and the legislature.”
Associate Justice Anita Earls, who wrote the dissenting opinion, said the court ruled correctly last year to ensure that all North Carolina residents “regardless of political party were not denied their ‘fundamental right to vote on equal terms.’ becomes”. … Today the majority takes away this right from the people.”
North Carolina Republicans had also appealed a decision on the congressional card to the US Supreme Court, asking judges to expand the powers of state legislatures at the expense of state courts on matters of redistribution and congressional elections.
The US judges heard oral hearing in December However, he later asked the right-wing parties what effect the state Supreme Court’s reconsideration of the matter should have on the case. Responses varied, but President Joe Biden’s administration suggested that the court dismiss the case ahead of Friday’s state court decision.
Regarding voter identification, the Republican majority overturned a court decision that overturned the 2018 law. The trial court had ruled that GOP lawmakers passed the law in part to maintain control of the General Assembly by preventing Black Democrats from voting in general elections. But Associate Justice Phil Berger Jr. wrotein part that the trial judges erred in relying on a federal court ruling that overturned a 2013 voter identification law as tainted by racial discrimination.
Though a federal lawsuit against the voter ID law is pending, the state Board of Elections said Friday staffers would begin working towards a “smooth rollout” of the ID requirement in this fall’s municipal elections.
Voters also previously approved a separate photo voter ID mandate for the state constitution, though that change is stuck in a legal battle that would not affect Friday’s decision.
Regarding the process for restoring voting rights, the court upheld a 1973 law — when Democrats controlled the legislature — that automatically restored voting rights only after the “unconditional release of an inmate, probation officer, or parole officer.”
A chamber of judicial proceedings Judges explained last year that the law disproportionately harms black offenders and is unconstitutional. Attorneys for the plaintiffs said the 1973 law continued to be rooted in efforts by white Reconstruction-era politicians to deliberately prevent black residents from voting.
Most of those affected by the law — about 56,000 on probation, probation or supervision at the time of a trial in 2021 — had a chance to vote last November.
Shakita Norman, a plaintiff in the case who could vote in 2022, called Friday’s decision “just plain wrong. When you tell us that we can no longer vote, are you also telling us that we don’t have to pay taxes? That is not right.”
Associate Justice Trey Allen wrote The majority believe that the trial court “falsely attributed” to others discriminatory views held by 19th-century legislators, which later “would have made it easier for eligible criminals of all races to regain their voting rights.”
“It is not unconstitutional to insist that criminals pay their debts to society as a condition of participation in the electoral process,” Allen wrote.
Associated Press writer Mark Sherman contributed to this report.