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RALEIGH, N.C. – The 2024 election promises to feature several major battlegrounds, but for sheer breadth of competitive contests, North Carolina next year will be hard to beat. Recent presidential contests in North Carolina have been close: In 2020, Donald Trump won North Carolina by about 74,000 votes out of more than 5.5 million cast. In other words, in 2024, North Carolina will be one of the centers of the political universe – important in part because it’s a uniquely competitive state. “North Carolina has proved to be a purple state, but not necessarily a swing state,” says Cooper, the political scientist. For the better part of two decades, Georgia, like North Carolina, had voted consistently Republican in key federal races – until 2020.

Persons: Donald Trump, Tricia Cotham, Roy Cooper, Cooper, Josh Stein, Mark Robinson, Stein, Robinson, ”, Chris Cooper, Kay Hagan, Barack Obama, Jon Ossoff, Raphael Warnock, Biden, Warnock, Republican George W, Bush, Gore, Charlotte don’t, Al Gore, Charlotte, “ There’s, “, Mac McCorkle, Rachel Salzberg, Carolina’s Cooper, don’t, Anderson Clayton, ” Anderson, –, Rob Schofield, Clayton, Ferrel Guillory, Robinson doesn’t, Dale Folwell, Mark Walker, Andy Wells, Jesse Thomas, he’s, Michael Bitzer, sidestepped Cooper’s, Robinson’s, McCorkle, ” John Hood, John William Pope, ” Hood, Trump Organizations: North, North Carolina, GOP, Democrat, Republican, Democratic Gov, Democratic, Gov, UNC, Duke, Western Carolina University, Republicans, Atlanta, Biden, Carolina’s, Trump, Georgia –, state’s, of Science, Technology, Innovation, Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy, Democratic Party, Appalachian State University, The Washington Post, Senate, University of North, Dartmouth, Harvard, Catawba College, “, Affordable, John William Pope Foundation Locations: RALEIGH, N.C, North Carolina, “ North Carolina, Carolina, Georgia, Atlanta, Carolina’s Raleigh, Durham, Wake, Raleigh, Cary, Charlotte, Mecklenburg County, Atlanta’s, Texas, Mecklenburg, North Carolina’s, Clayton, Union County, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

☆ Opinion | The Supreme Court Rejected a Dangerous Elections Theory. But It’s Not All Good News.
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-28 | by ( Richard H. Pildes | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

The court held that the Constitution imposes some limits on the way state courts interpret their own state constitutions. These limits also apply to the way state courts interpret state election statutes — as well as the way state election administrators apply state election statutes in federal elections. Yet the court offers no guidance, no standard at all, for lower courts to know when a state court has gone too far. Indeed, the court announced this constitutional constraint but avoided telling us even whether the North Carolina Supreme Court — in the decision the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed — had violated this vague limitation. But the state court interpreted general provisions in the state constitution — such as that requiring elections to be “free and fair” — to in effect ban partisan gerrymandering.

Persons: ”, — Organizations: North Carolina, U.S, Supreme Locations: —

The 6-3 decision, authored by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, upheld a 2022 ruling by the North Carolina Supreme Court against the Republican legislators. Another state court replaced that map with one drawn by a bipartisan group of experts, and that one was in effect for the November 2022 elections. They contended that the state court usurped the North Carolina General Assembly's authority under that provision to regulate federal elections. The plaintiffs argued that the map violated the North Carolina state constitution's provisions concerning free elections and freedom of assembly, among others. Democratic President Joe Biden's administration argued against the Republican position when the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in the case in December.

Persons: John Roberts, Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Donald Trump's, Joe Biden's, Andrew Chung Organizations: U.S, Supreme, Republican, North Carolina Supreme Court, Conservative, . House, North Carolina Supreme, Democratic, North Carolina's Republican, North, North Carolina Republicans, North Carolina General, Thomson Locations: North Carolina, Legislative, U.S, American, North Carolina's

☆ Supreme Court rules against Republicans in North Carolina elections dispute
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-27 | by ( Lawrence Hurley | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

The justices ruled on a 6-3 vote that the North Carolina Supreme Court was acting within its authority in concluding that the map constituted a partisan gerrymander under the state constitution. As a result of the North Carolina Supreme Court's ruling, that map is likely to tilt heavily toward Republicans. The North Carolina case was being closely watched for its potential impact on the 2024 presidential election. Republicans led by Tim Moore, the speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, invoked the theory after the state Supreme Court struck down the congressional district map in February of last year. Moore and other Republicans immediately asked the Supreme Court to reinstate the maps, saying the state court had overstepped its authority.

Persons: William Rehnquist, Gore, Republican George W, Bush's, Donald Trump, Tim Moore, Moore, John Eastman, Mike Pence, Joe Biden's, Biden's Organizations: Republicans, North Carolina, Democratic, Supreme, Republican, North Carolina House of, U.S, Democrats Locations: North Carolina, Bush, Carolina, —

☆ SCOTUS just killed a fringe conservative legal theory that could have upended national elections
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-27 | by ( Brent D. Griffiths | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

State legislatures will continue to be checked by state courts. Then-President Donald Trump and his allies helped elevate the once-fringe election theory in the wake of the 2020 presidential election. In effect, it meant that state legislatures could nullify their own state's presidential election results, disenfranchising potentially millions of Americans in the process. Roberts said that the high court's decision does not mean that state supreme courts have "free rein" in ruling on election laws. "We hold only that state courts may not transgress the ordinary bounds of judicial review such that they arrogate to themselves the power vested in state legislatures to regulate federal elections," he concluded.

Persons: John Roberts, Roberts, —, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, Donald Trump, Michael Luttig, Luttig, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Samuel Alito, Thomas, Moore, Harper, Harper I Organizations: Service, Trump, Biden, North Carolina, North, North Carolina Constitution Locations: North Carolina

The North Carolina controversy arose after the state Supreme Court struck down the state’s 2022 congressional map as an illegal partisan gerrymander, replacing it with court drawn maps that favored Democrats. Reggie Weaver, at podium, speaks outside the Legislative Building in Raleigh, North Carolina, Feb. 15, 2022, about a partisan gerrymandering ruling by the North Carolina Supreme Court. Gary D. Robertson/APAfter the state high court ruled, North Carolina Republican lawmakers appealed the decision to the US Supreme Court, arguing that the state Supreme Court had exceeded its authority. After the last election, the North Carolina Supreme Court flipped its majority to Republican. With the US Supreme Court rejecting the lawmakers’ theory that state courts could not police federal election rules, lawyers for the legislature’s opponents celebrated Tuesday’s ruling.

Persons: Donald Trump, John Roberts, ” Roberts, Roberts, ”, “, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Barack Obama, ” Obama, Reggie Weaver, Gary D, Robertson, Tuesday’s, Neal Katyal, Today’s, court’s, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Samuel Alito, ” Thomas, Gorsuch, Thomas, –, Jessica Ring Amunson, Sam Hirsch, Jenner, Hilary Harris Klein – Organizations: CNN, North Carolina, Independent, Chief, Federal, North Carolina Supreme, AP, North, North Carolina Republican, Supreme, North Carolina Supreme Court, Republican, US, Block, Southern Coalition for Social Justice Locations: North Carolina, Federal, Raleigh , North Carolina, “

☆ Clarence Thomas isn't happy the Supreme Court went out of its way to shoot down a fringe right-wing elections theory
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-27 | by ( Sonam Sheth | John L. Dorman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The Supreme Court struck down a fringe right-wing elections theory in a 6-3 ruling. Two lawmakers in the state asked the Supreme Court to take up the case based on the independent state legislature theory. But the balance of power shifted on the North Carolina Supreme Court, which went back and allowed the map. Thomas wrote that with the original case now decided in the lawmakers' favor, the argument before the Supreme Court was "moot." In his dissent, Thomas wrote that the court's purpose is to "resolve not questions and issues but 'Cases' or 'Controversies.'"

Persons: Clarence Thomas, —, Clarence Thomas —, Moore, Harper —, Thomas, Thomas wasn't, Harper Organizations: Service, Republican, Voters, North, North Carolina Supreme Locations: North Carolina

☆ Opinion | The Courts Should Be More Political, Not Less
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( Jedediah Britton-Purdy | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

The North Carolina gerrymandering decision made that scandal impossible to ignore: What else but rank partisan allegiance could account for such an abrupt switch on a question that determined political power in the state? In other words, the vote for Supreme Court justices may have been the most important of the year, and it was a black box to most voters. Like it or not, the courts are another political branch, most of all when they decide basic constitutional questions, such as whether freedom and equality forbid extreme gerrymandering. On April 4, Judge Janet Protasiewicz won a seat on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court and switched the court’s ideological balance, by openly emphasizing her support for reproductive rights and broadly liberal commitments. Deep political conflicts over constitutional vision have always existed in American law, particularly when courts are called upon to judge what a fair election system looks like.

☆ How to Police Gerrymanders? Some Judges Say the Courts Can’t.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Michael Wines | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

WASHINGTON — Courts decide vexing legal matters and interpret opaque Constitutional language all the time, from defining pornography and judging whether a search or seizure is unreasonable to determining how speedy a speedy trial must be. And then there is the issue that some judges increasingly say is beyond their abilities to adjudicate. It was on display again last week, in North Carolina. The North Carolina Supreme Court said on Friday that it could find no way to determine when even egregious gerrymanders — in this case, lopsided partisan maps of the state’s General Assembly and its 14 congressional districts — cross the line between skewed but legal and unconstitutionally rigged. political dominance, even though the state’s electorate is split almost evenly between the two major parties.

☆ Opinion | Republicans Are Running Wild in My State
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Frank Bruni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Political colorists can be promiscuous in calling states purple, but my state is true to that hue. Donald Trump prevailed in North Carolina that same year, but only barely. Nearly 2.6 million North Carolinians declare themselves unaffiliated, while just over 2.4 million identify as Democrats and just under 2.2 million as Republicans. That’s a huge comedown from what Republicans wanted and from what they’ve repeatedly tried to get for nearly 15 years. Without any fear that the state’s Supreme Court will foil them before the 2024 congressional elections, they don’t have to settle for it.

☆ A North Carolina Supreme Court Switcheroo
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-29 | by ( The Editorial Board | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

Images: AP/Reuters/AFP Composite: Mark KellyNorth Carolina’s Supreme Court reversed itself Friday on partisan gerrymandering, ruling 5-2 that it poses “nonjusticiable, political questions.” Last year a 4-3 court said the opposite. In between was the November election, in which GOP candidates won two Supreme Court seats, giving conservatives a majority again. Critics will call the reversal a judicial power play, but it’s really a corrective to the old majority’s overreach. Four liberal justices held that the North Carolina Constitution bans partisan map-making, because it guarantees “free elections,” the rights of speech and assembly, and so forth. At one point the court floated specific metrics that could be used to police gerrymandering, saying that a map could be presumptively constitutional if it has “a mean-median difference of 1% or less.”

☆ North Carolina’s Highest Court Reverses Course on Voting Decisions
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-29 | by ( Laura Kusisto | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The North Carolina Supreme Court tossed court-approved maps used in the November election—which resulted in seven congressional seats apiece for Republicans and Democrats. Photo: Sean Rayford/Getty ImagesThe North Carolina Supreme Court, with a new Republican majority elected last year, on Friday threw out some of its own recent decisions that endorsed a broad view of voting rights, reinstating a voter-identification law and rejecting a challenge to electoral maps drawn by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature. The court, in a third decision, also rolled back voting rights for some people with felony convictions.

☆ In win for Republicans, North Carolina court allows partisan gerrymandering
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-28 | by ( Joseph Ax | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

[1/2] Voters line up a few minutes before the polls close during the 2022 U.S. midterm elections in Durham, North Carolina, U.S., November 8, 2022. In the same election, Republicans flipped two Democratic seats on the North Carolina Supreme Court, securing a 5-2 conservative majority. "I think it's the worst decision the North Carolina Supreme Court perhaps has ever made," Bob Phillips, executive director of Common Cause North Carolina, told reporters. When the North Carolina court agreed to rehear the case, however, the U.S. Supreme Court asked for additional briefing from the parties about whether it still had legal jurisdiction over the matter. Now that the North Carolina court has vacated the decision that formed the basis for the U.S. Supreme Court's review, the U.S. Supreme Court may conclude it no longer has a role to play in resolving the matter.

☆ In win for Republicans, North Carolina court says gerrymandering is legal
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-28 | by ( Joseph Ax | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/2] Voters line up a few minutes before the polls close during the 2022 U.S. midterm elections in Durham, North Carolina, U.S., November 8, 2022. The decision threw out the court's previous decision, issued barely more than a year ago when liberal judges controlled the court, that had found partisan gerrymandering violated the state constitution. In the same election, Republicans flipped two Democratic seats on the North Carolina Supreme Court, securing a 5-2 conservative majority. In a 146-page opinion, Chief Justice Paul Newby noted that the U.S. Supreme Court had similarly found that federal courts have no jurisdiction to address partisan gerrymandering. "Today, the Court shows that its own will is more powerful than the voices of North Carolina's voters," she wrote.

☆ North Carolina Court, With New Partisan Mix, Reverses Itself on a Key Voting Case
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-28 | by ( Michael Wines | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Barely a year after Democratic justices on the North Carolina Supreme Court said new maps of the state’s legislative and congressional districts were partisan gerrymanders that violated the State Constitution, a newly elected Republican majority on the court reversed course on Friday and said the court had no authority to overturn those maps. The practical effect is to enable the Republican-controlled State Legislature to scrap the court-ordered State Senate and congressional district. boundaries that were used in elections last November, and draw new maps skewed in their favor for elections in 2024. In an opinion divided 5 to 2 along party lines, the new Republican majority of justices said the court had no authority to strike down partisan maps that the state General Assembly had drawn. “Were this Court to create such a limitation, there is no judicially discoverable or manageable standard for adjudicating such claims.”

☆ North Carolina urges US Supreme Court to toss major elections case
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-20 | by ( Andrew Chung | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

WASHINGTON, March 20 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court should dismiss a major case from North Carolina that could give more power over federal elections to state politicians because the matter is being reconsidered by a lower court, North Carolina said in a filing on Monday, while the Republican lawmakers at the center of the dispute disagreed. The case began as a legal fight over a map drawn by Republican state legislators of North Carolina's 14 U.S. House of Representatives districts - one that a lower court blocked as unlawfully disadvantageous for Democrats. The justices should "dismiss this case for lack of jurisdiction" given that the "decisions on review are nonfinal," the state said. The Republican lawmakers had urged the U.S. Supreme Court to embrace a once-marginal legal theory now embraced by many conservatives that would remove any role of state courts and state constitutions in regulating presidential and congressional elections. Since its decision invalidating the map, the state court has undergone a change in its ideological makeup.

☆ Voting-Rights Decisions Get Second Look in North Carolina
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-14 | by ( Laura Kusisto | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

State lawmakers petitioned the state North Carolina Supreme Court to reconsider two of its recent election-law decisions. North Carolina’s highest court this week will reconsider two of its recent election-law decisions that endorsed a broad view of voting rights, an unusual move that comes after the November elections flipped the court to a Republican majority. The cases, involving the swing state’s voter-identification requirements and the shape of its electoral maps, resulted in rulings last year against the GOP-led state legislature. In one, the North Carolina Supreme Court said lawmakers in 2021 unlawfully gerrymandered congressional and state legislative districts for partisan advantage, in violation of the state constitution. In the other, the court ruled the ID law was intended to discriminate against voters of color, who were more likely to struggle to meet the new requirements.

The new court agreed along party lines to rehear the redistricting case, as well as a case in which the previous Democratic majority struck down a Republican-backed voter identification law. In court filings, Republican lawmakers argue that redistricting is inherently political and should be left to legislators, rather than judges. Last year's redistricting decision also prompted North Carolina Republicans to turn to the U.S. Supreme Court in what has become a high-profile case. The Supreme Court's conservative justices appeared sympathetic to the Republicans' argument during oral arguments in December. But after the North Carolina Supreme Court's decision to rehear the case, the U.S. Supreme Court asked the various parties in the case to weigh in on whether the court still has jurisdiction over the matter.

The state Supreme Court blocked the Republican map as unlawfully biased against Democratic voters. The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the dispute in December but has not issued a ruling in the high-profile case. The justices' order on Thursday cited a federal law giving it jurisdiction over final judgments issued by state supreme courts. Members of the state Supreme Court are elected by voters in North Carolina. In their appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, the North Carolina Republicans contended that the state court usurped the state General Assembly's authority under that provision to regulate federal elections.

☆ Supreme Court signals it could sidestep ruling in major elections case
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( Lawrence Hurley | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday sought additional briefings in a major elections case from North Carolina, signaling it could sidestep a ruling on a broad theory that could upend election law nationwide. The brief court order asked the parties involved to file new court papers on the impact of recent actions by the North Carolina Supreme Court. The case before the justices, argued in December, concerns whether the North Carolina Supreme Court had the authority last year to throw out Republican-drawn congressional districts. Since then, the North Carolina Supreme Court has flipped from Democratic to Republican control and the new majority has moved to revisit some of the earlier rulings. Oral arguments in the North Carolina court are scheduled for March 14.

☆ North Carolina Republicans reap reward of judicial wins in redistricting ruling
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-07 | by ( Joseph Ax | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

'RAW PARTISANSHIP'In North Carolina, Republican candidates in November won two seats held by Democrats, wresting away the majority. The office of the Republican state Senate leader, Phil Berger, did not respond to a request for comment on the ruling on Monday. That decision led North Carolina Republican lawmakers to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in what has become one of the year's most momentous cases. The North Carolina Supreme Court – whose previous decision gave rise to the U.S. Supreme Court case – could now choose to embrace the notion regardless of what the U.S. Supreme Court eventually rules. "We either get Moore v. Harper and it's the Wild West everywhere, or we get a Republican state Supreme Court to overturn it and it's just the Wild West in North Carolina," Hildebrand said.

☆ A Judicial Coup in North Carolina
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( The Editorial Board | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Democrats claim the U.S. Supreme Court will subvert democracy if it overrules a North Carolina decision on legislative gerrymandering. But an extraordinary ruling Friday by the North Carolina Supreme Court shows why such U.S. judicial intervention is warranted. Four Democratic Justices struck down the GOP Legislature’s state Senate map and voter ID requirement—two weeks before the judges are set to lose their majority. The 4-3 Democratic majority has repeatedly overruled the GOP Legislature in election cases. Its ruling to overturn the Congressional map produced Moore v. Harper, the gerrymander case the U.S. Supreme Court heard this month.

☆ North Carolina Supreme Court rejects 'racially discriminatory' voter ID law and state electoral map
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-17 | by ( ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +1 min

The North Carolina Supreme Court on Friday knocked down a 2018 voter-identification law it said discriminated against Black voters and ordered a state Senate map be redrawn due to Republican partisan gerrymandering. Both were 4-3 decisions along party lines, with all the court’s Democratic justices voting in the majority and all Republican justices dissenting. The decisions come just before the court flips to GOP control on Jan. 1, when there will be five Republican justices and two Democrats. The court upheld a lower court’s 2021 ruling that a 2018 law requiring voters to present photo ID was unconstitutional. The majority opinion said that the lower court correctly found that the law “was motivated by a racially discriminatory purpose.”Republican-led legislatures in several states have passed similar voter ID laws in recent years, arguing they are needed to prevent voter fraud.

☆ North Carolina high court rejects voter-identification law, electoral map
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-16 | by ( Industry Insight | Saw Law Firms Move Past The Pandemic Into A More Client-Focused Service Environment | Thomson Reuters Institute | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Dec 16 (Reuters) - The North Carolina Supreme Court on Friday knocked down a 2018 voter-identification law it said discriminated against Black voters and ordered a state Senate map be redrawn due to Republican partisan gerrymandering. The court upheld a lower court's 2021 ruling that a 2018 law requiring voters to present photo ID was unconstitutional. The majority opinion said that the lower court correctly found that the law "was motivated by a racially discriminatory purpose." In the gerrymandering case, the court found that the boundaries for state Senate districts unfairly favored Republicans and disfavored Black voters by diluting their vote. The court ordered that lower court judges redraw the state Senate maps to meet constitutional requirements.

The position of others including Chief Justice John Roberts was harder to read, raising the possibility of a ruling less broad than the Republican state lawmakers pursuing the appeal seek. The Republican lawmakers are asking the Supreme Court to embrace a once-marginal legal theory that has gained favor among some conservatives called the "independent state legislature" doctrine. The Republican lawmakers have argued that the state court unconstitutionally usurped the North Carolina General Assembly's authority to regulate federal elections. Thompson also argued that state constitutions cannot impose substantive limits on the actions of legislatures on federal elections. A lower state court subsequently rejected the legislature's redrawn map and adopted one drawn by a bipartisan group of experts.

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