You’ve got to hand it to the Republicans in the North Carolina General Assembly. They’re brazen in their determination to undermine elections. They’ve given up any pretense of supporting democracy. While the rest of the country is worried about Russians interfering in the 2018 elections, we have to worry about the GOP.
Yesterday, they changed the rules in judicial elections retroactively. They voted to prevent someone from changing their voter registration less than 90 days before filing begins and made the law applicable to people, or more specifically one person, who filed last month. I know, I know. It sounds like something out of a Sasha Baron Cohen movie, but this is the North Carolina we live in today.
The lengths Republicans have gone to rig this Supreme Court election have been breathtaking. First, they made the races partisan, believing the Republican label would help GOP judicial candidates. Then, when they realized their crazy base might nominate somebody unelectable, they canceled primaries for judicial race, making the general election a winner-take-all affair. They tried to recruit multiple Democrats to split their vote but failed. Then, one the last day of filing, Raleigh Attorney Chris Anglin filed as a Republican, threatening to split the GOP vote. It turns out Anglin changed his registration from unaffiliated to Republican not long before he filed. So yesterday, the GOP passed a bill to retroactively prevent Anglin from running as a Republican.
We’re watching the road to authoritarianism in this state. The GOP is following a pretty standard playbook. They are systematically removing the checks and balances that make our democracy work by taking power away from the governor and now trying to rig the Supreme Court. They’ve succeeded in protecting their power from the voters through extreme gerrymandering and they’re trying to shape the electorate by making voting more difficult for people who might disagree with them.
Republicans in the legislature have stacked the ballot with proposed constitutional amendments that would increase their power and diminish the other branches of the government. One of those amendments would give them the power to appoint Supreme Court justices. If Democrats win the Supreme Court seat, expect the legislature to add two seats to the court and then appoint partisan Republicans to the bench. They won’t stop until they’ve systematically eliminated opposition to their power.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
Has there been any indication that this will be challenged in US District Court? Retroactively removing the right of someone to identify as any political party they wish smacks of a first amendment violation.
For historical reference look up the Stalin Constitution. End result was one party rule. Stalin & one party rule meant how’s about another famine.
Not exactly famine but the Gopsay successes have meant consistent high levels of “food insecurity” working or not for all the NC workers trapped in low wage jobs. No wonder the Gopsay have a motive to restrict voting to their very own.
I think NC Republicans are reacting to the Trump hate nationwide. If so, they have a long way to go to get even.
No they have been doing this crap for 6 years now. It’s not a Trump thing. It’s a greedy GOP thing and it’s happening nationwide. It’s disgusting and we are hoping to break their super majority in this mid-term.
I’m glad to see you acknowledge gerrymandering as the cause of what afflicts our elections and governing system. Until and unless there is meaningful redistricting reform, we can expect rigged elections and illegitimate government to continue all the way through to 2030.