It appears that nothing frightens the top dogs in the NC General Assembly more than fair and open voting by more North Carolinians. They’re asking the NC Supreme Court to approve their ability to disenfranchise previously incarcerated citizens, put useless roadblocks in the way of registered voters, and return to unrestricted, extreme political gerrymandering.

All three cases involve decisions by the state Supreme Court which included one now-retired Justice and a second Justice who was defeated in his re-election bid in November. Nothing has changed since then in the law or the facts of the cases; the only change has come in the partisan makeup of the court itself. The requests to immediately reconsider those decisions represent the rawest form of partisan politics trumping the principle of impartial justice under law. They are determined efforts by powerful legislative politicians to protect their own power by interfering with the voting rights of people whom those politicians believe won’t favor them or their policies.

Among those policies are these politicians’ dedication to protecting the rights of polluters over the rights of people to be protected from the fouling of their air, water, and land. NCLCV carefully tracks and reports on these voting rights issues because the right to vote is essential to holding politicians accountable for their decisions on public health and our environment. We were one of the plaintiffs in one of the gerrymandering cases before the NC Supreme Court last year.

In arguably the most critical single case, the right of all voters to make their voting choices in fairly drawn and competitive legislative district races is at stake. 

“Self-serving politicians are desperately trying to undermine the state Supreme Court’s landmark ruling against discriminatory gerrymandering,” said Bob Phillips, executive director of Common Cause North Carolina. “Partisan legislators want to claw power away from the people of North Carolina and go back to illegally manipulating our voting districts. Enough. Politicians in the legislature should stop wasting taxpayers’ money in pursuit of unconstitutional power grabs. It’s time for lawmakers to follow the law.” 

In a second case, the legislative leaders are still fighting to reinstall forms of required voter photo identification that the courts have repeatedly found to disproportionately disadvantage Black voters. 

Finally, these legislators are fighting to reinstate a 1973 law that prevents someone convicted of a felony from having voting rights restored while they are still on probation, parole, or post-release supervision. Last March, a panel of state trial judges struck down the law on grounds that it unconstitutionally discriminates against Black citizens. In order to prevent election-year confusion over voting rights, the state Supreme Court left the ruling in place through the fall voting. The Court will hear arguments in that case this week (on February 2). 

The outcome of these three cases will go a long way toward telling us whether our state’s highest Court will remain a watchdog for our democracy, or become the lapdog for a few powerful politicians.