[Updated 1x 2x 3x 4x below]
If you find yourself wondering what the hell is going on with battleground North Carolina’s upcoming elections...well, you’re in good company. Because as of today no one else knows, either — from SCOTUS, through the state legislature, to candidates, to the Board of Elections, right down to (most especially) the individual voter in the street.
Not entirely clear who’s running for which offices, or against whom, or in which districts, or where those districts are, or who’s up for re-election to the state Supreme Court, or how run-offs will be handled, or whether/how absentee ballots will be counted, or whether voter ID will be required or not, and we maybe don’t even know for sure the actual date(s) on which election(s) might actually be held.
Fasten your seat belts, Carolinians; we’re heading into some turbulence. And grab a bag of popcorn (which can also come in handy as an air sickness bag in case of need).
Hanging chads? Pffft. We’ve got an entire hanging election coming up.
The foundations of today’s fine mess were laid back in 2011, when a newly Republican-dominated state General Assembly re-districted North Carolina to confine the state’s African Americans (22% of the electorate) into just two plantations reptilian Congressional districts, and to insure a 10-3 Republican majority in North Carolina’s congressional delegation (in a state where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans). And, building on that strong start, in 2013 the General Assembly’s Republican super-majority passed the most draconian voter suppression law in the nation, imposing (among many other injustices) a voter ID requirement which has been shown to fall on low income minority voters with particular impact.
The voter suppression law has been the subject of court battles beginning mere hours after it was passed into law, battles which have already ascended from U.S. District Court to the Court of Appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court, and back again to U.S. District Court, where they currently await a final ruling by Bush-appointed Judge Thomas Schroeder. Along the way, the Republican General Assembly fiddled with the voter ID requirement, offering voters who could not produce the required ID on election day the alternative of filling out at the polling place a “declaration of reasonable impediment,” which amounts to an ill-disguised literacy test. The law also provides that any slack-jawed yokel “poll observer” may, on the spot, challenge the factual accuracy of any such submitted declaration.
Closing arguments in NC-NAACP v. McCrory, the challenge to the bulk of North Carolina’s voter suppression law, concluded more than half a year ago, with no sign as yet of a decision from Judge Schroeder. Likewise for the separate proceedings regarding voter ID itself, which concluded on Feb. 1st of this year, again without a ruling thus far. Thus, we approach NC’s primary election — less than four weeks away — with still no final decision regarding whether or not voters will be required to show IDs.
But wait...now there’s so much more!
Fast forward again to Feb. 5th, when a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Republicans’ 2011 gerrymandered Congressional map unconstitutional, and demanded a new map from the General Assembly before next month’s primary election could be held. Judge Roger Gregory wrote for the court:
"There is strong evidence that race was the only nonnegotiable criterion and that traditional redistricting principles were subordinated to race. In fact, the overwhelming evidence in this case shows that a (black voting-age population) percentage floor, or a racial quota, was established in both CD 1 and CD 12. And, that floor could not be compromised."
With little other choice, the court demanded corrections to the transparently unconstitutional 1st and 12th districts (black and yellow, respectively, in the figure, below) before the scheduled March 15th primary could proceed.
Confident that they could quickly prevail against this ruling, NC Republicans filed a challenge to it in the U.S. Supreme Court, seeking a stay until after the upcoming primary, and expecting a ruling on that request as early as this past Tuesday, the 16th. But fate had other plans, striking down Justice Scalia, SCOTUS’s Republican tilt, and Republican state legislators’ hopes in a single swift blow.
Now panicked, General Assembly Republicans have just rammed through a new map, but one which doesn’t merely fix the unconstitutional 1st and 12th districts, but rather redraws every district in the state, moving some halfway across the state:
According to the Raleigh News & Observer, the new map
...makes major shifts in the congressional map. The approved version is very similar to a map released Wednesday, though it was changed slightly to ensure that Rep. Alma Adams, a Greensboro Democrat, and Rep. Mark Walker, a Summerfield Republican, do not live in the same district. The plan puts Adams, who is in her first term representing the 12th District, into a redrawn 13th District. Walker is in his first term in the 6th District.
[….]
Senate Democrats objected to the map. The federal panel’s ruling said race was a predominant factor in drawing the 1st and 12th districts, said Sen. Floyd McKissick, a Durham Democrat, but Republicans have gone too far in creating districts that do not consider race at all. The map “is not consistent with the Voting Rights Act,” McKissick said.
Sen. Bob Rucho, a Mecklenburg County Republican and a redistricting chairman, said the judges were clear that racially polarized voting does not exist.
And Sen. Jerry Tillman said partisan gerrymandering is the way of politics.
“It’s been done this way since we had constitutional government,”
Coming up: will the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals accept the new ‘color-blind’ map (and thus permit the primary to go forward)? Stay tuned.
But wait...there’s even more!
Perhaps unpersuaded that the Circuit Court will, in fact, buy into this new map, yesterday Republicans in the state’s lower house rammed through a new law, the ramifications of which, it is fair to say, no one in the state fully understands yet. Again from the above-cited News & Observer article:
The state House voted not to proceed with the congressional primary March 15 and instead hold it June 7, effectively hitting the restart button on those campaigns.
All other issues on the ballot – including races for governor and a statewide $2 billion bond issue – still would be decided March 15.
But in a major change, the House proposal also said no runoff elections would be held in March or June. Currently, if no candidate gets 40 percent of the vote, a second primary is held. But if this change is enacted, the final winner would be the top vote-getter in the initial vote this year, no matter how many candidates compete.
That could have implications for several key races, including the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate and the Republican primary in the 2nd Congressional District – where a large field reduces the chance that any candidate could get 40 percent of the vote.
In another twist, candidates who won a March 15 primary then could file to run for a congressional seat June 7. If they won in both primaries, they would have to withdraw from one, within a week after the June 7 results were certified.
Unless and until this bill is approved by the state Senate...and then survives a likely court challenge...it is currently unclear what the date of North Carolina’s congressional primary will be (March 15th, or June 7th?). It is unclear whether or not run-off elections will be held, as usual, in races where no candidate wins 40% of the vote. It is even unclear just how many different contests a single candidate could run in, more-or-less simultaneously.
But wait — there’s still still more!
Just yesterday, a three judge panel of the state Superior Court informed attorneys on both sides of another case that it plans to rule unconstitutional a 2015 law passed by Republicans, which aimed to replace the state’s traditional contested elections for state Supreme Court justices with unopposed ‘retention’ elections (in which a sitting Supreme Court judge could not be challenged unless he or she first received less than 50% positive votes in a preceding election to ‘retain’ that justice).
Confused yet? Welcome to the club. And pity poor state Supreme Court Justice Robert Edmunds, the first scheduled beneficiary of the to-be-overturned law. Edmunds, a Republican, was to face an uncontested retention vote, under the new law, on March 15th. But with the Superior Court’s decision, that now seems in doubt. But then again, he has no opponent for a traditional election. And then again again, if there’s no election regarding his seat, his term would expire without a replacement being elected. Which, potentially, would throw the state Supreme Court into the same tizzy the U.S. Supreme Court currently finds itself in.
The Superior Court’s decision is likely to be challenged quickly...and said challenge would be heard by none other than the state Supreme Court, whose sitting members the new law was designed to protect from opponents. One of the Justices hearing that challenge would be Justice Edmunds himself, unless he elects to recuse himself (which many observers think unlikely).
Who’s on first? What’s on second? Who runs this state, anyway? Who the hell knows anymore????
Whoo-boy.
Saturday, Feb 20, 2016 · 1:46:54 PM +00:00 · DocDawg
Meanwhile, as the state descends into chaos around him, NC Gov. Pat McCrory (R) is battling hard (and, as usual, ineffectively) to change the motto on NC’s license plates to “Nothing Compares.” Wags have suggested a compromise for a new state motto: “NC is the new Florida.”
Saturday, Feb 20, 2016 · 2:02:25 PM +00:00 · DocDawg
Still still still still more! In a unique effort to respond to the mounting chaos, State Board of Elections Director Kim Strach (a Republican appointee, and wife of attorney Phil Strach who is defending the State in NC-NAACP’s voter suppression lawsuit) has advanced a novel theory of representative democracy:
The state’s March 15 primary election will proceed as planned – but votes cast for congressional candidates will not be counted. The congressional primary, with new districts, would be on June 7.
State Elections Director Kim Strach, acknowledging the potential for voter confusion, urged people to vote for their preferred congressional candidate in both elections. “Vote the whole ballot and let us worry about what will count,” she said in a statement issued after the bill passed both chambers.
I feel better already….
Saturday, Feb 20, 2016 · 2:43:06 PM +00:00 · DocDawg
Still still still still still more: Prompted by the proposed new map, incumbent NC Republican congresscritters have begun turning their knives on each other. The proposed new map moves U.S. Rep. George Holding’s (R) district out from under him, leaving him instead residing in the deep blue congressional district of perennial Congressman David Price (D). In response, Holding has announced he will primary fellow Republican, Congresswoman Renee Elmers, over in NC-02 (legal because state law does not require congressional candidates to reside in their districts). “Frankly, to want power that bad ... (it’s) an extremely aggressive move,” said Patrick Sebastian, a spokesman for the Ellmers campaign.