MELISSA PRICE KROMM: Politicians treat courts like extension of the legislature

EDITOR'S NOTE: Melissa Price Kromm is the director of North Carolina Voters for Clean Elections.

In 2022, our state Supreme Court issued two landmark rulings in defense of the rights and freedoms of every North Carolinian. The court overturned unconstitutional voter restrictions which discriminated against millions of Black voters; judges also shot down a partisan-manipulated electoral map drawn by a small handful of extremist politicians to serve their political interests instead of our communities’ needs.  Their map would have carved up our neighborhoods, dividing Tar Heels across the state into districts engineered to ensure the reelection of politicians by silencing the voices of certain voters.

Hungrier for more power, those same extremist politicians have tried every trick in the book to get their way. First, they appealed the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, making the dangerous argument that state courts should have no power to stop lawmakers from manipulating electoral districts and elections, no matter how illegal or anti-democratic their actions. Then they turned their sights back on our state courts.

Last month, lawmakers demanded that our state Supreme Court take up the electoral map case once more. Successful rehearing requests are unbelievably rare, only happening four times before in state history, and the granting of this latest request sets a dangerous precedent.

For perspective, the last time such a request was granted was in 1987 – four years before Coach K won his first national championship with Duke. Unlike previous rehearing requests though, this time around there was no new evidence to provide, no glaring mistake by the court to rectify.  In fact, the only difference to speak of was the partisan change in the court’s majority – a detail that extremists backing the hearing request have admitted wholeheartedly.

North Carolina’s judicial elections in November saw two new and notably partisan justices elected to our state’s highest court. Their arrival swung the court in a frightening direction, with many concerned that the new majority would serve as a rubber stamp for extremists in our legislature. It didn’t take long for those concerns to bear out.

This month, the court voted on party lines to take up the case once more on March 14. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand why this disturbing decision presents such a huge threat to the rights and freedoms of North Carolinians.

Think of our government like a fancy three-legged stool you bought while driving through Hickory or High Point – if just one of those legs breaks or bends, the entire stool will come crashing down with you on it. Well, the same goes for our courts. One of our judges’ most important roles in our system of checks and balances is ensuring that elected officials follow the law.  When things start to get a little crazy in Raleigh, our courts are there to set things straight and draw boundaries: lawmakers can have their political food fights, but they better not dare violate our state Constitution.

Our system is a good one and has served us well for more than two centuries. Our founding fathers and the drafters of our State Constitution understood that if politicians were allowed to cherry-pick which court rulings to follow, they’d effectively be above the law. But that’s exactly what we’re seeing happen in North Carolina.  Extremist politicians today view our state supreme court to be little more than an extension of the legislature.

It doesn’t matter which corner of our great state you call home or who you voted for in the last election, all North Carolinians can agree that we deserve a court system loyal to our constitution and focused on protecting our rights and freedoms. It’s time for us to come together to demand that lawmakers stop politicizing our courts and that our courts stop functioning as a third chamber of the legislature. We need our judges to stand up for our voting rights and to reject attempts by politicians to steal the power of our votes and silence our voices.

Judges shouldn’t wear red or blue robes – they should be impartial and fair. It’s the only way to deliver on the promise of equal justice for all North Carolinians.

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