U.S. SUPREME COURT TO DECIDE IF BERGERMOORE CAN DEFEND VOTER ID: In a surprise pre-Thanksgiving order, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear Berger v. North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, stemming from a dispute over a North Carolina voter id law. The dispute is not about the underlying voter id law itself, but about the ability of the state legislature to intervene in defending the law against challenges. This is a fairly common problem we see today where a state executive (governor and/or attorney general) is a Democrat and the state legislature is controlled by Republicans, and there’s a dispute over who gets to speak for the state. Back in 2017, I wrote a Slate piece urging North Carolina’s governor to withdraw a cert. petition over North Carolina’s very strict voter id law after the 4th Circuit struck parts of it (calling them targeted at African-American voters with almost surgical precision). There was then a dispute in the Supreme Court over who gets to speak for North Carolina, and the Court, seeing the dispute, denied cert. Chief Justice Roberts was irked, and issued a statement saying that the denial was because of the dispute, not the merits. Hopefully Roberts will keep his partisan justices under some semblance of control.
https://electionlawblog.org/?p=125974

ON MEDICAID EXPANSION, LET OUR ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES VOTE: In the North Carolina House of Representatives it takes 61 votes to pass a state budget bill – assuming all 120 members are present and voting. It takes the same number of votes to amend such a bill, say to add an item, delete an item or to increase or decrease the amount of spending on any provision. There is nothing in the law or rules of the House that say it requires a certain number of Democrats or Republicans to make up those 61 votes. That may be somewhat of a surprise to House Speaker Tim Moore, who says he won’t allow a vote on getting Medicaid expansion. Moore says his Republican Party caucus won’t support expansion. In a Tweet last week, Gov. Roy Cooper termed Moore’s reasoning a bit differently. “The speaker could not get enough Republican House members to support it,” Cooper said. Now, there are 69 Republicans and 51 Democrats in the state House. Does anyone, right now, know just how many of those Republicans and Democrats are supporting Medicaid Expansion? Let’s do something that is supposed to happen in a REAL democracy. How about letting the people North Carolinians elected to represent them stand up and be counted. Let them vote on Medicaid expansion. Reading the bitter tea leaves of our Orwellian GOP leaders leads me to one conclusion: there actually *are* enough Republican votes to reach that 61 vote margin, which is why Moore doesn't want them to vote on Medicaid expansion. That is not democracy, it's oligarchy; being governed by a handful of elites. Calling it anything else is merely lipstick on a pig.
https://www.wral.com/editorial-on-medicaid-expansion-let-legislators-vote/19983779/

GK BUTTERFIELD ANNOUNCES RETIREMENT AFTER GOP NIXES MAJORITY-MINORITY DISTRICT: U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield announced Thursday he will retire from Congress, accusing the North Carolina General Assembly of racially gerrymandering new political maps that leave him in a less favorable district. Butterfield, a 74-year-old Democrat from Wilson who has served in Congress since 2004, is a civil rights advocate and former judge. He currently serves in North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, which stretches through Eastern North Carolina. “The map that was recently enacted by the legislature is a partisan map,” Butterfield said in a video announcing his retirement. “It is racially gerrymandered. It will disadvantage African American communities all across the 1st Congressional District." If they are allowed to do this, Congress will see a whitewashing that hasn't happened for over half a century.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/election/article255896141.html

GOVERNOR COOPER SET TO SIGN BUDGET INTO LAW: “I will sign this budget, because on balance the good outweighs the bad,” Cooper said, adding that it moves North Carolina forward in important ways, “many that are critical to our state’s progress as we are emerging from this pandemic.” “While I believe that it is a budget of some missed opportunities and misguided policy, it is also a budget that we desperately need at this unique time in the history of our state,” Cooper said. Cooper cites raises for state employees and tax relief for “everyday North Carolinians” among the reasons for supporting it. He added the caveat that he is “clear-eyed there are ways we differ,” including that the budget does not include Medicaid expansion. It also has an ugly poison pill, taking away some of his emergency powers. But like any good leader, he puts the needs of others over his own.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article255861576.html

THE NC GENERAL ASSEMBLY IS UNDERMINING THE RULE OF LAW: From our founding, our state constitution has given an independent judiciary the solemn duty to declare what is the law for every case that comes before it, including whether or not an act by either the executive or legislative branches violates the constitution. The judiciary is accountable to the rule of law and not to the legislative or executive branches. Once the judiciary has established the rule of law for the case, the legislative and executive branches of government hold the companion duty to assure the rule of law is fully implemented. This principle is fundamental to our democracy. That legislators believe they can ignore constitutional obligations without check by the courts should profoundly disturb all citizens. That some legislators demeaned a judge acting in accordance with law, thereby undermining judicial independence and authority, is equally disturbing. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. GOP leaders have behaved like tyrants for over a decade, and would have been infinitely worse if not for the Judicial Branch. Of course they attack Judge Lee, because he represents their only obstacle to complete domination, our Constitution itself.
https://www.wral.com/burley-mitchell-henry-van-hoy-general-assembly-undermines-rule-of-law/19967646/