As North Carolina Republicans were plotting their legislative coup, their House Rules Committee chair took to Twitter to angrily denounce news that the North Carolina NAACP was ready to go to court to prevent Republicans from packing the state Supreme Court:
Okay, first, a “radical activist group”? The NAACP? Granted, under the Rev. Dr. William Barber, the NC NAACP has been more of an activist force than many state NAACP chapters. But we are still talking about some very traditional civil rights activism, like that black people shouldn’t be targeted for voter suppression. If Lewis thinks that’s radical, it tells us something about the man.
Second, did the NC NAACP threaten to go to court to prevent you from court-packing? If they really did that, then it’s not fake news, now is it? And while Lewis and his fellow Republicans may have decided that court-packing was a bridge too far and would threaten their own legitimacy—we don’t actually know if they’ve abandoned the plan, because they’ve been consistently dishonest about what they’re going to do—the stunning scope of what they are definitely attempting means they get no benefit of the doubt. None.
Lewis was part of the secret planning of a special session in which Republicans are definitely seeking to weaken the newly elected Democratic governor’s appointment powers, pack election boards with additional Republicans, and make Supreme Court races partisan. But we’re supposed to trust Republicans not to do the next most outrageous thing? To the point where even mentioning that the North Carolina NAACP is threatening a lawsuit if Republicans do it? If Republicans have decided that the political cost of packing the court would be too high, that’s great. But the reason that cost is high is because people started talking about the possibility and groups started threatening to go to court. If North Carolina progressives are silent on this issue, chances rise that Republicans will go through with it and do their damnedest to bring on a second Jim Crow era.