Gene Nichol: The Supreme Court election of a lifetime

At least if they watch television, North Carolinians are beginning to get the idea that the upcoming state supreme court elections are important. Still, it’s possible Tar Heels might not readily understand exactly how important they are. I’m convinced they are singular, perhaps unprecedented. I’ll try to explain why.

For my money, and for lots of others as well, the two most crucial and immediate issues facing the people of North Carolina are the protection of our democracy from legislative subversion and the guarantee of first-class citizenship for women through reproductive freedom. Surprisingly perhaps, at this moment in history, the only institution that will successfully secure those two essential human liberties in North Carolina is the state Supreme Court.

Our high court is presently split, with four Democrats and three Republicans. Given the seats being challenged, unless both Democrats — Sam Ervin and Lucy Inman — prevail, the court will fall into rigidly partisan Republican hands. That will mean, without the slightest conceivable doubt, that the most extreme partisan political gerrymandering in the nation and total or near total abortion bans will be joyously embraced by the North Carolina Supreme Court. If, on the other hand, both Inman and Ervin win, abortion rights will be protected and the Court’s present rejection of hyper-partisan gerrymandering will be retained.

Americans aren’t conditioned to think that the existence and retention of their most foundational liberties depend on the makeup of their state supreme courts. But that’s how it is, at least here.

The U.S. Supreme Court is now fervently committed to government by a white, Republican minority. The Republican majority of the N.C. General Assembly’s greatest political aspiration, as proven repeatedly over the last dozen years, is the permanent rigging of the political system to entrench their power. Their base will successfully demand, as well, the severe or complete restriction of reproductive rights. Gov. Roy Cooper will, I’m guessing, fight for Roe’s legacy like a champion. But the daunting numbers are with the white people’s caucuses of the GOP.

The N.C. Supreme Court can protect both abortion rights and electoral equality, at least in state races, regardless of the wishes or makeup of the General Assembly.

The U.S. Supreme Court has decreed, brutishly, that American constitutional liberty protects guns but not women’s reproductive liberty. It is not within their conceivable power, however, to demand that North Carolina justices leap off that rule-of law-ending cliff while interpreting their own constitution.

Our highest national tribunal has similarly bowed to its Republican puppet-masters through its humiliating endorsement of partisan gerrymandering. But North Carolina courts are not required to similarly disable democracy while enforcing their own state charter.

The U.S. Supreme Court may try to give state legislatures an unfettered power to tamper with federal elections in the upcoming Moore case, but that only amplifies the necessity for the N.C Supreme Court to stand as bulwark for the assurance of democratic government. If a U.S. Supreme Court abandons its mission, Democrats in the U.S. Senate remain hapless, and a state legislature lusts only for its own power, a state supreme court, even in its more confined arena, is what you have left.

To be candid, it is stunning to think that a single state supreme court race can have so powerful an impact on the quality and character of life in the Tar Heel state. If either Ervin or Inman loses, North Carolina will descend readily into an anti-egalitarian, 1950s-mimicking, cultural and social life. That sounds exaggerated. It’s not. It’s complicated to ponder how we got here. But it is where we are.

This story was originally published October 26, 2022 at 10:28 AM with the headline "Gene Nichol: The Supreme Court election of a lifetime."