Tangle - North Carolina's Supreme Court makes a splash.

Episode Date: May 9, 2023

North Carolina's Supreme Court. Earlier this month, the North Carolina Supreme Court sided with Republicans in three major rulings: upholding the state's voter ID law, throwing out a previous ruling against gerrymandered voting maps, and overruling lower court decisions that felons have the right to vote. The ruling on the gerrymandered legislative maps will likely have a national impact, boosting Republicans' odds of growing their majority in the next House election.You can read today's podcast ⁠here⁠, today’s “Under the Radar” story ⁠here⁠, and today’s “Have a nice day” story ⁠here⁠.Today’s clickables: Quick hits (0:58), Today’s story (2:32), Right’s take (6:00), Left’s take (9:50), Isaac’s take (13:26), Listener Question (18:37), Under the Radar (20:29), Numbers (21:19), Have a nice day (22:04)You can⁠ subscribe to Tangle by clicking here⁠ or drop something⁠ in our tip jar by clicking here.⁠Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited by Jon Lall. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. Our newsletter is edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight.

Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, a place we get views from across the political spectrum. Some independent thinking without all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. I'm your host, Isaac Sull, and on today's episode, we're going to be talking about North Carolina's Supreme Court and a few rulings that they dropped earlier this month and what it means for both North Carolina and the country as a whole, because they are going to have some national implications.

Before we jump in, though, as always, we'll get started with some quick hits. First up, President Biden plans to meet with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy today to discuss the debt ceiling. The United States is roughly three weeks away from when the Treasury Secretary said we risk defaulting. Number two, Pakistan's former Prime Minister Imran Khan was arrested on corruption charges. Khan claims the arrest was politically motivated. Number three, President Biden tapped Mira Tanden to replace Susan Rice as the White House's domestic policy advisor. Number four, the Department of Transportation has proposed new rules to require airlines to better compensate travelers for cancellations and delays. Number five, Ukrainian forces said they shot down more than 30 drones after Russia launched airstrikes in Kyiv.

So today is one of the most significant days impacting elections in North Carolina in years. The state Supreme Court issued three decisions today affecting voting rights ahead of the 2024 election. That high court in that state as of November flipped to a Republican majority and then it threw out two previous rulings. One of those rulings had forbid redistricting maps that were excessively partisan and a voter ID law that was filled with racial bias. The court also decided that felons who are out of prison excessively partisan and a voter ID law that was filled with racial bias.

The court also decided that felons who are out of prison, but still serving probation or parole, do not have the right to vote. Reaction in the state is split along party lines. Earlier this month, the North Carolina Supreme Court sided with Republicans in three major rulings, upholding the state's voter ID law, certifying state legislative maps drawn by lawmakers for political gain, and overruling lower court decisions that felons have the right to vote. The ruling on the gerrymandered legislative maps will likely have a national impact, boosting Republicans' odds of growing their majority in the next House election. The gerrymander case, Harper v. Hall,

could also have an impact in Moore v. Harper, a case before the Supreme Court that is testing the independent state legislature theory. That theory asserts that only the state legislature itself has the power to set rules on congressional district lines and votings with little or no interference from state courts. We covered that case in a previous edition in Tangle. Both rulings came along party lines and reversed the court's previous 4-3 decisions, which were issued just over a year ago when Democratic judges controlled the court. However, Republicans flipped two Democratic seats on the North Carolina Supreme Court to secure a 5-2 conservative majority.

Last year, Republicans and Democrats in North Carolina ended up sending a split delegation to Washington, seven Republicans and seven Democrats. Republican lawmakers are now expected to draw House maps that could net Republicans as many as four additional Republican House seats. The two Democratic judges issued scathing dissents, criticizing the decision to rehear the cases so soon, something that has been exceedingly rare in the state's history. In the Harper v. Hall gerrymandering decision, Chief Justice Paul Newby said the North Carolina Constitution gives express redistricting authority to the General Assembly and that the specific limitations on that authority do not include gerrymandering. The decision overrides the court's previous ruling that the gerrymandered

maps were unlawful partisan gerrymanders, which were unconstitutional beyond a reasonable doubt under the Free Election Clause, the Equal Protection Clause, the Free Speech Clause, and the Freedom of Assembly Clause of North Carolina's Constitution. That's according to the previous court. In the voter ID case, Holmes v. Moore, the court also ruled 5-2, once again citing the state's constitution in giving unqualified authority to the legislature. Subjective tests and judicial sleight of hand have systematically thwarted the will of the people and the intent of the legislature, Justice Phil Berger Jr. wrote, but no court exists for the vindication of political interests, and judges exceed constitutional boundaries when they act as a super legislature. We recommit to that fundamental principle and begin the process

of returning the judiciary to its rightful place as the least dangerous branch. The Holmes v. Moore decision also overrides a recent state Supreme Court ruling, a 4-3 decision from last December that struck down North Carolina's voter ID law for being infected with racial bias. The new ruling means the previously struck 2018 law will probably be enforced in the 2024 election. Finally, the court ruled that felons who had completed active prison time but had not completed their full sentences could not vote. The ruling is expected to impact roughly 56,000 North Carolinians. Today, we're going to take a look at some arguments about these rulings from the right and the left, and then my take. First up, we'll start with what the right is saying. Many on the right argue that the court

has corrected the previous court's overreach and that doesn't amount to judicial activism. Some mock the idea this was all about race, noting that North Carolina voters wanted some of these changes. Others question how this might impact the independent state legislature case before the Supreme Court. The Wall Street Journal said this was corrective to the old majority's overreach. Four liberal justices held that the North Carolina Constitution bans partisan mapmaking because it guarantees free elections, the rights of free speech and assembly, and so forth, the board said. At one point, the court floated specific metrics that could be used to police gerrymandering, saying that a map could be presumptively constitutional if it has a mean-median difference of less than 1%. This is no place for the judiciary. The U.S. Supreme Court said

basically the same thing about federal gerrymandering and Rucho v. Common Cause, a 5-4 decision from 2019. The board also celebrated the separate 5-2 ruling to uphold the state's voter ID law. That ruling said voter ID was racially discriminatory, yet Justice Philip Berger Jr. skewers the evidence as fatally deficient and speculative, the board noted. One expert, he says, produced a mathematical analysis based on DMV records that showed 7.61% of black voters and 5.47% of white voters lacked some of the qualifying IDs. These figures were transformed by the trial court into a finding that Black voters were 39% more likely to lack a form of qualifying ID. Justice Berger said the burden of proof demands more. It isn't activist judging to undo activist judging. In hot air, Bij Welborn celebrated the rulings and mocked Democrats who allege everything is about racism.

Again, for emphasis, voter ID was passed by the legislature after North Carolina citizens voted to include such a requirement in the state constitution, Welborn said. Now, Governor Roy Cooper has his mad on. The hyperbole about partisanship always cracks me up. Cooper was happy as a clam when the Dem-heavy court ran amok over people, which they would wind up paying for. It becomes a case of who is ignoring the Constitution here. Voters obviously wanted it a part of the Constitution, voting to do so. In December of last year, the 4-3 majority Democrat, partisan maybe,

court found that the voter ID law unfairly targeted Black citizens, and the gerrymandering statute was also unconstitutional because it bolstered one party's base, which, of course, unfairly targeted Blacks, Wellborn said. According to liberal justice Anita Earls, everything was done in the name of targeting Blacks. It's not so much the thought of the racial injustice of it all that's really bugging the crap out of liberals and North Carolina Democrats right now. It's that they're no longer calling the shots and drawing their own wackadoodle maps. In reason, Jonathan H. Adler asked if this made the Moore v. Harper case moot. Last week, the North Carolina Supreme Court overturned its prior decision redrawing the

state's congressional districts, thereby reversing the decision under review by the U.S. Supreme Court and Moore v. Harper. As Derek Moeller noted over at Election Law Blog, this could mean that Moore v. Harper is moot. Yesterday, the court asked the parties for further briefing in light of these developments, he noted. Moeller also notes another jurisdictional wrinkle in the case also raised by Will Baugh. How do North Carolina courts retain jurisdiction over a case that is already subject to Supreme Court review, Adler asked. Either way, the latest developments in North Carolina would give the justices an excuse to remove another case from the docket. Whatever the legal merits of such a move, it would make time for the justices to catch up on releasing opinions from argued cases. Alright, that is it for the rightist saying, which brings us to what the left is saying. Many on the left warn these rulings are a repeat of the worst political abuses of our history.

Some called out how this evenly divided state will now have misrepresentative Republican power. Others argue North Carolina will now be one of the most anti-democratic states in America. In MSNBC, Reverend Dr. William Barber said the court just took a hatchet to democracy. The extremists who have worked to consolidate power in Republican hands effectively achieved a political coup, at least temporarily, Barber said. The court's decisions give Republicans free reign to draw voting maps that favor their candidates in future elections, create a new and unnecessary barrier for voters through a restrictive ID requirement,

and disenfranchise 55,000 formerly incarcerated citizens. This is what anti-democracy forces did in the late 1870s to reverse the gains made during Reconstruction and to resist the changes demanded by the civil rights movement and women's rights movements in the 1960s and 70s. This may target Black people or liberal voters, but the truth is they hurt most people by making it harder to pass policies that help those at the bottom and cause everyone to do better. The voter ID law, first introduced in 2013, went all the way to the Supreme Court, which

upheld a lower court's opinion that the voter ID requirement they had tried to impose targeted African Americans with almost surgical precision. In New York Magazine, Ed Kilgore said this was a big blow to Democrats' chances of retaking the House. This is another example of even the most obscure elections having consequences. Still, there's a silver lining for progressives. Because the court's rationale was that the judiciary had no business getting involved in such politically fraught decisions as redistricting, the decision will likely render moot a petition asking for confirmation of the radical independent state legislature theory that could have allowed

Republican legislatures to redraw maps without fear of legal challenges. Still, the decision of the North Carolina court to smile on the most blatant and ruthless partisan gerrymandering, echoing an earlier SCOTUS decision to wash its hands of such cases is an ominous development for friends of truly representative democracy, Kilgore said. In this closely balanced state, Republicans can once again exert power above and beyond that of their Democratic and independent neighbors. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness

to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. In Slate, Gene Nichols said he wasn't sure North Carolina is the most anti-democratic state in the U.S., but it has surely joined the hunt. To overturn these cases, the conservative justices had to throw out the rulebooks. In a move almost unknown to American law, the new Republican justices decided to take up these cases on a motion for rehearing, Nichols said. Never before in the North Carolina Supreme Court's over 200-year history had it granted a rehearing based on a change in the tribunal's membership, much less based on a change in the partisan makeup of the court. In the gerrymandering case, Chief Justice Paul Newby essentially argued

that distortion of the district in process, even extreme manipulation, is just fine. In the voter ID case, the justices simply cast aside trial court and prior Supreme Court factual determinations that the law was meant to handicap Black voters. In the voting rights for felons case, once again, findings of racial disparity and purpose were cast aside. It's hard to see how you could show greater disdain for the rule of law than by nixing final judicial rulings just because new Republicans came on the court. All right, that is it for the left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take. left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take. So yesterday in discussing Jordan Neely, I wrote about how we should not make race a central focus of the story. I think it's important to differentiate here that race is the central issue to this story. The background on how North Carolina Republicans have approached elections is as close to a smoking gun for racially motivated policy

as we can get in America. Republicans in the state are not just trying to implement voter ID and gerrymander Republican districts. They've also tried to limit access to the polls by cutting Sunday voting and early voting, which are disproportionately used by Black Democrats. In each of these cases, Republicans collected data on Democratic voting trends and then took specifically designed action to counter them. Let's not overcomplicate this. That is the uncomplicated truth of the situation. Still, inside each of these four threads are various complexities.

Gerrymandering, voter ID laws, voting rights for felons, and the impact on Maury v. Harper. I'm going to try to give you my thoughts on each separately and briefly. Gerrymandering is a scourge. We have covered it before, and I have made my opinion well known. I think it is one of the most toxic and destructive elements of American democracy today, and it is becoming increasingly obvious that our politicians are choosing us, not the other way around. In researching this piece, I was intrigued by a proposed solution to abandon single-member districts, which deserves more attention. But for now, North Carolina's Supreme Court has erred greatly in allowing these heavily

gerrymandered districts to be drawn unencumbered and has once again swung a relatively evenly split political state to a healthy majority for one side. In 2020, Democratic Governor Roy Cooper won 51.5% of the vote, while Republicans won eight House seats to Democrats' five. In 2018, Republicans had 10 House seats to Democrats' three. Once the gerrymandered map got thrown out in 2022, it was a 7-7 split. Clearly, one of these outcomes is more representative of the actual will of the people than the others. As I've written before, gerrymandering is a bipartisan crisis and Democrats are just as guilty as Republicans. But the court's ruling here is only going to make things worse. I was disheartened to see it. While Republicans surely seem to

believe it will benefit them because what political party implements a policy it thinks will hurt them electorally. There is not a great deal of evidence that voter ID laws reduce election fraud or voter turnout. It seems like common sense that they would do both, but in practice, they tend to have little impact on either, which leaves me pretty ambivalent about them. In this case, given that North Carolina voters wanted these laws, I don't find the court's ruling too egregious. Despite my belief that North Carolina Republicans are hoping this voter ID law reduces turnout among black voters, the impact of the law is probably going to be negligible.

As the Wall Street Journal editorial board noted under what the right is saying, one analysis found 7.61% of black voters and 5.47% of white voters lack some of the qualifying IDs. I'm open to voter ID laws, but prefer legislation that also stipulates the government provide IDs to voters free of charge and conveniently. We don't need any more obstacles to voting. On voting rights for felons, there is also some nuance. As I've stated in the past, I think anyone who is convicted of a crime and serves their punishment should have their full rights restored, full stop. The entire point of serving a punishment as rehabilitation is that it's all of the punishment. It cannot go on in perpetuity. So a convicted felon who serves his sentence shouldn't just be able to vote, but to

run for office, apply for a job without serious obstacles, and so on. In this case, the law was specifying the restoration of rights after a prison term was served, but before probation or post-release supervision has been completed. Given how long those post-release probations can last, and given how fundamental the right to vote is, my preference is that rights are fully restored after a prison term is over. But I understand this does not represent completion of a sentence in some people's eyes, and I can see the court's rationale, or the public's for that matter, in going the other way. Finally, the independent state legislature theory is just bonkers. Fortunately, there is some bipartisan consensus there. I do think it is a positive thing this ruling will render that case moot. However, I was quite confident the Supreme Court

was going to reject the theory anyway, and it may have been good for the country to see that unfold. Either way, anything working against the odds of independent state legislature theory getting a high court endorsement is fine with me. Altogether, it's a mixed bag for democracy, but a tough day for North Carolinians. An evenly divided political state will now swing to state and federal control dominated by Republicans and will get saddled with ineffective voter ID laws and now has even more reason to believe its courts are politically motivated and willing to skirt longstanding precedent to overturn recent rulings in an effort to maintain political power. On the whole, it's not an encouraging set of rulings.

power. On the whole, it's not an encouraging set of rulings. All right, that is it for my take, which brings us to your questions answered. This one is from John G. in Reno, Nevada. John said, why do you occasionally skip the reader question? I'm not convinced by your claim it's to save space since this is a digital newsletter and podcast, an extra paragraph or two isn't going to increase your costs, only our, the reader's, investment. Would you please enlighten us on your reasoning? Well, it's honestly to save space, truly. One of the most consistent pieces of feedback we get about Tangle is that it's too long for a newsletter or podcast. I disagree, frankly,

as I don't think it's possible to capture the nuance of the debates we cover without getting into the weeds on big issues. But I understand people's time is limited, so I try and keep our daily newsletters Monday through Thursday to less than 4,000 words and in the ballpark of a 10-minute read or a 25-minute podcast. I also do this because sometimes email providers will clip our email or cut it off before it ends if it runs too long. This can create all sorts of delivery issues for us. Given that the main topic is the crux of our newsletter and our podcast, I prioritize that. Sometimes the main topic is so complex that today's topic section that takes from the right and the left and my take cannot be summed up or cut in the way I like, and they end up occupying close to 4,000

words on their own. When that happens, it becomes worth it to save a few hundred words of space. This is doubly true because in reader and listener surveys, Tangle readers and listeners consistently say they skip over the your questions answered section more than any other part of the newsletter or podcast. Don't ask me why. I have not figured that one out yet. So when things are running long, we skip the reader question. There is really not an ulterior motive there, I promise. All right, that is it for our reader question, which brings us to our under the radar section. All right, that is it for our reader question, which brings us to our under the radar section.

The term screenagers has been coined to describe teenage kids who refuse to get off their cell phones. And now schools have had enough. In Ohio, Colorado, Maryland, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and California, schools are beginning to ban devices in class to curb students' obsession with their phones and to help address what many believe is the root cause of certain mental health issues. The pandemic brought more urgency to the issue after kids came back to school and were spending far more time on their phones than before, according to many teachers and administrators. Now, some schools are even using yonder patches, which are used to lock up students' phones during the day. The Washington Post has the story about this growing trend, and there's a link to it in today's episode description. All right, next up is our numbers section.

The number of eligible voters in North Carolina in 2022 was 7,412,056. The number of votes cast in North Carolina in the 2022 election was 3,745,547. The percentage of Americans who support requiring all voters to provide photo identification at their voting places in order to vote is 79%. The percentage of Americans who support early voting is 78%. The percentage of Americans who support automatic voter registration is 65%. The percentage of Americans who support automatic voter registration is 65%. The number of voters who oppose the use of redistricting to help one political party or politician over the other is roughly 9 in 10. All right, and last but not least, our have a nice day section.

Meenakshi Gupta has been blind since birth, but that has not stopped her from spotting breast cancer in her patients. In fact, it might be helping. Gupta is a medical tactical examiner, or MTE, an emerging profession for blind and visually impaired women in India and Europe. She was trained for nine months in tactile breast examinations, a specialized practice to spot breast cancer in patients. Studies have shown that in the absence of vision, the brains of blind people can develop heightened sensitivity in touch, hearing, and other senses. Gupta is one of several women putting those enhanced senses to use, spotting lumps as small as six to eight millimeters. BBC News has the remarkable story and there's a link to it in today's episode description. All right, everybody, that is it for today's podcast. As always, if you

want to support our work, please go to readtangle.com slash membership and becoming a member. As it happens today, we are doing a big membership drive. So you hear this message every day. If you have not subscribed yet, go do it today. Readtangle.com slash membership. Pull over the car, exit out of your email, close that article you're reading. Just go do it really quick for me. ReadTangle.com slash membership. We'll be right back here same time tomorrow. Have a good one. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited by John Long. Our script is edited by Ari Weitzman, Bailey Saul, and Sean Brady. Long. Our script is edited by Ari Weitzman,

Bailey Saul, and Sean Brady. The logo for our podcast was designed by Magdalena Bukova, who's also our social media manager. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. For more on Tangle, please go to readtangle.com and check out our website. We'll see you next time. Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+.