How Desperate Are Republicans About the NC Supreme Court

Barbara Jackson, the Republican
who wants to be the ONLY
Republican

This desperate:

After Republicans in the NC General Assembly finished seizing power from the Constitutional Amendments Publication Commission yesterday, they turned their attention to manipulating the ballot to favor the Republican incumbent running for reelection to the NC Supreme Court this year, Justice Barbara Jackson.

Not making this up: They passed a law, Senate Bill 3, decreeing that the other Republican running for Barbara Jackson's seat, Chris Anglin, would not be listed on the ballot as a Republican. Barbara Jackson will be listed as a Republican. Anita Earls will be listed as a Democrat. But Chris Anglin -- who changed his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican as a protest, following the law on party-changing that the same Republican General Assembly had passed -- well, Chris Anglin would have no party identification on the ballot at all, but rather a printed, scolding note saying that party affiliation is listed only for candidates who did not change registration 90 days before the end of the filing period. In other words and without naming Chris Anglin, the Republicans flush him down a whirlpool of political retribution for foiling their excellent plans for winning Barbara Jackson.

If this isn't a clear-cut case of denying Chris Anglin due process of law under the 14th Amendment, changing the rules in order to hurt him and hurt him only, then I'd hate to actually see a more clear-cut case. Senate Bill 3 is practically a bill of attainder (outlawed by the US Constitution, incidentally) in that it finds Chris Anglin guilty of the crime of impersonating a Republican and punishes him for it without a trial or any due process.

Chris Anglin, the other
Republican who's been
told he can't be a Republican

(We wrote about Chris Anglin here on July 5th -- if you want background and more primer on the law that the Republicans themselves had passed that made his candidacy not only possible but also kind of inevitable.)

Chris Anglin issued a statement last night following passage of Senate Bill 3:

This evening GOP leaders of the Legislature are once again demonstrating that they have forgotten what it is to be Constitutional Conservatives.

They are so frightened by our campaign and message, that in a stunning act of cowardice, they are taking steps to misrepresent who I am on the ballot. They made the rules, I followed them. This is another example of them changing the rules in the middle of the game. They will stop at nothing to hand pick their judge and undermine our democratic process.

This invites a debate about who decides who is a Republican and what it means to be one. I welcome that.

I chose to run as a Republican for a reason. To be a voice for Republicans who are appalled at these types of shenanigans that attack our rule of law and the checks and balances of our Republic. I’ve just begun the fight.

 I trust that last sentence is a promise that Chris Anglin will sue their pants off.

Anita Earls, the Democrat running for NC Supreme Court

The NC Republican That Other Republicans Are Hating On

Immediately down-column, see the posting about how the NC Republican Party's attempt to screw with judicial elections has bitten them in the butt. The supremely important Supreme Court seat has two Republicans running against one Democrat, because the Overlords eliminated judicial primaries this year.

The incumbent Republican Justice, Barbara Jackson, veers partisan, so she's anointed by the state party. The other Republican, Chris Anglin, calls himself a "constitutional Republican," so he's the object of hatred. Get a load of what Dallas Woodhouse said about him.

Anglin is a brand new Republican, but so what? A constitutionalist young lawyer can have a sudden conversion experience. It's happened before. In fact, the ranks of Republican elected officials in North Carolina is stuffed with former Democrats. So get over it, Mr. Woodhouse. You guys eliminated primaries that might have weeded out Anglin for the sake of your chosen one, Barbara Jackson. (And see "A Message About Just Desserts" below.)

Judge Barbara Jackson

Barbara Jackson got on the Court in the Tea Party wave of 2010, getting just over 51% of the vote. Here's what Ballotpedia found out about her partisanship:

In October 2012, political science professors Adam Bonica and Michael Woodruff of Stanford University attempted to determine the partisan ideology of state supreme court justices. They created a scoring system in which a score above 0 indicated a more conservative-leaning ideology, while scores below 0 were more liberal.

Jackson received a campaign finance score of 0.76, indicating a conservative ideological leaning. This was more conservative than the average score of -0.01 that justices received in North Carolina.

The study was based on data from campaign contributions by the judges themselves, the partisan leaning of those who contributed to the judges' campaigns, or, in the absence of elections, the ideology of the appointing body (governor or legislature). This study was not a definitive label of a justice, but an academic summary of various relevant factors.

She claimed in 2010, on a questionnaire from IndyWeek.com, "I have always sought to follow my judicial philosophy, which is grounded in the fact that North Carolina's Constitution contains a mandatory separation of powers clause." Mandatory separation of powers, yes. But when it came to the Phil Berger power grab that took away Governor Cooper's ability to appoint the state Board of Elections, Barbara Jackson voted her partisanship.

If I am reading her language correctly, she was sending a clear message at a joint Federalist Society/John Locke Foundation candidate forum in September 2010 that, as far as she was concerned, Berger and the other Overlords could do as they please: “My judicial philosophy is that I believe it’s up to judges to judge and leave it to the legislature to legislate,” she said. “I don’t think the courts should act in the role of a super-legislature, and I tend to take a very narrow view of the court’s role.” 

Yippee! shouted the vandals.

Who Is Chris Anglin?

He's a 32-year-old leader of his own law firm in Raleigh, Anglin Law. He went to Wake Forest University as an undergraduate, then Elon University School of Law for his law degree. He's tried cases in both North Carolina State Superior Court and Federal Court. In 2014, he was selected for the North Carolina Bar Association's Leadership Academy.

Anglin told Jim Morrill and Anne Blythe, "I filed as a Republican to ... stand up for the independence of the judiciary," he said. The North Carolina judiciary has been "under constant assault," he said "This is not a trick by the Democrats .... I didn't think I could sit on the sidelines any more and not take action."

Now, a Message about Just Desserts

Courtesy of Jim Morrill and Anne Blythe:

For several years, the Republican-led General Assembly has made many changes to the courts that rule on the constitutionality of laws. Since 2011, the lawmakers taking North Carolina on a sharp swing to the political right have seen many of their laws overturned in court.

This year, they talked about sweeping changes to judicial districts and adopted a proposal to ask voters to amend the state Constitution so the two leaders of the General Assembly control what names the governor must consider when filling vacancies on the benches of the state courts.

They also considered asking voters to abandon the election of judges, but stopped short of that. Last year, they did away with primary elections for all judicial races this year.

The state Democratic Party went to federal court in an effort to stop that. Attorneys argued that without an election to winnow the field of candidates in the first year in decades that all judicial elections are partisan, the party would not have a way to let voters know its candidate of choice on the November ballot.

Republican lawmakers also changed the election rules for 2018 so that any candidate could declare affiliation with a party 30 days before filing notice of their candidacy.

Democrats argued in court that could lead to shenanigans. For example, they said, someone could file in their party but not really represent the platform.

Chris Anglin may not represent the party platform, but he sure enough represents an even older truth: You gonna reap what you sow!

NC Supreme Court Race ... SUPREMELY Important in 2018!

Anita Earls

The filing period for judicial seats in North Carolina has passed, and what some had feared did not come to pass -- a piling on of scores of candidates on the fall ballot because the Republican overlords eliminated judicial primaries. In fact, the lack of primaries for judges just may have bitten the Republican overlords in the butt.

Take the NC Supreme Court seat currently held by Republican Barbara Jackson. She's running again. But so's another last-minute Republican candidate, Christopher Anglin. The lone Democrat, Anita Earls, already seems jet-fueled for the race, and the possibility that Republicans will divide their votes between two contenders opens the path for Earls a little wider.

Anita Earls is a legal rock star. She founded the Southern Coalition for Social Justice and served as its executive director and became a major warrior against voter suppression and the evils of gerrymandering. She was the lead attorney challenging the gerrymandering of the state, the voter ID law, and other voting restrictions. She's been an announced candidate for the Supreme Court since way back last November.

“I passionately believe in the importance of the right to vote, and that an independent judiciary is crucial to the balance of powers necessary to maintain democratic government of, by and for the people,” Earls said. “... In these times, I am seeing how those values are under attack, and I admire the determination of ordinary people who take great risks to stand up for their rights.”

We've all watched for several years now as the overlords rigged the system, or attempted to, save for the intervention of the courts, and we've held our breath in 2018 as the Republicans threatened the entire judicial system with more gerrymandering and a plan to appoint all judges themselves -- a scheme that did not yet mature into reality. Give 'em time!

"...Too often this political process feels like a powerful few rigging the system against a powerless many,” Earls said. “In light of recent attacks on the independence of North Carolina’s judiciary, and on the right of all citizens to cast a ballot that is counted equally, it is clear to me that I have to not just talk the talk, but also must have the courage to walk the walk.”

There is no race as important as this Supreme Court seat in North Carolina -- except maybe for all the other races this year. Our democracy depends on stopping the drift and restoring the concept of checks and balances.