Four progressive North Carolina judges are seeking to void two state constitutional amendments passed by the electorate.
The state's voters in 2018 approved four of six proposed amendments that the Republican-led legislature placed on the November ballot. Each proposal had been approved by the required three-fifths majorities in the state House and Senate.
Among the amendments that voters approved was a measure mandating photo identification for voters, and another lowering North Carolina's cap on income-tax rates.
A total of 55% of the voters approved the photo ID amendment, and 57% approved the cap on income-tax rates.
The N.C. State Conference of the NAACP, though, objected to both of these amendments, and filed suit to block them from taking effect, National Review reported.
The group argued that the two issues never should have been put before the voters because, at the time, federal courts had ruled against Republican legislators in partisan fights over redistricting — even though judges had taken no action to block the General Assembly from conducting regular business.
On Aug. 19, the four Democrats on the North Carolina Supreme Court outvoted their three GOP colleagues in a case that could end up nullifying millions of votes.
"Four Democratic justices have all but thrown out the legitimate votes of millions of North Carolinians in a brazen, partisan attempt to remove the voter ID requirement from our Constitution and deny the people the ability to amend their own Constitution," said state Sen. Paul Newton, R, chair of the chamber's elections committee, National Review reported.
"This is a direct attack on our democratic form of government from the most activist court in the state's history."
The NAACP's suit did not challenge two other approved amendments — one guaranteeing crime victims' rights and another protecting hunting and fishing.
The NAACP also asked that two Republican justices be disqualified from the case, which proceeded despite the group's request.
Justice Phil Berger Jr., one of the Republican judges targeted for removal from the case, challenged his Democrat colleagues in dissent.
"The majority engages in an inquiry that is judicially forbidden — what should our constitution say? This question is designated solely to the people and the legislature," Berger wrote.
"The majority concedes that constitutional procedures were followed, yet they invalidate more than 4.1 million votes and disenfranchise more than 55% of North Carolina's electorate. Unwilling to accept the results of a procedurally sound election that enshrined the Voter ID and Tax Cap Amendments in our state constitution, the majority nullifies the will of the people and precludes governance by the majority."
Justice Anita Earls wrote for the majority.
"The issue is whether legislators elected from unconstitutionally racially gerrymandered districts possess unreviewable authority to initiate the process of changing the North Carolina Constitution," Earls wrote, "including in ways that would allow those same legislators to entrench their own power, insulate themselves from political accountability, or discriminate against the same racial group who were excluded from the democratic process by the unconstitutionally racially gerrymandered districts."
National Review reported that because the voter ID amendment is tied up in other federal and state lawsuits, the court's decision in N.C. NAACP v. Moore will have no direct impact on election procedures this fall.
Also, because North Carolina's General Assembly has been lowering tax rates rather than raising them, the tax-cap amendment shouldn't become a source of legislative conflict in the near future.
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