Nichol: NC Republicans are pioneers in constitutional transgression

It’s been a potent two weeks.

On August 13, a Wake County judge overturned a new legislative mandate meant to aid Republican Justice Barbara Jackson in the November election. On August 21, a three-judge panel of state judges threw out two of the General Assembly’s proposed constitutional amendments because the lawmakers were trying to deceive voters. The next day, a federal judge tossed out a new law aimed at keeping the Constitution Party off the ballot, so it wouldn’t wound Republican prospects. And on August 27, a three-judge federal court ruled, for the umpteenth time, our congressional districts are unconstitutional — since they’re rooted in a massive and debilitating scheme to rig the election.

I’m guessing that’s some sort of world record. Never have so few done so much to deprive so many of rights so fundamental — or something to that effect. But if this is breathtaking, it’s not surprising. We’ve already been treated to the most suppressive voter ID law in a half-century. The federal courts have described the legislature’s racial gerrymandering plans as the most pervasive ever presented to a judicial tribunal. And our recent go at political gerrymandering has been characterized as the most aggressive in American history. Our Republican leaders aren’t timid about their cheating. They are, quite literally, nation leading, cutting edge, pioneers in constitutional transgression — pathbreakers in the overt, boastful and relentless abuse of power.

And, as is their habit, our bold leaders put on the full-court whine. Phil Berger and Tim Moore said the redistricting decision will lead “to utter chaos and irreparable confusion.” Rep. David Lewis, who said earlier he drew the congressional districts to favor Republicans because he thought it better for the country, reported he was sick of judges interfering with his moves to embody “the will of the people”. (Louis XIV smiled.) And Republican Party executive director, Dallas Woodhouse, indicated it was time to start impeaching judges.

They ought to start casting their gaze inward, where the cancer lies. They sound a little like the kid who killed his parents and then complained about being an orphan. We either have a stunning array of tyrannical judges — state and federal, trial and appellate, Republican and Democrat — or we’ve got a runaway legislature. The odds don’t favor the lawmakers.

The new political redistricting decision, I’ll concede, is a marvel. It’s written by Jim Wynn, the circuit judge and former Naval officer from Robersonville. He’s no big liberal — but he doesn’t like being lied to and refuses to conclude that North Carolinians have no fundamental rights just because our legislature doesn’t believe in the constitution. He’s also apparently had it with claims of good faith and proceduralism. He has seen too many consecutive election cycles with illegal, minority-suppressing electoral district lines — either racial or political. The results, he reminds, are illegitimate and democracy-defeating. They mock consent of the governed. They’re illicit and un-American. Wynn’s had enough. And Berger and Moore are furious he can’t be bullied into submission. Here’s to life tenure.

Wynn’s opinion concludes, masterfully, that “a common thread runs through the restrictions on state elections imposed by Article I, the First Amendment and the Equal Protection clause: the Constitution does not allow elected officials to enact laws to intentionally favor certain political beliefs, parties or candidates and disfavor others.” The NC legislature’s gerrymanders are state-driven efforts ‘to drive certain ideas or viewpoints from the marketplace” and deny “equal standing to voters regardless of their political beliefs or affiliation.”

There’s no small irony that as the General Assembly systematically moved to “drive (disfavored) ideas from the marketplace” it passed its now-famous “Act to Restore and Preserve Free Speech on the Campuses of the University of North Carolina.” The law is purportedly meant “to ensure the fullest degree of intellectual freedom and free expression.” I’ve got my doubts. I’m guessing Wynn would too.

Enough of these guys.