The reckoning has arrived in North Carolina.
As RedState reported, the prior leftwing Supreme Court majority went nuts prior to the 2022 election, knowing its tenure was not long for this world. Now-ousted Democrat members handed down multiple rulings that ignored the law. One decision struck down voter ID and another invented a constitutional provision against gerrymandering.
At the time, some warned that such an abuse of power wouldn’t hold up under the new Supreme Court. Sure enough, they were right.
As expected, the Democrat judge who authored the original horrible decisions (and still remains on the court) is throwing a fit. Justice Anita Earls claimed that the decision to relook at the cases is a “display of raw partisanship” and an abuse of power.
Do you know what else was unprecedented? Earls completely made up a North Carolina law that prevents so-called gerrymandering. There was never a legal argument for a partisan fairness standard in redistricting, yet the old Supreme Court ruled that anyway in order to help Democrats in the 2022 election. It almost worked too, with Democrats only missing the House majority by the smallest of margins. Had North Carolina been allowed to redistrict under the actual stipulations of the law, the GOP majority would be much larger today.
The crying about breaking precedent is also ludicrous given Earls and her old colleagues continually broke precedent to shove through far-left rulings over the last several years. The moment conservatives take the reins, though, everything from the last term is supposed to stand? Yeah, that’s not how any of this works. Earls can cry a river because things are only where they are because she overstepped her bounds.
It can’t be understated how big of a deal this is for future Republican prospects. With such a slim House majority, keeping the chamber in 2024 is going to be a real fight. With North Carolina likely to redo its redistricting, you could be talking about 3-4 extra House seats. That could be the difference between the majority and the minority.
This situation is a good lesson in why even the less sexy elections are very important. The way you enact change is across the board. Republicans can have the legislature, but if they don’t have the Supreme Court, nothing that is passed will be allowed to stand.