Dem
47
GOP
53
There may be no more purple state than North Carolina. Of the voters there, 32% are registered Democrats, while 30% are registered Republicans (leaving most of the rest as unaffiliated, which is the term the Tar Heel State uses for independents). This breakdown is reflected in the 10 state-level offices that are voted on statewide: Five of those offices are held by Democrats, and the other five by Republicans.
However, thanks to various undemocratic machinations (with gerrymandering being at the top of the list), Republicans are far overrepresented everywhere other than those 10 state-level offices. The state Senate is 60% Republican (30 R, 20 D). The state Assembly is 59% Republican (71 R, 49 D). Republicans also control the state Supreme Court, 5-2. Oh, and the North Carolina delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives is 10 R, 4 D.
Yesterday, Democrats (and fans of democracy) got one bit of good news and one bit of bad news from North Carolina. The good news is that right-wing judge Jefferson Griffin has finally conceded the race he lost to left-wing judge Allison Riggs. He didn't have very many cards left to play, and we suspect that whatever money was backing Griffin's efforts to overturn ballots post hoc dried up. Anyhow, with his surrender, the 2024 election cycle is now officially over. Riggs is one of the two in that 5-2 breakdown, and is entitled to sit on the Court until 2032. If she successfully runs for reelection (twice), she can stay until 2057, when Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) is also expected to retire.
And now the bad news, which is a little bit inside baseball, so bear with us. Because the North Carolina GOP keeps running nutters for governor, the Democrats have controlled the governorship since 2017 (and for all but 4 years since 1993). The state legislature—which, again, is dominated by Republicans—has responded to this by taking away as many powers from the governor as is possible, leaving the state with one of the weakest governorships in the country. And one of the (many) powers that was stripped—after Gov. Josh Stein (D-NC) was elected, but before he was sworn in—was the right to appoint the members of the North Carolina Board of Elections. That privilege was handed over to State Auditor Dave Boliek, whose duties have little to nothing to do with elections, but who conveniently happens to be a Republican.
This maneuver by the legislature led to a lawsuit from previous governor Roy Cooper, which was then picked up by the Stein administration. Cooper/Stein won in North Carolina Superior Court, but yesterday lost in the North Carolina Appeals court (the same court that kept Griffin's case alive long after every other judge had said "no."). The key here is that the two governors did not lose on the merits, the Appeals court merely canceled the injunction stopping Boliek from exercising his newfound powers. And before some other court could step in, Boliek promptly appointed a GOP majority to the 5-person Board of Elections, with all of the new (Republican) officers quickly sworn in.
What this means is that if the Stein administration is to fully prevail now, it first has to win the original case. Then, it would have to win a second case declaring the Boliek appointments to be invalid. Winning the first is plausible, but winning the second is a tall order. So, North Carolina Republicans have very likely managed to seize control of a critical cog in the election machinery, one that SHOULD have been populated by the Democrat Stein, and not the Republican Boliek. That kind of power-grab is definitely a loss for democracy. (Z)