A Better NC
For a decade, politicians in Raleigh have favored corporate special interests and ideological zeal over what’s best for the people of North Carolina. While a majority of North Carolinians favor expanding access to health care, more funding for public education and protections for our environment from corporate polluters, the politicians have rigged the system to keep power for themselves and the special interests. Along the way, they’ve distorting our democracy by chipping away at voting rights, attacking the independence of the judiciary, and drawing district lines to favor one party over another.
Attacks on our democratic principles of self-government should concern people of all political stripes. Our right to vote and right to fair hearings in a court of law should be sacred, protected, and free from partisan meddling. Any attempt to undermine the vote, reduce public confidence in the courts and gerrymander our districts diminishes our democracy and threatens the rights of all people.
A Better NC will continue to stand for:
Fair and Independent Judges
An independent judiciary is required by North Carolina’s constitutional system of checks and balances. Independence from party and impartiality in judicial decisions are vital to protecting the integrity of the courts. Yet over the past decade, the Republican leadership in the General Assembly has tried to inject partisanship in the courts and to install a rubber stamp state Supreme Court.
They began by ending a public financing option for judicial elections, a national model for limiting political fundraising by judicial candidates, and then started adding partisan labels to previously non-partisan judicial elections. And, after losing their majority on the Supreme Court in 2016, the Republican legislature attempted to change laws governing state Supreme Court elections five different times, even after candidate filing opened. Their last-ditch attempt to ensure partisan control of state courts was to place two misleading constitutional amendments on the state ballot in 2018 with the objective of giving the legislature control over all judicial appointments. Fortunately, their power grab was overwhelmingly defeated by North Carolina voters.
It’s clear that Paul Newby’s campaign for Chief Justice and his partisan team of judicial candidates is just one more attempt to rid the courts of their historic and constitutional role as a check on the power of the state legislature.
Consolidating power through gerrymandering
The Republican state legislature’s zeal for rigging the system through gerrymandering has been well-documented and litigated. In an attempt to subjugate the will of the people of North Carolina, Republican map-makers packed Black voters into specific districts, diluting their voting power across the state. For example, after the 2016 election Democrats won nearly 50% of the vote statewide, but Republicans held a supermajority in both chambers—62% of seats in the House and 70% of the Senate.
On the state Supreme Court, Paul Newby played an integral part in defending his party’s power grab. Newby sided with the majority in a 4-3 decision in favor of the Republican’s racial gerrymander in Dickson v Rucho I (2014). Later, Newby authored the majority opinion in Dickson v Rucho II (2015), which rubber-stamped the legislature’s racial gerrymanders.
Later, federal courts ruled the districts that Newby defended unconstitutional. According to the News & Observer, federal courts ruled “the redistricting was based on the illegal use of racial quotas that violated the constitutional rights of black voters.” After the 2020 Census, North Carolina must go through the redistricting process again. The Republican leadership is desperate to get Paul Newby in the Chief Justice seat to protect their maps once again.
Enabling the Legislature’s Extreme Agenda
The courts should be a check on the power of the state legislature, but by supporting the legislature’s gerrymandering schemes and rigging the rules of the game to help create a Republican supermajority, Justice Newby is helping to enact their extreme agenda:
- More than $1 billion in corporate tax breaks.
- Underfunding our public schools, classrooms, and teachers, while shifting taxpayer money to unaccountable for-profit schools.
- Helping polluters avoid responsibility when they threaten our health and well-being, especially from hog farms, coal ash, and other dangerous chemicals that leak into our lakes and rivers.
- Failing to expand Medicaid, protect our rural hospitals, lower drug prices, and expand health care access to more people with preexisting conditions.
- Slashing our unemployment insurance program, leaving hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians worse off in the middle of a pandemic.
Paul Newby’s Extreme Team
According to the Carolina Journal:
“If they played football, they’d wear long, black jerseys, and their end zone would be a judicial bench.
“We’re all on the same team,” said N.C. Court of Appeals Judge Phil Berger Jr. in a June 9 pinned tweet. He’s running for a state Supreme Court seat next year. “We all have on the same jersey. We have the same judicial philosophy. And we’re all conservative!”
The strategy was the brainchild of “quarterback” Supreme Court Justice Paul Newby, who’s running for chief justice and recruited several of the other candidates…”
Joining Newby’s team are two Supreme Court candidates guaranteed to toe the party line: Phil Berger Jr, son of State Senate President Phil Berger, and Berger disciple and former state Senator Tamara Barringer.
Holding the legislature accountable
Chief Justice Cheri Beasley believes that judges should be fair and independent. Unlike Paul Newby, Beasley isn’t beholden to any politicians or political party. She has a track record in opposition to racial gerrymandering and in support of the voting rights of all people. It is the North Carolina Supreme Court’s duty to provide a check on the power of the state legislature, especially when the legislature exceeds its constitutional authority or passes unconstitutional laws. Beasley is the only judge running for Chief Justice to trust with that responsibility.