NC Supremes Order New Maps

 

We conclude that claims asserting that congressional and state legislative districting plans enacted by the General Assembly are unlawful partisan gerrymanders that violate the free elections clause, the equal protection clause, the free speech clause, and the freedom of assembly clause of the Declaration of Rights in article I, sections 10, 19, 14, and 12, respectively, of the North Carolina Constitution are, consistent with the text and structure of our State's constitution and our system of separation of powers, justiciable in North Carolina courts.

--NC Supreme Court, Order in Harper v. Hall 

The order came late yesterday. I first leaned of it in a tweet from Attorney General Josh Stein just before 6 pm: 

BREAKING: Fantastic news for voters and the health of our democracy -- the NC Supreme Court just struck down the legislative and congressional maps as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. The maps violate a voter's fundamental right to vote.

I didn't rush last night to write about it because I wanted to read the order first.

Some initial observations:

Corum v. Univ. of N.C. figures prominently in the very first paragraph. That case originated in Watauga County when AppState fired library dean Al Corum, and he successfully sued on the basis that his rights to free speech had been violated. "At issue was whether the professor had standing to bring a constitutional claim when there was no specific statute authorizing such a cause of action. In a groundbreaking 1992 decision, the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled in favor of the professor, holding that in the absence of an adequate state remedy, a person whose constitutional rights have been abridged has a direct claim against the State and its officials under the North Carolina Constitution" (Noteworthy Cases).

The Supremes accepted all the trial court's findings of facts, that all that "competent evidence" of an extreme partisan gerrymander stands. "Based on the trial courts factual findings, we conclude that the congressional and legislative maps enacted ... are unconstitutional beyond a reasonable doubt under the free elections clause, the equal protection clause, the free speech clause, and the freedom of assembly clause of the North Carolina Constitution."

"Achieving partisan advantage incommensurate with a political party's levelofstatewide voter support is neither a compelling nor a legitimate governmental interest."

The General Assembly (Republican majority -- them again?) must submit new maps for review on or before February 18 -- two weeks away.

All parties to this case are invited to submit their own maps. The high court will approve of new General Assembly maps or another submitted map by noon on February 23rd. In other words, what the Republicans do will be under strict review, and the Court won't hesitate to reject their product again.

It's All On the Line in Raleigh

 

Chief Justice Paul Newby

I couldn't watch the gerrymandering arguments before the state's Supreme Court yesterday. I mean, I couldn't bear to watch. I knew it was happening and I had the URL to tune in, but instead I started reading a Margaret Atwood novel (Alias Grace) which I quickly realized had become a movie which I've also seen. But the writing! Atwood can skewer human frailty like a striking snake. She describes a woman's face as resembling a pine plank.

But the gerrymandering. Nothing less than political survival -- and hence, survival itself -- hinges on what comes out of that hearing yesterday. Republicans drew new Congressional and General Assembly maps that even they admit constitute an extinction-level event for Democratic office-holders (let alone Democratic values), meant to keep the GOP not only in charge of the General Assembly but overwhelmingly in charge, able to override any governor's veto. And bonus points! The US Congressional maps will help end the hated reign of Nancy Pelosi in the US House.

But do the maps cross the line? And what is the "line." And can you, as a Court, or anyone else fix the line so that we know when someone's crossed it? That's the main argument by the lawyers for the defendants -- Phil Berger and Tim Moore and their lieutenants in charge of NC House and Senate redistricting committees. It's a cat's nature to claw, they say, and you can't adjudicate it, so wear gloves and deal with your own scratches. Cry more, Libs.

For their part, the libs base everything on the NC Constitution's one line, "All elections shall be free and open," with gerrymandering constituting an insult to the word free. If every legislative seat is drawn to foretell and guarantee a fixed outcome, then an election's results are predetermined, and that ain't freedom.

One of plaintiffs' attorneys, Zach Schauf, called gerrymandering "the systematic destruction of majority rule. And that, by the way, is also the test we think this court and the General Assembly should apply going forward: That the party that wins more votes should have at least a fighting chance to win most of the seats” (Will Doran's reporting).

At which argument Republican Chief Justice Paul Newby said the state's constitution guarantees a free election, not a fair one. Those words came from the currently highest level of North Carolina jurisprudence, folks. I read it as a confession.

Madison Cawthorn Sues the State Board of Elections

 

That human cherry bomb Madison Cawthorn is making full use of the high-powered Republican lawyer he hired, and yesterday he sued the State Board of Elections (SBOE) in Federal court, arguing that his own Constitutional rights are being infringed by any potential investigation of his involvement in an insurrection.

The Cawthorn complaint is a doozy and is indeed signed by attorney James Bopp Jr. but also by North Carolina power attorney Josh Howard, whose name may be familiar to those who followed the great Watauga County voter suppression gambit of 2013 (which extended itself into many years following), while Howard was chair of the SBOE. Howard is also famous to us for once joking out loud that he wished Watauga County could be ceded to Tennessee.

To tell the truth, the challenge to Cawthorn's candidacy based on Sect. 3 of the 14th Amendment has seemed like a stretch to me (one who doesn't know the law or how lawyers think), and Bopp and Howard are defending Cawthorn in Federal rather than state court because they're raising constitutional issues of their own, primarily freedom of speech and due process. From my quick reading of the lawsuit, they sound like they have a solid argument. Here's their "Prayer for Relief":

1. Declare that the Challenge Statute is unconstitutional under the First Amendment because its “reasonable suspicion” standard is insufficient justification to trigger a government investigation. 

2. Declare that the burden shifting provision of the Challenge Statute is unconstitutional under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because it requires Rep. Cawthorn to prove a negative, as applied to any Challenge under Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment.

3. Declare that the Challenge Statute is also unconstitutional under Article 1, § 5 of the U.S. Constitution because Congress is the exclusive judge of the qualifications of its Members. 

4. Declare that the application of Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment to Rep. Cawthorn is prohibited by federal law. 

5. Preliminarily and permanently enjoin Defendants from enforcing the Challenge Statute against Rep. Cawthorn and disqualifying him from being a candidate for Congress in North Carolina. 

6. Award all costs and expenses of bringing this action, including attorneys’ fees, costs, and expenses; and 

7. Grant any other relief this Court deems appropriate.

The Cawthorn challenge might get thrown out before it even gets to the SBOE's appointment of an investigating panel.

Mark Walker Stands Up To Trump

 

Last night in Greensboro, former Republican congressman and Christian pastor Mark Walker announced that he was turning down Donald Trump's offer and staying in the US Senate race. Trump had told Walker that he would endorse him for another congressional seat if he'd drop out of the Senate race, thus clearing the Trumpist lane for Ted Budd, but Walker said no way by the love of God. He's full speed ahead for that Senate seat, but on difficult political terrain, where Budd is supposedly coming on strong (with Trump's blessing and the $$ of the Club for Growth, which is getting his name out there). 

Full-speed-ahead? Yes. Walker rolled out his spanking-brand-new campaign bus. See it?

myfox8 WGHP

Walker threw this event at the Greensboro Auto Auction on Wendover Avenue and drew a respectable crowd.

Bad news for Budd. Potentially good news for ex-Guv Pat McCrory, who according to comments from Trumpists, is tanking in polls while Budd is rising, but whose center lane, country-club vibe still has juice in suburbia and whose name recognition alone made him instantly the frontrunner. The overriding irony is that Budd and Walker are really political brothers from different mothers:

“[Walker's decision] obviously is better for McCrory than Budd,” said Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University. “I think Walker and Budd are competing for many of the same voters. Ideologically they are virtually indistinguishable. Demographically they are very similar. There’s just not much daylight between the two of them, except for Trump’s endorsement.”

If this were the best of all possible worlds (and not the Republican Party under Trump), Walker could draw some distinctions now, create a new identity for people who relish the fighting spirit in their preachers: "I stood up to a would-be dictator because I'm a better man than that." But that would happen in a world that doesn't exist right now.

Walker still might get tough, if he decides to fight like a man with one small stone and a slingshot (or like a wildcat in a toesack). Walker published this photo on his Facebook page with this caption:

Keeping a previous commitment at the Senate Forum in Monroe with Pat McCrory at the Sweet Union Republican Women’s Club. As usual, only one candidate didn’t show.

 The "Sweet Union Republican Women's Club" made me flash on Andy Griffith's Aunt Bee.

The Book-Banning in McMinn County, Tenn.

 

I just spent many tedious minutes reading through the minutes of the McMinn County (Tennessee) School Board meeting on January 10th, when its ten members voted unanimously to ban Art Spiegelman's graphic novel "Maus" from the eighth grade curriculum. That news has only just broken in the national press, and it's broken big because "Maus" was the first and only graphic novel to ever win the Pulitzer Prize.

To be concise, Spiegelman created "Maus" to record his father's experience in the Holocaust as a Polish Jew, and in doing so, Spiegelman was recording his experience being the son of a survivor, and his experience writing about the experience of being the son of a survivor, which raises the urgency of the message a few degrees. Throughout "Maus," the Jews who suffered at Auschwitz are depicted as mice, the Nazis, as cats.

The parents who complained to the McMinn County School Board focused on eight cuss words (which apparently included the words damn and bitch), but one can't help wondering if that Victorian prudishness was a pretext for blocking out something much more uncomfortable for those parents. It's clear from the minutes that school authorities took steps to white out the offensive words (yes, they did), but it didn't satisfy the school board, which to be fair appeared to wrestle mightily with their decision. At one point, by a vote of 6-4, the motion to ban the book was laid on the table, but discussion kept right on going and the motion to table was lifted and the motion to ban eventually passed 10-0.

Board member Tony Allman led much of the attack on the book, and some of his comments in the minutes will cement his reputation as a sterling defender of youth:

I may be wrong, but this guy that created the artwork used to do the graphics for Playboy. You can look at his history, and we’re letting him do graphics in books for students in elementary school. If I had a child in the eighth grade, this ain’t happening. If I had to move him out and homeschool him or put him somewhere else, this is not happening.

Drew pictures for Playboy? That's guilt-by-association, something those cats in "Maus" were good at. But if it's any consolation for the McMinn County School Board, the book is also banned in Russia.

What Has He Done Now? (Cawthorn Watch)

 

I'm actually trying to swear off the antics of Madison Cawthorn, like I swore off Trump long before he went down a loser, but when the ox is in the ditch....

Clowning on our dime.

Cawthorn Cleans Gun During Congressional Hearing

[Newsweek] Republican Representative Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina was seen cleaning a gun during a three-hour virtual House Veterans Affairs Committee meeting that took place on [Jan. 19, 2022]. The hearing was about military members being exposed to potentially dangerous toxic chemicals.

The 26-year-old Congress member was seen handling a black pistol for several minutes during the testimony of Jen Burch, an Air Force veteran who experienced breathing problems after exposure to a "burn pit" in Afghanistan. At the hearing, she discussed how medical professionals could help assess other veterans who have been affected by the pits.

Cawthorn Lawyers Up

To defend himself against the charge that an insurrectionist cannot hold office, a legal challenge against Cawthorn's eligibility filed January 10th by a group of NC citizens including a former Republican justice on the state's Supreme Court:

Mr. Cawthorn, 26, who is in his first term in Congress, has denounced the case as an egregious misreading of the 14th Amendment, but he has retained James Bopp Jr., one of the most prominent conservative campaign lawyers in the country, as counsel. [NYTimes]

"Nobody's Afraid of Him"

[Newsweek] Representative Adam Kinzinger called out one of his fellow GOP congressmen on social media [Jan. 11, 2022].

The Illinois congressman, in response to Colorado GOP Representative Lauren Boebert, tweeted, "Trust me here, nobody is afraid of Madison [Cawthorn]. Unless you're a rotted out tree (seriously google that people). Literally you have all built your skills/intimidation up in your own head."

 

The Woman in the Republican US Senate Race in NC -- Marjorie Eastman

 

Nobody's paid much attention to candidate for US Senate, Marjorie Eastman, because the swinging trio of Republican men running for Dick Burr's seat -- McCrory, Budd, Walker -- have sucked up all the oxygen. Only now, Marjorie Eastman is suddenly in the press, because a new super-PAC founded by tycoon Fred Eshelman has been spending $1 million getting her name out there. The PAC is called "Restore Common Sense," and in the best of all possible worlds, Marjorie Eastman could be a runaway good bet to win a normal Republican primary -- distinguished ex-military careerist and smart, normal woman. Damn impressive on paper. Her Wikipedia article -- must reading. There's no indication there that she's any kind of conservative culture warrior. She's all about veterans and wrote a well received book, "The Frontline Generation: How We Served Post 9/11."

She had combat experience in both Iraq and Afghanistan. "She was ranked the #1 Military Intelligence Company Commander in Eastern Afghanistan for the deployment cycle of 2009-2010, awarded the Bronze Star for meritorious service as a combat commander and received the Combat Action Badge" (website). She announced her candidacy back last October and was largely ignored until Fred Eshelman decided to help her.

But she's not from around here. Went to school in California, and she accepted a White House Fellow appointment from Bill Clinton in 2000. As a military careerist, she's lived a lot of different places. She and her husband recently retired to Cary, and she's obviously very new to politics. But her Wiki bio lists real achievements in the academic realm: 

[Eastman] also studied abroad at the University College London, School for Slavonic and East European Studies. She attended the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver, where she earned her master's degree in International Security, with concentrations in Homeland Security, Intelligence, and Human Rights. During her graduate studies, she was one of 56 students selected nationally for the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Honors Internship Program. She also has an MBA from Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Management.

Everything I read screams not-a-Trumpist. A moderate Republican with a sense that the United States belongs in the international stew because it can do good deeds.

But then I watched her intro video on her website, and I guess I ought to accept by now that every educated Republican moderate will quickly mouth the magic words -- "I'm a conservative, pro-life, pro-2nd Amendment Republican." Those words are actually somewhat jarring in the video because they follow an opening section that seemed complete in itself -- about being inspired (if not incensed) by the heroic sacrifice in the face of national adversity (9/11). It's soft-focus patriotism. But then the next section -- and it's like the advisors said to her, "can you do a tougher version?" -- Marjorie Eastman obliged and even got downright icky: She says she wants good old American capitalism to save us from "the creeping socialism that's being pushed in our Congress." 

Here's the whole thing:

That internationalist sheen dooms her, no? in the Republican primary. But I can't help wondering if all that super-PAC money might make her more viable and hence a threat to McCrory, by dividing the never-Trump vote, especially if Mark Walker takes Trump's dangle of running for a House seat instead.

Sign of the Times

 

Saw this sign high up in the window of a muscle truck this week. Had just freed my own truck from a foot of drifted snow (I was positive my 4-wheel could handle it), but more difficult was going to be the wall the state snowplows had piled up at the end of my driveway. I torpedoed through it. Later saw the bigger truck with that sign on the way home.

And because I have feelings that are fuckable, I've been meditating on the manner of man -- or woman -- who would display that notice, proudly and prominently -- and what feelings, specifically, he/she intends to fuck.

The bullying instinct in the cult has rarely been better expressed. Don't you try to imagine what this person looks like, the carriage, the shell? A January 6th commando? A cowboy? A steer wrangler? Or your local dry cleaner with something to prove?

It's a man put that up. Because it's a dick-thing, this display of aggression against weakness. (Madison Cawthorn, call your office.) "In red world," says David French, who should know, “you’re weak, you’re a coward” -- as a public accusation -- could end a career or birth a homicide.

In Trumpland this accusation of weakness and cowardice is used as a weapon to keep people in line, because Trump himself defined support for this movement as evidence of your strength.

Trump rallies -- always full to the brim with display -- of swagger, of meanness, of contempt for a long list of enemies, harassment of the press, fist-fights in the audience -- those rallies were rock concerts for a gang that feels slighted and wants to kick ass, who want to take some revenge on late capitalism for putting a new educated class of people ("libs") in charge of everything.

The stereotypical bully intimidates where it's safe to intimidate, the essence of the Trump persona itself. David French: "Trump is a guy who when he can feel like he can intimidate and bully, he’s all in. When there’s real risk to himself, he’s all out."

Or was that guy in the truck with the sign one who would take a weapon to the Capitol? Or to a school board meeting?

Primaries To Be Delayed Again, To June 7th

 

Republican leaders in the North Carolina General Assembly obviously believe their gerrymandered maps are about to be declared unconstitutional by the State Supremes. The "gerrymandering trial" appeal goes before the Court on Feb. 2nd. Plaintiffs are looking to overturn the 3-judge panel's ruling last week that there's really nothing the judicial system can do about partisan power grabs via gerrymandering. The NC Supreme Court has set arguments on the appeal for Feb. 2nd. They have (by my count) exactly 7 working days from then, to February 18th (Friday of the week of February 14), which according to the State Board of Elections is their drop-dead week for having new districts defined so that they can accommodate candidate filing for a (court-ordered) May 17th primary. 

The Republican bosses in the General Assembly are taking the correct steps right now to delay the primaries another three weeks to June 7th. That's a gift to the Court. More time, more deliberateness, more care in who the Court orders to draw new maps. Ahem.

That delay in the primaries is just an acknowledgement of reality by the Republican bosses, not necessarily IMO a nefarious first step toward impeaching any Justice who rules their gerrymandering unconstitutional. Dallas Woodhouse, writing for the Pope Carolina Journal, has reported that some Republicans are sure 'nuff talking impeachment (Billy Corriher's reporting), but delaying the primaries in this new instance is perhaps merely dealing with it.

I'm okay with the Court ordering the General Assembly to draw new maps (rather than an independent commission). Yes, I realize Berger Moore will slip in what bad faith they can in new maps, but don't they have to be better than what we have right now? Weren't the 2020 court-ordered maps that the Republicans were forced to re-draw better than what they replaced? You bet they were, for at least those new maps prevented veto-proof majorities for the Republicans in NC House and Senate and led to the election of 2 new Democrats in the US Congress. Odds are, new maps would eliminate at least some if not all malicious mischief, like the splitting up of Watauga County between two different Congressional districts and two different NC House districts.

Dallas Woodhouse thinks the delay is particularly bad for the Republican senatorial primary between Pat McCrory, Mark Walker, and the Trump-tetched Ted Budd. It's bad if Mark Walker sticks to his guns and stays in the race rather than take the tainted Trump bait of running for the US House instead. Walker stays in and divides the conservative vote with Ted Budd, and McCrory waltzes. Woodhouse would applaud that.

Probably so would Cheri Beasley.