10 reasons judicial elections are the most important thing on your ballot
10 Reasons Why Judicial Elections Have Become the Most Important Thing on Your Ballot
by Jessica Barry
Since our North Carolina judicial system became partisan, our state courts have failed to serve as a check on our state legislature. Instead, they have helped Republicans to undermine democracy, violate our state constitution, and leave our rights vulnerable. Corporations and other friendly parties are winning while ordinary North Carolinians are losing because of the courts’ abuses of power. This is a crisis that we can and will change by heading to the ballot box to elect judges who will uphold the rule of law and do what is best for the people of our state. Here are ten issues that prove why judicial elections have become the most important races on the ballot in North Carolina.
Extreme partisan gerrymandering
When Republican judges took control of the NC Supreme Court in 2023, they threw out a ruling from the year prior that had declared partisan gerrymandering to be unconstitutional. This move allowed Republicans to redraw our state’s congressional maps to produce far more Republican-leaning districts, giving the party the districts they needed to take control of the US House of Representatives in 2024. The House has supported Donald Trump’s extreme agenda throughout his second term so far, and had the NC Supreme Court not okayed partisan gerrymandering, Trump would not have control of the House right now. With the support of the NC Supreme Court, Republicans can continue to misrepresent the will of our evenly politically divided state.
Underfunded education
North Carolina ranks last in the nation for education funding, and our State Constitution granting our children the right to a sound, basic education is being violated as a result. The NC Supreme Court should be a check on our legislature’s violation of our Constitution, but instead they are starving our schools too, blocking a $677 million remedial funding plan that would give our schools the money they need to carry out the Constitution’s guarantee to our children.
Access to abortion
Following the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling by the US Supreme Court overturning the constitutional right to an abortion, the NC state legislature pushed through a 12-week abortion ban. This ban has gone unchallenged in our courts because it is apparent that the Republicans leading our courts do not support a woman’s legal right to make her own healthcare decisions. For example, a recent NC Court of Appeals ruling in a parental rights case cited a case from 1949 that declared “the life of a human being begins at the moment of conception in the mother’s womb.” Given their endorsement of this belief system, it is clear that the 12-week abortion ban cannot be overturned with the current Republican majority on the NC Supreme Court.
Stripping environmental protections
Since gaining a majority on the NC Supreme Court in 2023, Republican justices have routinely ruled against environmental protections. They have allowed Martin Marietta to continue dumping 12 million gallons of wastewater each day into Blounts Creek, as well as stripped wetland protections. Currently, the Court is entertaining arguments by giant chemical corporation DuPont that our Attorney General can’t sue them to force their compliance in cleaning up the damage they caused by releasing PFA chemicals into our water. What’s more, they have seized environmental regulatory power from our governor and given it to the Republican-led state legislature.
Rampant judicial corruption
Bias and corruption are rampant in the NC Supreme Court, where our justices are essentially entrusted with investigating themselves. Republican Chief Justice Paul Newby has turned the Judicial Standards Committee into a weapon, targeting Democrats who expose his abuses of power and protecting other Republican judges who have broken standards of ethics. What’s more, NC Supreme Court Justice Phil Berger Jr. has never recused himself from cases involving his father, NC Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger Sr., and has consistently ruled in his favor. These justices are brazenly enriching themselves because nothing is holding them to following the rules.
Affordability for North Carolinians
The Republican justices of the NC Supreme Court have consistently ruled in favor of large corporations involved in lawsuits brought to their bench, including Duke Energy, who has raised our energy costs through the roof. They are time and time again rewarding their biggest corporate donors at the expense of North Carolinians.
Protecting LGBTQ+ rights
NC Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Newby has made it clear that he does not believe in a separation of Church and State, as he consistently uses his platform to push far-right conservative values on North Carolinians. He has voiced his support for judges who believe that it is their duty as judges to “fulfill our biblical mandate to be ambassadors for Christ,” and advocated for religious liberties for judges at a rally supporting HB2, the infamous ‘bathroom bill.’ We cannot trust Newby or his Republican colleagues on the bench to protect the rights of LGBTQ+ North Carolinians given this frame of mind they share.
Gun legislation reform
Though the US Supreme Court ultimately ruled against him, NC Supreme Court Justice Richard Dietz has argued to them that a federal law banning the purchase of a gun on someone else’s behalf was unconstitutional. Based on this background, even if Democrats in the state legislature were able to pass pieces of gun control legislation, our Republican-led NC Supreme Court would likely strike it down, creating an impasse for commonsense gun reform.
Protecting workers’ rights
This NC Supreme Court has been extremely hostile to workers and consumers, consistently putting large corporations over people. The Republican justices have ruled for corporations– and against injured workers– more than three-quarters of the time. For his part, Chief Justice Paul Newby has ruled in favor of corporations 89 percent of the time. This court has made it nearly impossible for workers and consumers to advance their rights or seek justice.
Discriminatory policing
The NC Supreme Court dismissed a challenge to a Black man’s arrest by a Raleigh police officer because they refused to define a legal standard for racial profiling. This officer displayed a pattern of discriminatory policing, as Black motorists comprised 82 percent of his traffic stops when they only make up 28 percent of the state population. Though selective law enforcement based on race is unconstitutional per our state constitution, racial profiling is clearly able to run unchecked without our Supreme Court serving as a mechanism of enforcement.
