Media Contacts:
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 哈珀诉霍尔 — 由北卡罗来纳州共同诉讼机构提起的诉讼 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 北卡罗来纳州共同事业组织执行董事鲍勃·菲利普斯. “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 哈珀 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, Senior Counsel for Voting Rights at the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, which represents plaintiff Common Cause NC in the 哈珀 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 哈珀 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 v. 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, Interim Chief Counsel of Voting Rights at Southern Coalition for Social Justice. “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. 

北卡罗来纳州共同事业 是一个无党派的草根组织，致力于维护美国民主的核心价值观。我们致力于创建服务于公众利益的开放、诚实和负责任的政府；促进所有人的平等权利、机会和代表权；并赋予所有人在政治进程中发出声音的权力。 

南方社会正义联盟成立于 2007 年，与南方有色人种社区和经济弱势社区合作，通过法律倡导、研究、组织和传播相结合的方式，捍卫和推进他们的政治、社会和经济权利。了解更多信息，请访问 southerncoalition.org.