Assault on the courts
Published January 26, 2018
by Thomas Mills, Politics NC, January 25,2018.
As I’ve said before, the North Carolina Republicans embraced Trumpism before there was Trump. They’ve taken a populist, authoritarian approach to governing, playing to an angry base while limiting the checks and balances designed to give our government accountability. The latest example in North Carolina is their attempt to rig the judicial system.
Republicans have been hostile toward the judicial system since they took power. They passed a series of unconstitutional laws that the courts overturned. Instead of accepting the rulings, they attacked the judges and judiciary as biased and power hungry. That’s a bit rich considering the people making the accusations tried to redraw local districts to give themselves partisan advantage and restrict access to the voting booth for people who aren’t likely to vote Republican.
The courts have been the last refuge of democracy, so the Republicans are trying to remove them as an obstacle to their authoritarian overreach. They’ve drawn districts that would double bunk African-American judges and give Republicans clear advantages in Superior and District Court races. They’re trying to prevent primaries in Appellate Court races to protect Republican incumbents. Ironically, they’re scared they’re of their own base because a primary might nominate unelectable general election candidates.
The goal of the Senate is to strip citizens’ rights to vote for judges at all. They would move to a system of legislative appointments. Republican know that the state is probably trending Democratic over the next decade or so but they believe they can protect their majorities by rigging the system. Controlling the courts to limit checks and balances is clearly part of that strategy.
Extreme gerrymandering is the most obvious example of limiting democracy. The most closely divided state in the nation has virtually no truly competitive Congressional districts and veto-proof majorities in both legislative chambers. With so much control, only independent courts can really rein in political overreach. Eliminating them as a check on power is both disturbing and anti-democratic.
January 26, 2018 at 10:33 am
Cornelia S Cree says:
Bitter, angry young men. Where do they come from? whose only argument is ad hominum attacks on assumptions about motive. Has he forgotten that a Republican President fought a war against slavery? That a Republican President was in the White House when Brown v. the Board of Education passed? A Republican President who sent troops to Arkansas to effect the court's ruling? That Democrats in the 1950s drew a hard line against court-mandated equality throughout the Old North State? Because for socialists who seek to put government in the hands of elites, history is either not known or ignored. Sad.
