Stein Sues Over Court Appointments; Jackson Wins Orders Unfreezing Funds; Riggs Responds to Latest Appeal

Pro-environment state elected leaders in North Carolina have continued their efforts this month to protect the democratic processes essential to our ability to effectively fight for a clean environment and a livable climate.

Gov. Stein Sues Over Court Appointments

Governor Josh Stein has sued in state court to invalidate a new state law limiting the governor’s constitutional power to make appointments filling judicial vacancies, as well as stripping his power to make appointments to the NC Utilities Commission. 

“These provisions of SB 382 are partisan power grabs that thwart North Carolina voters’ decisions at the ballot box,” Stein said. “The people gave the Governor the authority to fill appellate judicial vacancies more than 150 years ago — yet, a power-hungry General Assembly seeks to overturn the people’s will by stripping this responsibility from the governor. Furthermore, the people overwhelmingly made their choice for governor clear in the last election. I filed this lawsuit to ensure that their vote is respected, to restore balance to our state’s branches of government, and to put our constitution ahead of power grabs.” 

A.G. Jackson Wins Orders in Federal Cases

Attorney General Jeff Jackson is continuing to work with state attorneys general from 21 other states to force the Trump Administration to release illegally frozen payments by multiple federal agencies. In an order issued Monday in that case, a federal judge found that the Trump Administration was continuing to withhold payments that the court directed be continued, and the court directed the Administration to “immediately restore frozen funding” and “immediately end any federal funding pause” that affects the challengers’ states. 

In a separate case, Jackson and other participating states’ attorneys general also won a temporary restraining order blocking the federal government from sharing Americans’ confidential personal data with Elon Musk’s so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE). 

“The court recognized this federal overreach for what it is – a violation of federal law and a threat to people’s privacy and security. It is critical that government spending is transparent and taxpayer dollars are spent efficiently, but this process has clearly been against the law,” said Jackson. “For now, DOGE can’t access the treasury system and the data it holds – including Social Security numbers. We’re going to keep fighting this case to uphold the longstanding federal protections of Americans’ confidential financial data.” 

Justice Riggs Responds to Judge Griffin’s Latest Appeal

NC Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs and the NC State Board of Elections are saying let’s get this nonsense over with. Both have asked that Judge Jefferson Griffin’s latest sore-loser appeal skip the Court of Appeals level and go straight to the NC Supreme Court.

As expected, Griffin last week filed an appeal from the NC Superior Court Judge’s order dismissing his attempt to throw out 60,000+ legally cast ballots in the election he lost last year seeking Justice Riggs’ Supreme Court seat. In response, Riggs and the elections board notified the Appeals Court they would file a “bypass petition” asking that the NC Supreme Court take up the appeal directly rather than sending it through the Appeals Court.

NC state law says that such a bypass is appropriate when “the subject matter of the appeal has significant public interest, the cause involves legal principles of major significance to the jurisprudence of the State,” or various other reasons. 

Since the trial court has already established the factual record for appeals, and it’s guaranteed that whichever party lost at the Appeals Court level would simply continue the appeal upwards, it makes sense to skip the intermediate stage. We will see soon whether the state Supreme Court agrees.