NC Supreme Court strikes down state Senate map, voter ID law. Republican lawmakers plan to revisit both issues next year

The state court's 4-3 Democratic majority struck down a 2018 voter ID law and also ordered a lower court to modify a Senate map. GOP lawmakers will seek to pass new voting bills next year.

Posted 5:15 p.m. Dec 16, 2022 — Updated 7:24 p.m. Dec 16, 2022

Bryan Anderson

and

Travis Fain, WRAL state government reporters

RALEIGH, N.C. — The North Carolina Supreme Court on Friday delivered a mixed ruling on a string of voting maps and tossed out a voter ID law that had been stalled by legal challenges.

In a 4-3 ruling split along ideological lines, the Democratic majority on the state’s highest court held that a state Senate map that will give Republicans veto-proof control within the chamber next year created “stark partisan asymmetry in violation of the fundamental right to vote on equal terms.”

The court, however, held that a revised state House map passed by lawmakers this year may be used in future elections and that a congressional map to be used only for this year’s election was constitutional.

Meanwhile, a 2018 law compelling residents to show photo identification when they vote in person was struck down in a separate 4-3 decision. It hadn’t been implemented due to legal challenges, including in two other cases, that argued the policy would disenfranchise racial minorities.

Associate Justice Anita Earls wrote in the court’s majority opinion that “the law was enacted with discriminatory intent to disproportionately disenfranchise and burden African-American voters in North Carolina.”

The decision doesn’t prevent lawmakers from revisiting the issue and passing a tweaked version of the photo ID law. In a 2018 referendum, North Carolina voters overwhelmingly favored photo ID and directed lawmakers to pass such a measure.

Republican Senate leader Phil Berger said in a statement that he plans to pass a voter ID law next year. “If Democrats on the state Supreme Court can't respect the will of the voters, the General Assembly will,” Berger said.

Abortion, Medicaid, voting maps top state lawmakers' 2023 agenda

Senate Democratic leader Dan Blue said lawmakers ought to respect the will of the voters from the 2018 referendum, but do so in a way that is constitutional.

“We need to go back to the drawing board, and work in good faith to pass a voter ID law that will pass constitutional muster,” Blue said in a statement.

Writing on behalf of the majority of justices in the redistricting case, Associate Justice Robin Hudson ordered a lower court to modify the Senate map “only to the extent necessary to achieve constitutional compliance” and adopt it for use in future elections.

State court boots NC's voter ID law, again

“If our state is to realize its foundational ideals of equality and popular sovereignty, it must first ensure that the channeling of ‘political power’ from the people to their representatives in government through elections, the central democratic process envisioned by our constitutional system, is done on equal terms,” Hudson wrote.

Republican state lawmakers will be tasked next year with implementing a new congressional map. Some GOP leaders have called for the Republican-controlled legislature to craft new legislative maps as well.

Blue praised the state Supreme Court's decision to strike down the Senate map and called on Republicans to put forward maps he considers more fair.

“It is my hope that Republican lawmakers will redraw the legislative maps as needed to remedy gerrymandering and not use their majority to take advantage of the court decision and broadly redraw legislative maps to their benefit," Blue said in a statement. "We need to fix the problems in these maps, and not create more legal problems. Let’s correct this, move on, and get to work addressing the challenges facing North Carolina families.”

Republican state Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Newby wrote a dissenting opinion on behalf of the court’s three conservative justices in the redistricting case.

Newby accused his Democratic colleagues of usurping powers reserved to state lawmakers and giving excessive scrutiny to the Senate voting map that a lower court and the state Supreme Court itself had signed off on in February.

“Despite the majority’s judicial amendments to our constitution to create an active role for itself in redistricting, our case law directs that the General Assembly’s policy determinations in enacting laws are entitled to a presumption of constitutionality,” Newby wrote.

Republican Associate Justice Phil Berger Jr. wrote the dissenting opinion in the voter ID case that state lawmakers should have been given a “proper presumption of legislative good faith.” Justice Berger is the son of state Sen. Berger, who was named as a defendant in the voter ID case.

The decisions from the liberal majority on the court come as it is set to lose control next month. Having won a pair of state Supreme Court races in November, Republicans will soon have a 5-2 majority. Barring unforeseen circumstances, GOP control of the bench will remain through 2028.

Republican House Speaker Tim Moore criticized the court over what he considered judicial activism.

“North Carolina voters have had enough of the disdain this court has for them and the rule of law,” Moore said in a statement. “Thankfully, the 2022 election was a complete repudiation of this kind of judicial activism on the appellate courts. Instead of learning their lesson in the wake of defeat, the outgoing lame duck liberal majority has, once again, defied the will of the voters and rejected voter ID."

Suggest A Correction