[North Carolina has been here before. From 2013 through 2018,
Republicans had a veto-proof supermajority in the Legislature. They
engaged in a series of power grabs. North Carolina’s citizens can
rally to save the state’s democracy once again.]
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NORTH CAROLINA’S DEVASTATING NEW ABORTION BAN AND THE FIGHT AHEAD
 
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Billy Corriher
May 18, 2023
Slate
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_ North Carolina has been here before. From 2013 through 2018,
Republicans had a veto-proof supermajority in the Legislature. They
engaged in a series of power grabs. North Carolina’s citizens can
rally to save the state’s democracy once again. _

Moral Monday March & Interfaith Social Justice Rally, by twbuckner
(CC BY 2.0)

 

On Tuesday night, over the cries of hundreds of protesters, Republican
lawmakers in North Carolina overrode the Democratic governor’s veto
to enact an unpopular 12-week abortion ban
[[link removed]],
a bill that they refused to debate in a public hearing.

Republicans now enjoy more power in the state Capitol than they’ve
had in years, after a Democratic lawmaker switched parties to give the
GOP a veto-proof majority in both chambers. And it could get worse
after they gerrymander election districts later this year, enabled by
a conservative-controlled state Supreme Court. That new GOP majority
on the court recently reversed course on democracy
[[link removed]] to
sanction gerrymandering and voter suppression. This could lead to more
new laws that hurt schools, trans people, workers, and so many more,
in addition to giving Republicans near-total control over government
in a state that has split evenly and twice elected a Democratic
governor in recent years.

But hope is not lost. North Carolina has been here before. From 2013
through 2018, Republicans had a veto-proof supermajority in the
Legislature. They engaged in a series of power grabs, but some of
their most brazen abuses of power faltered after massive protests at
the Capitol. Despite Tuesday’s abhorrent circumvention of the
democratic process, North Carolina’s citizens can rally to save the
state’s democracy once again.

Ten years ago, just days after the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the
Voting Rights Act in _Shelby County v. Holder_, North Carolina
lawmakers passed a sprawling voter suppression bill
[[link removed]] that
included a draconian voter ID mandate and several other provisions
that made it harder to vote. This brazen attack on democracy led to
fierce protests in Raleigh. Tens of thousands of people flooded the
streets to protest this bill and others. Hundreds of them were
arrested
[[link removed]],
including 64 people at an abortion rights protest.

The Rev. William Barber, who was head of the state NAACP, helped
launch the “Moral Mondays” protest movement that April. Barber
said that he began this work after the Legislature’s
“mean-spirited quadruple attack
[[link removed]]” on poor
people: raising taxes on working-class families, cutting unemployment
benefits, rejecting Medicaid expansion, and slashing education
funding.

The intersectional movement that Barber led unified young people,
labor organizers, civil rights activists, and progressive religious
leaders in their opposition to the Legislature’s extreme agenda. As
lawmakers’ list of targets grew, so did the movement. When
legislators targeted trans people with a “bathroom bill
[[link removed]],”
they generated an enormous backlash, boycotts, and the loss of beloved
college basketball tournaments in the state. Ultimately, a compromise
was struck that significantly softened the initial anti-trans
legislation.

The Moral Mondays protesters were inspired by Barber’s fiery
rhetoric that called out lawmakers for their immoral agenda. He was
fond of quoting a Bible verse, “Woe unto those who make unjust laws
that rob the rights of the poor.” In his booming preacher’s voice,
Barber would call out the movement’s slogan: “Forward together!”
And the crowd would thunder in response: “Not one step back!”

The movement helped stop some blatant power grabs. In 2016, after
voters elected a new progressive majority to the state Supreme Court,
conservatives responded by suggesting that legislators pack the court
[[link removed]].
The idea was to expand the court and allow the lame-duck Republican
governor, who’d just been defeated, the power to fill the two new
seats. They had already passed bills to slash the incoming
governor’s authority.

Protesters filled the halls of power. And just like the abortion
protesters on Tuesday, they loudly chanted “Shame!” at lawmakers.
The demonstration led to nationwide attention and critical commentary
in the media. In the end, Republicans didn’t pack the court, even
though they had the numbers to do it.

The rallies continued in 2017 and 2018, as lawmakers tried to
gerrymander local judicial elections, and their effort was drastically
scaled back. The pressure worked. All it took was one Republican to
refuse to support it, which is again the case until at least the next
election.

Voters also defied lawmakers at the ballot box. They twice elected a
Democratic governor. And in 2018, they rejected lawmakers’ effort to
amend the constitution to give themselves the power to pack the high
court and the state elections board. In the same election, voters
elected enough Democrats to break the GOP’s veto-proof
supermajority. They also put Justice Anita Earls—a civil rights
attorney who had defeated lawmakers before—on the state Supreme
Court, defying lawmakers’ repeated attempts to handicap her
campaign
[[link removed]].

Last month, Barber held a “recommitment rally” in Raleigh on the
10-year anniversary of the first Moral Monday. He listed examples of
lawmakers targeting the poor and called on the crowd to demand change:
“We can’t, we won’t, be silenced anymore!” The crowd heard
from people impacted by the Legislature’s actions, such as
low-income workers who need a higher minimum wage. Barber promised
that the movement would soon return to the Capitol.

No matter how bleak things look in Raleigh, North Carolinians must
follow Barber’s example and continue to fight for our democracy. We
must vocally oppose new attacks on abortion rights and bills that
target women, trans people, the poor, or Black voters.

A gerrymandered Legislature can still be held accountable. Citizens
should flood the Capitol when lawmakers gerrymander the districts and
anytime they target a marginalized group of people. And they must
fight new efforts to pack the courts or give the GOP more control
[[link removed]] over them.

Barber said in a recent interview
[[link removed]] that
the Moral Mondays movement “taught people how to fight for what you
believe in when you are in the minority politically. Because too many
people, if they’re in the minority politically, they just feel like
you go home and just sit and wait till the next election.” The
movement said to those people, “No, you have work to do. You still
have to keep raising dissent. You have to raise the moral critique.”

We must also demand accountability for our state Supreme Court, which
is elected in statewide elections that can’t be gerrymandered. In
March, hundreds gathered outside the court as it heard arguments about
whether to reverse course in the gerrymandering and voter ID cases.
The protest could be heard inside the courtroom. The court, it should
be said, went ahead with its reversal to the great harm of North
Carolina’s voters.

But the people should keep showing up at the court and demanding that
justices honor their rights under the North Carolina Constitution. The
GOP justices will likely rule to limit the rights of voters, workers,
pregnant people, and those accused of crimes. Most of the Republican
justices are either ex-prosecutors or former corporate attorneys, whom
studies show tend to favor corporate litigants
[[link removed]].
Only one justice, Earls, has experience representing workers or
voters. Even this court, though, can hopefully still be shamed from
countenancing the worst abuses of power likely to come before them.

Finally, voters must show up to defeat Republicans at the ballot box.
There are crucial elections next year for governor and Supreme Court.
Voters will have to keep two Democrats on the court in 2024 and 2026
if they want the chance to elect a pro-democracy majority in 2028.

They can gerrymander elections, but they cannot silence our voices.
Tar Heels must show up at the Capitol and demand accountability for
all elected officials who undermine democracy.

We’ve done it before. And we’ve shown that, despite Republicans’
complete control of the lawmaking process, lawmakers can still be
bound by the state constitution’s creed that “all political power
… originates from the people.” We can do it again.

_BILLY CORRIHER [[link removed]] is the
state courts manager at People's Parity Project Action and the author
of Usurpers: How Voters Stopped the GOP Takeover of North Carolina
Courts [[link removed]]._

_Staying informed has never been more important. Try Slate Plus for
just $15 for three months. [[link removed]]_

* North Carolina
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* Moral Mondays
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* abortion rights
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* Reproductive rights
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