Cooper, Stein Withdraw McCrory's Supreme Court Petition

In his last, sad moments in the governor's chair, the late Pat McCrory petitioned the US Supreme Court to overturn the Fourth Circuit's ruling on North Carolina's voter suppression law, something the Fourth Circuit overturned and said it targeted “African Americans with almost surgical precision” to limit their participation in elections. African Americans were not all it targeted (as college students know all too well).

Governor Cooper and Attorney General Stein yesterday withdrew McCrory's request for SOTUS review on behalf of the state. “We need to make it easier for people to exercise their right to vote, not harder, and I will not continue to waste time and money appealing this unconstitutional law,” Cooper said in a statement announcing the step. “It’s time for North Carolina to stop fighting for this unfair, unconstitutional law and work instead to improve equal access for voters.”

Cooper and Stein also sent discharge letters to the private attorneys hired by Republican Senate President Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore -- lawyers being paid by NC taxpayers, you and me -- saying they were no longer employed to represent the state in trying to retain the voter suppression law. The Berger-Moore attorneys said they couldn't be fired.

And of course, Berger-Moore said that Cooper-Stein couldn't end the Supreme Court appeal, but the catch for them is that they are not named as defendants in the original lawsuit and have no standing in the matter. They may petition to the US Supremes to intervene in the case, and they probably will.