Sharp contrasts between candidates for the open NC Supreme Court seat
One of the most consequential choices for voters on this year’s general election ballot is the contest for the NC Supreme Court seat now held by Justice Anita Earls.
WRAL News recently interviewed both Justice Earls and her opponent, former Republican State House Representative Sarah Stevens. WRAL State Government Reporter Will Doran followed up with an article highlighting these differences.
Candidates on democracy
To begin with, Justice Earls has been ready in appropriate cases to rule that the state legislature overstepped its constitutional bounds, as when it draws Congressional and state legislative district maps in convoluted ways that lock in an extreme advantage for one political party or another. She was a member of the Court’s then-majority which ruled that extreme partisan gerrymandering violates the “free and fair elections” guarantee in North Carolina’s state Constitution.
Stevens instead supported the new Republican majority when it reversed that decision immediately after they took office. The new Court majority simply wrote a new decision changing the results of the settled case, on their own initiative without even waiting for a new case in controversy. She had no problem with the Court’s unusual action; in fact, she said that seeing the previous Court majority’s decisions striking down laws she helped write as a legislator “is a big part of why I am running” for a seat on the court.
Abandoning normal judicial processes
Earls, however, strongly criticized both the abandonment of normal judicial process in the same case, and other decisions she views as Republican legislators’ readiness to aggressively re-interpret the law to help big business avoid responsibility.
Earls said, “They’re happy to make sure we fully enforce property rights. But when it comes to children’s right to a sound basic education, when it comes to voters’ rights to have their ballot counted, or voters’ rights to have districts that fairly represent how the electorate actually votes, and when it comes to state law governing how electricity rates should be set? Whenever the court doesn’t want to enforce or protect those rights, they suggest that it’s beyond their power. But that’s I think that’s just a complete misinterpretation of the law.”
In her reference to electric rates, Earls was referring to a case decided earlier this year, in which the Court allowed Duke Energy to charge more to customers in one part of the state than in another. That case was decided 5-2 along party lines in favor of Duke.
In addition to NCLCV, Justice Anita Earls is endorsed by the Sierra Club, the NC State AFL-CIO, the NC Association of Educators, and Planned Parenthood Votes—South Atlantic. Former Republican legislator Sarah Stevens is endorsed by the NC Values Coalition, which supports abortion bans, and by Grass Roots North Carolina, an extreme gun-rights group.