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Christine Walczyk [ [link removed] ]wants a seat on the North Carolina Court of Appeals. Her name will be on every ballot in the state on November 3.
Before you mark that oval, watch what she says when she thinks she’s explaining her philosophy out loud.
In video clips, the Wake County district judge brushes past the old American claim that our rights come from God. She can’t go along with that, she says. Rights come from the government. Rights come from the Constitution. And the Constitution, in her telling, needs a “modern” reading, one that “adapts to the way that society changes.”
WATCH CLIPS HERE:
Sit with that for a second.
If the document bends every time society’s mood does, the judge holding the gavel starts to matter more than the words on the page. Plenty of center-right folks in North Carolina have watched courts invent policy the General Assembly never passed and then dress it up as “interpretation.” Walczyk’s clip sounds like an audition for that habit.
Walczyk has been saying versions of the same thing in other places. Constitutions should be read as society evolves; “moral values change.” She wants a court “free from” the GOP legislature. Implicit-bias training, in her view, is part of a judge’s duty. She campaigns on a more “diverse” judiciary.
Fair enough for a candidate to talk about her values. Voters still get to ask whether those values leave much room for a boring, old-fashioned job: apply the law that was written.
Then look at the crowd behind her.
Durham People’s Alliance [ [link removed] ] — about as radical as progressive politics gets in the Triangle, has endorsed her as a progressive champion. That group’s criminal-justice wish list is blunt: Shrink the Durham County Jail population. Kill cash bail. Stop locking people up before trial just because they can’t pay. And cut off sheriff cooperation with ICE: no holds, no heads-up before release, even when the person in custody is an illegal alien facing criminal charges.
People’s Alliance looked at Walczyk and decided she was their kind of appellate judge. That should tell you something.
Equality NC [ [link removed] ] is on board too. So is the North Carolina Association of Educators, the state’s left-wing teachers union — the same crowd that has pushed Black Lives Matter activism in schools and fought ICE enforcement in North Carolina communities.
Years ago Walczyk practiced law with Lisa Grafstein, a Wake Democrat later endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America [ [link removed] ]. Nobody has to pretend an endorsement is a signed loyalty oath. Radical outfits also don’t waste ink on judges they expect to ignore them.
The Court of Appeals sits between the trial courts and the Supreme Court. Three-judge panels. Errors of law. Published opinions that can steer cases across the whole state. Promote someone who talks about rights flowing from government and a Constitution that has to “adapt,” and you’re handing that person a much bigger pen than a district courtroom ever offered.
Her opponent, Superior Court Judge Craig Collins [ [link removed] ], is selling the opposite product. Follow the Constitution. Don’t legislate from the bench.
He spent years as a prosecutor, including as a lead drug prosecutor, and has district and superior court time behind him. For a lot of North Carolinians, that’s still the job description: keep the community safe, read the text, leave the inventing to the legislature.
November 3rd isn’t a seminar. Walczyk put her theories on camera, in videos.
Believe her — then vote accordingly.
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