NC court to decide if controversial voter ID, legislative authority lawsuit will continue
A longstanding lawsuit challenging the legitimacy of the North Carolina legislature and its decision to mandate voter ID in the state constitution was heard in court on Thursday after lying dormant since 2022.
A three-judge panel in Wake County Superior Court considered the request of Republican leaders, who are named as defendants, to dismiss the case.
Originally filed in 2018 by the North Carolina NAACP, the lawsuit argues that Republican lawmakers did not have the authority to amend the constitution because they were found to have been elected in illegal racially gerrymandered electoral districts.
The panel did not issue a ruling after Thursday’s hearing, nor did they indicate when they may do so.
In addition to the amendment mandating voter ID, the lawsuit also challenges an amendment that lowered the cap on the state’s income tax rate.
In North Carolina, voters have to approve constitutional amendments — but they can only be put forward by the legislature. While both of the challenged amendments received majority support from voters in the 2018 elections, the NAACP argued that the General Assembly lacked the legitimacy to put them on the ballot in the first place.
Thursday’s hearing did not delve deep into the merits of the NAACP’s case, but rather considered procedural questions about whether the case should continue.
Martin Warf, an attorney for the legislative leaders, argued that the court should rule in defendants’ favor without undergoing discovery.
“When challenging an act of the General Assembly, you have to prove that act is unconstitutional beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said. “... It is a high burden and a high bar for a challenger.”
The NAACP’s lawyer, Kimberley Hunter, said the Supreme Court ordered in 2022 that outstanding questions needed to be answered by the trial court.
“Those questions can only be answered by proceeding to discovery,” she said.
The case has a long and complicated history for the court to contend with.
In 2019, Wake County Superior Court Judge Bryan Collins agreed with the NAACP, writing “an illegally constituted General Assembly does not represent the people of North Carolina and is therefore not empowered to pass legislation that would amend the state’s constitution.”
This ruling was later upheld by the North Carolina Supreme Court in 2022, when it still had a Democratic majority. However, the court ordered that the case be sent back to trial for further examination.
Several important political and legal developments have happened since then that could affect the case’s future.
Republicans won a majority on the state Supreme Court in 2022 and swiftly reversed the prior court’s rulings on several controversial cases — including one which had blocked the state’s voter ID law.
Because of that, voter ID has been in effect for two elections now and is currently required to vote in the 2024 general election.
In legal filings, Republican leaders argue that the ID law is already a reality for voters and invalidating it could “lead to its own chaos and confusion.”
The NAACP, however, argues in filings that the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling made it clear that the future of two amendments was in doubt.
“It left it to this court to determine if the amendment should be included or not,” lawyers for the NAACP wrote. “There is nothing that has happened since that ruling that would cause any chaos or confusion today.”
Even if a lower court agrees with the NAACP, the case could eventually be appealed all the way to the state Supreme Court, whose new Republican majority may be less persuaded by their arguments.
This story was originally published October 24, 2024 at 6:00 AM.
