Justice As Rendered in 2022 by US Supreme Court and NC Supreme Court Was Determined at the Ballot Box

by johndavis, January 6, 2022

Justice As Rendered in 2022 by US Supreme Court and NC Supreme Court Was Determined at the Ballot Box < January 4, 2022 Vol. XV, No. 1 2:13 pm US Supreme Court likely to make Democrats’ lives miserable The US Supreme Court is likely to make Democrats’ lives miserable this year. And next year. And
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Justice As Rendered in 2022 by US Supreme Court and NC Supreme Court Was Determined at the Ballot Box

January 4, 2022 Vol. XV, No. 1 2:13 pm

US Supreme Court likely to make Democrats’ lives miserable

The US Supreme Court is likely to make Democrats’ lives miserable this year. And next year. And many years after that. All because Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016, giving him the authority to nominate three Supreme Court Justices (Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Barrett), at a time Republicans were the majority party in the US Senate (2015-2021), guaranteeing the confirmation of Trump’s picks that resulted in today’s 6-3 conservative court.

Roe v. Wade? Gone. By June. It’s a 6-3 conservative court. Seven of the nine justices are Catholic, including the six conservatives. There are two Jews on the court (Justices Kagan and Breyer); no protestants, although Justice Gorsuch’s religious affiliation is listed as Anglican/Catholic.

Liberal Justice Sonya Sotomayor, the court’s first Hispanic justice, is also Catholic, but a staunch supporter of a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion. She knows what’s coming. Sotomayor told an audience of law students at an American Bar Association event in 2021, “There is going to be a lot of disappointment in the law, a huge amount.”

The US Supreme Court will distinguish itself in two major areas this term. One, it will leave no doubt that it is a 6-3 conservative court. Two, it will show it’s bent toward federalism by pushing more authority back to state courts, as it did in the 2019 North Carolina case, Rucho v. Common Cause, a decision that gave the state Supreme Court the final say so on matters of partisan gerrymandering.

NC Supreme Court likely to make Republicans’ lives miserable

The North Carolina Supreme Court is likely to make Republicans’ lives miserable this year. That’s because it has a 4-3 Democratic majority with the authority to decide whether the Republican-drawn congressional and legislative maps violate the state constitution.

I assure you the three current maps, passed on November 4, 2021 by the Republican majority in the North Carolina General Assembly on a party-line vote, will not pass state constitutional scrutiny by a 4-3 Democratic state Supreme Court. The state constitutional test? It will likely be whether the maps are considered “extreme partisan gerrymanders,” a new legal test created by a Superior Court three-judge panel in 2019; a test that forced the redrawing of congressional and legislative districts for 2020 races.

You be the justice: Do you think North Carolina’s 14-district congressional map, with 10 friendly Republican districts, 3 friendly Democratic districts and one competitive district, is “extreme partisan gerrymandering” in a battleground state where neither party has a predictable political advantage and almost all of its 35 statewide races go down to the wire? I agree with you.

A 4-3 Democratic majority on the state Supreme Court will not allow 10-3-1 Republican-drawn congressional map to stand. Nor will a 4-3 Democratic majority allow state legislative maps like the current Senate map, that gives Republicans 24 safe seats (26 needed for a majority) to only 17 for the Democrats, with 9 competitive seats, per an analysis by the News & Observer. The N&O analysis also showed a GOP advantage in the NC House map, with 55 safe Republicans seats of the 61 needed for a majority to only 41 for the Democrats and 24 competitive seats.

If you doubt the state Supreme Court’s power over elections, remember, they unilaterally stopped candidate filing last year and changed the primary from March 8, 2022 to May 17, 2022.

Future justice will be determined at the ballot box in 2022

It’s a bit discouraging to think that our judges and justices, our referees, have a partisan bias. It’s a bit naïve to think that they don’t. When it comes to partisan issues like redistricting, my observation is that lady justice peeks out from underneath her blindfold to check the political party of the litigants, and tilts the scales of justice accordingly. That’s especially true in North Carolina, where justices run as Democrats and Republicans.

So, if you want to help protect your political ideology at the state level, get involved in the two North Carolina Supreme Court races this year. The only two seats up for election are currently held by Democrats. Democrats will have to win both to keep their 4-3 edge. Republicans will need to win only one to seize a 4-3 GOP majority.

And, if you want to protect your ideological interests at the federal level, help elect North Carolina’s next US Senator (Sen. Richard Burr is retiring), because that senator will be voting on the nominations of future justices on the US Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, look for liberal US Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, appointed by President Bill Clinton, to retire by June to ensure that another Democratic President will pick his successor while Democrats have a 50-50 US Senate with VP Kamala Harris breaking tie votes.

Of interest, Breyer’s replacement this year will not only be a liberal Democrat, but she will also be the Court’s first African American female, a promise made by Joe Biden on the campaign trail.

Bottom line: Democrats lost the balance of power on the US Supreme Court because they lost the 2016 presidential race. Republicans lost the balance of power on the NC Supreme Court because they lost state Supreme Court races in 2016 and 2018.

Like it or not, justice in the United States of America is determined at the ballot box.

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