Liên hệ truyền thông:
Bryan Warner, Common Cause | bwarner@commoncause.org | 919-836-0027
Melissa Boughton, SCSJ | melissa@scsj.org | 830-481-6901

RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina Republican lawmakers are wasting no time trying to use the recently-flipped state Supreme Court to their advantage — they filed petitions Friday asking the Republican-controlled court to ignore recent precedent and rehear two cases decided just last month, one involving statewide redistricting and the other involving a discriminatory voter ID bill.  

In their requests to overturn Harper kiện Hall — một vụ kiện do Common Cause North Carolina đưa ra after lawmakers gerrymandered legislative and Congressional maps to give Republicans an edge at the disproportional expense of Black voters — legislators ask for the ability to return to redistricting “unencumbered” by previous decisions that set constitutional limits on partisan gerrymandering. That petition also asks the court to overturn a February 2022 decision from the case, despite no petition having been filed relating to it for the better part of a year now. 

“Self-serving politicians are desperately trying to undermine the state Supreme Court’s landmark ruling against discriminatory gerrymandering. Partisan legislators want to claw power away from the people of North Carolina and go back to illegally manipulating our voting districts,” said Bob Phillips, giám đốc điều hành của Common Cause North Carolina. “Enough. Politicians in the legislature should stop wasting taxpayers’ money in pursuit of unconstitutional power grabs. It’s time for lawmakers to follow the law.” 

As they have argued unsuccessfully throughout this case, the lawmakers’ petition in Người thợ cắt again asserts that partisan gerrymandering claims are non-justiciable altogether because they contend the state constitution gives legislators “the power to decide what political composition is appropriate for electoral districts.” 

Not-so-distant North Carolina history has shown that Republicans in charge of redistricting want free reign to give their party an extreme advantage to remain in control — and they have no issue drawing maps that are impervious to will of voters. Voters from both sides of the aisle overwhelmingly expressed to the legislature as late as the fall of 2021 that they didn’t want partisan gerrymandering by either political party.  

“A rehearing in this case is completely unnecessary given the record in this matter developed over the course of a year and hundreds of pages of North Carolina Supreme Court decisions,” said Hilary Harris Klein, Cố vấn cấp cao về Quyền bỏ phiếu tại Liên minh miền Nam vì Công lý xã hội, which represents plaintiff Common Cause NC in the Người thợ cắt cases. “In their 46-page document, defendants failed to identify any points of fact or law the North Carolina Supreme Court failed to consider. Instead, they merely disagree with the result, and that is not adequate grounds for a rehearing.” 

Common Cause NC opposes a Người thợ cắt rehearing, but applicable court rules do not automatically provide a right to be heard in response to such a filing. 

In its second petition, Republican lawmakers ask the state Supreme Court to rehear Holmes kiện Moore after a decision last month struck down their most recent iteration of a photo voter ID law as an unconstitutional measure passed in part to discriminate against African American voters.   

The case was originally filed by Southern Coalition for Social Justice joined by co-counsel from Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP in December 2018. It alleged North Carolina’s 2018 voter ID law (S.B. 824), approved by a Republican-led supermajority in a lame-duck session, was racially motivated. 

“This petition is another example of legislative leadership stopping at nothing to infringe on the right of African Americans to vote freely in North Carolina,” said Jeff Loperfido, Cố vấn trưởng tạm thời về Quyền bỏ phiếu tại Liên minh miền Nam vì Công lý xã hội. “We’re disappointed that lawmakers would choose to waste time rehashing arguments that were rejected by the Court mere weeks ago rather than doing the work of passing a voter photo ID that passes constitutional muster.” 

Plaintiff Jabari Holmes, an African American voter with disabilities, and the legal team in the case oppose a rehearing, but like the other petition, court rules don’t give an automatic right to respond. 

Nguyên nhân chung Bắc Carolina là một tổ chức cơ sở phi đảng phái chuyên bảo vệ các giá trị cốt lõi của nền dân chủ Hoa Kỳ. Chúng tôi nỗ lực tạo ra một chính phủ cởi mở, trung thực và có trách nhiệm phục vụ lợi ích công cộng; thúc đẩy quyền bình đẳng, cơ hội và đại diện cho tất cả mọi người; và trao quyền cho tất cả mọi người để tiếng nói của họ được lắng nghe trong quá trình chính trị. 

Liên minh miền Nam vì Công lý Xã hội, được thành lập năm 2007, hợp tác với các cộng đồng da màu và cộng đồng khó khăn về kinh tế ở miền Nam để bảo vệ và thúc đẩy các quyền chính trị, xã hội và kinh tế của họ thông qua sự kết hợp giữa vận động pháp lý, nghiên cứu, tổ chức và truyền thông. Tìm hiểu thêm tại southerncoalition.org.