Now Acting as Partisan Hit-Men, the Supremes of NC

 

This news broke yesterday afternoon:

Chief Justice Paul Newby.
"You are feeling very sleepy."

RALEIGH -- The newly Republican-controlled North Carolina Supreme Court on Friday reversed two decisions made by the same court last year when it had a Democratic majority -- on redistricting and voter ID -- and issued a third ruling denying voting rights for some felons. 

The court under Democratic control had struck down districts drawn by the Republican-led General Assembly on the grounds that they were illegally gerrymandered for partisan reasons. 

The justices had also struck down a 2018 voter ID law, saying it was racially discriminatory. 

A lower court had restored voting rights to people convicted of felonies who were out of prison but remained under state supervision....

NOTE: The majority opinion in the redistricting (gerrymandering) case, Harper v. Hall, runs to 146 pages. The opinion in Holmes v. Moore (the voter ID case) runs to 54 pages. "Among several other decisions, the N.C. Supreme Court also ruled on Community Success Initiative v. Moore, deciding that people with felony convictions who are on parole, probation or post-release supervision are not allowed to vote under the state constitution" (Daily Tar Heel).

Justice Anita Earls' dissent in Harper v. Hall (the gerrymandering case):

Justice Earls

Today, the majority strips the people of this right [their “fundamental right to vote on equal terms”]; it tells North Carolinians that the state constitution and the courts cannot protect their basic human right to self-governance and self-determination. In so doing, the majority ignores the uncontested truths about the intentions behind partisan gerrymandering and erects an unconvincing façade that only parrots democratic values in an attempt to defend its decision. Despite its lofty prose about the need for principled adherence to the state constitution, the majority follows none of these principles today. Nor does the majority even pay passing reference to the anti-democratic nature of extreme partisan gerrymandering. These efforts to downplay the practice do not erase its consequences and the public will not be gaslighted. Our constitution provides that“[a]ll political power is vested in and derived from the people; all government of rightoriginates from the people, is founded upon their will only.” N.C. Const. art. I, § 2.But when Republican lawmakers are free to gerrymander redistricting plans withoutconstitutional guardrails to ensure their party’s indefinite political domination, thisconstitutional requirement is abandoned.