Everywhere you turn these days, free and fair elections are under attack. In today’s newsletter, we discuss how on a single day, last Friday, the new Republican majority on the North Carolina Supreme Court reversed two of its own recently issued decisions to rule in favor of partisan gerrymandering and voter ID. The Court also upheld the state’s felony disenfranchisement law. Within the past week alone, Florida passed a major elections bill that targets mail-in voting and get-out-the-vote organizations and Montana and Georgia enacted laws limiting funding for election administration.
But, what’s the impact of these ongoing GOP efforts? “The terrible truth is that these new voter suppression laws are working. Despite the positive political outcome, turnout among minority and young voters in 2022 was down from previous years,” Marc Elias writes in his latest. “The myth that citizens can out-organize voter suppression is not just wrong, it is dangerous. It minimizes the real world effects of repeated, targeted suppression laws.”
|
“If we organize ourselves to fight voter suppression, we won’t have to try to organize voters to overcome it.” Read the full article here. |
|
|
The North Carolina Supreme Court’s Three-Part Attack on Democracy |
On a single day, Friday, April 28, 2023, the North Carolina Supreme Court wreaked havoc on voting rights. The court dropped three major decisions, all harmful outcomes for voters and democracy.
Two of the decisions — Harper v. Hall and Holmes v. Moore — were from cases that were decided just a few months ago by the same court. To be clear: There has been no change in the facts or law since last year. The only change has been the composition of the court, since Republicans gained a 5-2 majority on the court in the 2022 midterm elections.
In a simple but cynical gambit, Republican lawmakers asked for a redo after the court flipped red. They did not like the pro-voter outcomes with the previously Democratic-led court, so they requested and were granted rehearing.
Harper v. Hall: The North Carolina Supreme Court greenlit partisan gerrymandering. In a decision authored by Chief Justice Paul Newby, the court ruled that the North Carolina Supreme Court got it wrong last year when it found that partisan gerrymandering violates the state constitution. “[C]reating partisan redistricting standards is rife with policy decisions. Policy decisions belong to the legislative branch, not the judiciary,” Newby wrote, citing Rucho v. Common Cause (2019) as “insightful and persuasive.”
-
As a result of the ruling, the state Legislature will have full authority to redraw all of the state’s electoral maps this summer. The Republican-controlled North Carolina Legislature has shown a repeated desire to draw extreme partisan gerrymanders and the state Supreme Court just gave it the green light to do so without any constraints.
Holmes v. Moore: The North Carolina Supreme Court reinstated a strict photo ID law. In the second decision overruling itself, the North Carolina Supreme Court reversed a decision from December 2022, less than five months ago, when the court blocked Senate Bill 824, a law that narrowed the list of qualifying photo IDs acceptable for voting in the state. In Friday’s decision reinstating S.B. 824, the court’s Republican majority held that the plaintiffs “failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that S.B. 824 was enacted with discriminatory intent or that the law actually produces a meaningful disparate impact along racial lines.”
-
“The people of North Carolina overwhelmingly support voter identification and other efforts to promote greater integrity and confidence in our elections,” Justice Phil Berger Jr. stated, before suggesting that his ruling was exemplary of judicial restraint, an ironic pontification given that he just overturned recent precedent set by the very court on which he sits.
Community Success Initiative v. Moore: The North Carolina Supreme Court upheld the state’s felony disenfranchisement law. In March 2022, a trial court permanently struck down the state’s felony disenfranchisement law for violating the Equal Protection, Free Elections and Property Qualifications clauses of the North Carolina Constitution. Last Friday, the North Carolina Supreme Court overturned that decision. The Republican majority pointed to the updates made to the felony disenfranchisement statute in the early 1970s and determined that “the available evidence does not show that racial discrimination inspired the General Assembly” at that time.
-
Although Black people comprise 21% of North Carolina’s voting-age population, they represent over 42% of those stripped of the right to vote under current statute. For Black men specifically, they constitute only 9.2% of the voting age population, but 36.6% of those disenfranchised. Additionally, North Carolina remains one of only a few states that conditions voting rights on the ability to pay, in what many consider a “modern day poll tax.”
Read a summary of the three catastrophic decisions here.
Read the reactions of voting rights experts and North Carolina politicians here.
|
Major Florida Election Law Awaits DeSantis’ Signature |
Last Friday, the Florida Legislature passed an omnibus elections bill that would make numerous changes to Florida election law. The bill would restrict mail-in voting, criminalize the work of third-party voter organizations, facilitate voter list maintenance and alter Florida’s resign-to-run law to pave the way for Gov. Ron DeSantis’ (R) expected presidential run.
The bill now awaits DeSantis’ signature. We’re watching closely for enactment. Get the full breakdown here.
|
In the Face of Voter Suppression, Is the DOJ Doing Enough? |
"I think at a time when a lot of Americans, including me, would like the Justice Department to get more aggressive in court defending voting rights, defending reproductive rights,” former White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain said in an interview last weekend. “That more cautious, measured approach seems just not aggressive enough given the threats that our rights face.”
Rachel Selzer, Democracy Docket case coordinator, compiled the entire scope of the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) voting rights and redistricting lawsuits, settlements, amicus briefs, statement of interests and poll monitoring to effectively ask the question: Is the DOJ doing enough? -
Since 2021, the DOJ’s Voting Section has filed a total of eight voting rights and redistricting lawsuits, five of which are actively ongoing. The DOJ’s five ongoing lawsuits represent only 2.4% of the 210 active voting rights and redistricting cases that Democracy Docket is currently tracking. Read more here.
|
OPINION: How Can We Trust a Court That Doesn’t Care To Be Independent? |
“Every week, we learn more about how billionaire Republican donor Harlan Crow showered [Justice Clarence] Thomas with extravagant and unreported gifts. Those include chartered flights and yachts in Indonesia, the purchase and maintenance of Thomas’ childhood home (while his mother lives there rent free) and regular use of Crow’s private jet,” writes Rakim Brooks, the president of Alliance for Justice and a Democracy Docket contributor who writes about reforms to our judicial systems.
Additional reports soon emerged about high-value transactions close to U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Neil Gorsuch and yesterday, ProPublica revealed even more Thomas improprieties. On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on ethics reform for the Court.
-
"Until there is an honest ethics process at the Supreme Court, these messes will continue," Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said in the hearing. Listen to our podcast where we spoke with Whitehouse about the concerning issues at the nation’s highest court.
|
- “How can we tell when it’s time to take that drastic step?” Brooks asks in his latest for Democracy Docket. Read more ➡️
|
New Election Laws Enacted This Week |
Within the next few weeks, Arizona, Florida, Tennessee and a dozen other states will wrap up their 2023 legislative sessions. This week, governors signed several new election bills into law: -
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) signed a bill that will tighten and criminalize the state’s pre-existing ban on private funding in election administration. Private grants are often a lifeline for chronically underfunded election offices.
|
Montana Rep. Zooey Zephyr (D), the state’s first openly transgender lawmaker, filed a lawsuit challenging her censure by the Republican-controlled state House for comments during a debate on a bill to ban gender-affirming care for minors. As a result of the censure, the lawsuit argues that the Republican legislative leadership “deprived [Zephyr’s] 11,000 constituents of the right to full representation in their government.” A Montana judge rejected this request, ruling that the court does not have authority over this issue.
|
On Monday, several voting rights groups filed a lawsuit arguing that Louisiana's voter registration policy for individuals with a prior felony conviction violates the National Voter Registration Act and 14th Amendment. Last week, a similar lawsuit was filed in Florida and a ruling related to this issue came down in Alabama.
|
An Ohio House committee advanced a resolution to raise the threshold to pass citizen-led constitutional amendments from 50% to 60%. This would make it more difficult for voters to amend the Ohio Constitution. The resolution now heads to another House committee, but we are watching it closely. The Ohio Legislature must pass the resolution before Wednesday, May 10 for it to go before voters in an August special election.
|
U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) reintroduced the Election Worker Protection Act, a bill to provide states with more resources to recruit, train and ensure the safety of election workers amid rising threats.
|
|
|
OPINION: A Different Kind of Investment |
By Ashish Sinha, chief of staff for the Institute for Responsive Government. Read more ➡️ |
Have you ordered from the Democracy Docket store? Let us know what you think, and send us pictures of your merch on Twitter! Pictures of four-legged friends with Democracy Docket bandanas or dog toys are especially appreciated.
This week, President Joe Biden announced even more federal judicial nominees. Call your senators to tell Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Durbin to do whatever he needs to do to confirm Biden’s nominees. With a slim Democratic majority in the Senate, we need to use every moment to fill the federal judiciary with smart, qualified judges.
|
|
|
We depend on the support of our readers to keep bringing you the latest on the fight for democracy. You can support our work here to keep our content free and available for all. You can update your email preferences here. Email is the best way to keep in touch, but you may unsubscribe.
|
Democracy Docket
250 Massachusetts Ave NW
Washington, DC 20001
United States
|
|
|
|
