At last month’s NAACP “Vote Your Dreams, Not Your Fears” rally in Raleigh, NC (featuring Dr. William Barber), NCCU Law professor and a member of the NC NAACP legal team, Irv Joyner, told the crowd:
The North Carolina Supreme Court is supposed to be the hall of justice. It is where you find seven people who are elected to be the final arbiters on what the law is. We have filed in 2011 a lawsuit challenging the redistricting here in North Carolina that has packed minorities into a small number of districts - kind of like South Africa did in the old days - and put African Americans in a position that they cannot fully exercise the power of their vote. That court, with those seven people there, are holding up an opinion as to whether that is constitutional or not [....] This court has refused to give us an opinion in that case. Shame on them. And you need to remember that, because in November four of the seven members are up for re-election. You need to find out who they are, what they have been doing, and then to figure out if you want them to stay. Now, I’m not gonna tell you how to vote, but I am gonna tell you you need to vote on them, one way or the other. We need a positive decision from them on this gerrymandering that has occurred in these districts to limit the ability of African Americans to have power.
Like Irv, I won't presume to tell you how to vote either. But, taking up his challenge to "find out who they are and what they have been doing," below the fold I offer a summary of the 2014 NC Supreme Court candidates.
North Carolina's Supreme Court elections are nominally non-partisan...candidates' party affiliations do not appear on the ballot...but those affiliations are certainly no secret, and I've listed them below. The back-stories regarding two of these four races are somewhat complex, but please bear with me as I outline them sufficiently to support your informed decisions in the voting booth this November.
According to judgepedia.org:
Currently, the Supreme Court of North Carolina has five Republicans and two Democrats on its bench. In 2014, four seats are up for election, meaning that a majority of the seven-member court is up for grabs.
Three Democratic seats and one Republican seat were initially up for election this year. Two of those seats--the chief justice position and Justice Martin's open seat--were given new, Republican incumbents thanks to appointments by Governor Pat McCrory in August 2014. That resulted in the chief justice position changing from a Democratic incumbent (Sarah Parker, who retired) to a Republican incumbent (Mark Martin, who is running for a full term in 2014).
The seats up for election this year, and their candidates, are:
Chief Justice seat (Mark Martin [R], interim incumbent):
Incumbent Mark Martin [R] is running for his first full term as Chief Justice against fellow Republican challenger, Ola Lewis [R]. Martin's endorsements include the NC Republican Party Executive Committee and, by inference, Republican governor Pat McCrory (who appointed Martin to the seat on an interim basis last August). Lewis, a Superior Court judge and previously the first female African-American Judge in Brunswick County, has received no major endorsements from organizations. Her candidacy has been actively opposed by the NC Republican Party. Criticizing Gov. McCrory's appointment of Martin to the vacated Chief Justice seat just three months prior to the election in which Martin is a candidate, Lewis said:
Here we go again. The political Establishment in Raleigh is intent on crowning Mark Martin as the next Chief Justice and influencing this election through insider politics. The Courts
should be devoid of this kind of overt politicization.
As a Supreme Court justice since 1998 and current Chief Justice,
Martin might be viewed as being implicated in the court's ongoing failure to issue a timely opinion in the NAACP's challenge to gerrymandered redistricting in North Carolina, referred to by Irv Joyner, above.
Justice Martin's seat (Robert Hunter [R], interim incumbent):
With Justice Martin's interim appointment to the Chief Justice's seat in August, Gov. McCrory also appointed Robert "Bob" Hunter [R] (then an NC Court of Appeals judge) to Martin's vacated seat on the Supreme Court. Hunter is endorsed by the NC Republican Party State Executive Committee and, by inference, Gov. McCrory. His opponent, Sam Ervin [D], currently serves on the NC Court of Appeals and is endorsed by Durham People's Alliance, NC Police Benevolent Association, NC Association of Educators, and NC Association of Women Attorneys.
Justice Beasley's seat (Cheri Beasley, incumbent):
When incumbent Cheri Beasley [D] was elected to the North Carolina Court of Appeals in 2008 she became the first black woman to be elected to any statewide office in North Carolina without being first appointed by a governor. Beasley's bid for re-election to the Supreme Court has received a very large number of endorsements, including the NC Association of Educators, NC AFL-CIO, National Organization of Women, NC Troopers Assoc., and the Black Political Caucus of Charlotte. Beasley's opponent, Michael Robinson [R], is a private attorney with no past judicial experience. His only major endorsement is from the NC Republican Party State Executive Committee.
Justice Hudson's seat (Robin Hudson, incumbent):
Incumbent Robin Hudson [D], seeking her second term on the Court, is endorsed by the NC Democratic Party, NC AFL-CIO, NC Association of Educators, Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People, and the NC Police Benevolent Association. Her opponent, Eric Levinson [R], is an NC Superior Court judge whose only major endorsement is that of the NC Republican Party State Executive Committee.
Echoing the words of Reverend William Barber and the Moral Mondays movement, I hope you will vote your dreams, not your fears. But, whatever you do, VOTE!