Updated 6.19.24

The Cast

Phil Berger Sr. - N.C. Senate President Pro Tem (the N.C. Senate's top Republican)
Phil Berger Jr. - Eldest son and Associate Justice on the N.C. Supreme Court
Kevin Berger - Middle child and Rockingham County Commissioner
Ashley Berger Snyder - Youngest child and N.C. Codifier of Rules

Phil Berger Sr. is known as the most powerful Republican in North Carolina. The N.C. Senate President Pro Tem since Republicans took control of the state legislature in 2010, Berger has led the General Assembly as it has slashed public school funding; cut taxes for the wealthy and eliminated them for corporations; shredded North Carolina’s safety net; and attacked reproductive rights. Berger Sr. helped pass – and vigorously defended – the country’s first “bathroom bill,” the horrendous HB2, only to reverse course and agree to repeal the law a year later after it cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars and Republicans the governorship.

*Phil Berger Sr. with right-wing, bigoted conspiracy theorist Mark Robinson*

This year, Berger Sr. endorsed right-wing nut Mark Robinson in the Republican gubernatorial primary, calling him “the right person at the right time.” Robinson is a bigoted conspiracy theorist who wants our anemic state school budget further “slashed” and has called for a total ban on abortion “for any reason.” Robinson has attacked everyone from teachers (“wicked people”) to school shooting survivors (“spoiled little bastards”) to Beyoncé (a “devil-worshiping skank”).

“I just think he's got a good head on his shoulders,” Berger told reporters. “I think philosophically, he's generally in the right place. I think he has been supportive of many of the things that we've done here at the General Assembly.”

Under Berger’s leadership, the Republican-controlled state legislature has issued repeated assaults on voting rights – from the notorious 2013 Monster voter bill that targeted Black voters with “almost surgical precision” to its most recent voter suppression bill, designed to make it harder to vote by mail or use same-day registration – and continually attacked the independence of our state courts. While state and federal courts have historically served as a backstop against the most egregious of the GOP’s steady stream of unconstitutional legislation, a new right-wing majority on the state Supreme Court is acting as a rubber stamp.

As UNC School of Law Professor Gene Nichol wrote last year:

In early February, the new high court issued what the New York Times called “an extraordinary pair of orders” to rehear two major voting rights cases it had decided only seven weeks earlier. The 5-2 Republican majority opinion could point to no changed circumstance to justify the exceedingly rare decision. The altered court membership was all that mattered.
Dissenting justice Anita Earls noted the “radical break with 205 years” of North Carolina history represented by the ruling. The “long practice” had been to respect the principle that once a decision was issued it “would not be disturbed merely because of a change in court composition.”
Never before had this happened. Never.

The voting rights cases involved a gerrymandered N.C. Senate district map and new voter ID requirements that the state Supreme Court had already declared unconstitutional just two months before. But when right-wing Republicans gained a majority on the court last year, Republican leaders in the state legislature asked the court to rehear those cases – and the court agreed.

Part of the new Republican majority that threw out 200 years of precedent to capitulate to Republican leaders? Phil Berger’s own son and namesake, Phil Berger Jr.

Phil Berger Jr. was elected to the N.C. Supreme Court in 2020 and seated in 2021. The far-right gained a majority on the court in 2023.

Phil Jr. was first appointed as an administrative judge in 2015 and then elected as a state Court of Appeals judge the following year – with a little help from his dear old dad. After a failed attempt to help elect Phil Jr. to Congress in 2014 by headlining fundraisers with lobbyists seeking political favors, Phil Sr. decided to take his support several steps further in his son’s run for state Court of Appeals: Not only did he raise money for Jr. from his political appointees, he helped change the law to give his son an advantage in the race.

“In the closing hours of the legislative session, a bill flew through that changed the way names are listed on the ballot.
One highly qualified appeals court judge, Linda Stephens, was targeted by this change … because her opponent is the name-sake son of the state’s most powerful legislator – Senate President ProTempore Phil Berger, R-Rockingham County.
Prior to the law change Stephens’ name would have been listed first on the statewide ballot. But the last-minute bill, backed by Sen. Berger, assures his son’s name is listed first.
Name position is critical, particularly in lower-profile down-ballot contests. Research by Darren Grant at Sam Houston State University has documented the advantages of being listed first on the ballot -- at 10-percentage points or more.” -WRAL

*Phil Berger Jr. was sworn into the N.C. Court of Appeals by then Associate Justice Paul Newby*

Phil Jr. won his Court of Appeals seat by half a point.

Four years later, he ran for N.C. Supreme Court, and since he was seated in 2021, Phil Jr. has repaid his dad for his help many times over.

During Phil Jr.’s time on the state’s highest court, a number of cases involving his father have come before him. And while any reasonable person could see the obvious conflict of interest in a son overseeing a case against his father and any ethical person would recuse himself, Phil Jr. has never done so.

The first instance arose during Phil Jr.’s first year on the court. Lawyers for the NAACP filed a motion to disqualify Phil Jr. from NAACP v. Moore and Berger; however, Berger Jr. refused to recuse himself, writing “More than 2.7 million North Carolinians, knowing or at least having information available to them concerning my father's service in the legislature, elected me to consider and resolve significant constitutional questions like the one at issue here.” He ruled in favor of his father – and has continued ruling in his father’s favor in cases that followed.

Now, another case involving Phil Sr. has come before the court. The high court is ruling on a judge’s order to transfer money from the state budget surplus to schools that desperately need resources. Even though the budget surplus money is crucial to Phil Sr.’s political future, Phil Jr. once again refused to recuse himself. Justice Allison Riggs wrote a fiery dissent:

Few bonds are closer and more enduring than that between a loving parent and child … In a feat of inescapable common sense, our canons of judicial conduct recognize this reality, and provide that judges should not decide cases where their parents or children are parties. …
Here, Justice Berger’s father … has repeatedly tied his policy objectives to the maintenance of a multi-billion-dollar surplus … Indeed, he is presently campaigning on it individually and as leader of his caucus. Any opinion from this Court reversing or setting aside the trial court’s order … necessarily bears upon Senator Berger’s ability to deliver on his policy objectives and the campaign promises he has made to voters in seeking to maintain his elected office. Put bluntly, a son’s vote to deliver his father a campaign ‘win’ in an election year substantially affects the latter’s personal and financial interests.”

With such displays of fealty from big brother, it might be hard for the other Berger kids to compete, but that hasn’t stopped them from trying. Also vying for dad’s attention is middle child Kevin.

Kevin Berger, a Rockingham County Commissioner first elected in 2016, used all of his political capital and then some to support his dad’s casino pet project last year. The county commissioner threw his weight behind a massive rezoning of almost 200 acres of land in his county to host one of four casino sites in a proposed budget bill his dad was fighting for.

The casino project was wildly unpopular and ultimately failed, and Kevin Berger’s support for it almost cost him his third term on the county commission; he ultimately eked out a win by just three votes. He is now being sued for libel by his primary opponent and former Rockingham County Commissioner Craig Travis.

Ashley Berger Snyder is the youngest Berger child. In 2021, she was appointed to replace the retiring state Codifier of Rules.

Snyder works closely with Donald van der Vaart, a former Trump advisor hand-picked by right-wing Chief Justice Paul Newby to replace the “impartial and effective” Chief Administrative Law judge Newby ousted after 32 years in the position.

As the Codifier of Rules, Snyder is responsible for striking or bringing into law the rules written by state agencies (e.g., rules from Dept. of Health and Human Services and the Dept. of Environmental Quality).

She also oversees all of the attorneys who work for the Rules Review Commission (RRC), which has veto power over any rules issued by a state agency. Its 10 members are appointed by Phil Sr. and Republican Speaker of the House Tim Moore and include donors to both Moore’s and Berger Sr.’s campaigns as well as to Berger Jr. and Chief Justice Paul Newby.

While processes for reviewing rules and bringing them into law have historically been fairly mundane, under Phil Sr. they have become highly partisan. Snyder and the RRC hold the ability to block executive branch powers, and they use it. In 2020, Gov. Cooper filed suit against the RRC, arguing that it gives “the legislative branch an unconstitutional veto authority over rules and regulations issued by the executive branch” – but he dropped the case when it was set to go before a three-judge trial court panel appointed by Newby.

Under Phil Sr., the powers of the Codifier of Rules and the RRC have greatly expanded. Not only does the RRC review new rules, as it has done for decades, it now reviews existing rules and determines whether to keep them. In a convoluted process, every 10 years, state agencies must make the case to the RRC for why the rules it wants to keep are “necessary.”

Initially, when the RRC objected to an existing rule, the agency had the final say in whether it remained in the administrative code. But last year, the state budget that passed under Berger Sr. further expanded Snyder’s and the RRC’s power, and they are testing its limits. When the RRC objected to 30 long-held environmental protection rules, Snyder removed them from the Administrative Code over agency objections. The Coastal Resources Commission and N.C. Department of Environmental Quality have filed suit against Snyder and the RRC in an effort to restore the rules.

While the youngest Berger child has largely managed to fly under the radar, given her position and her history to date, we wouldn’t be surprised if she’s just getting started.

Fighting for a Better Future

North Carolina has a population of more than 10 million people; yet a single family has consolidated a massive amount of power and is exerting outsized control, enacting its agenda by force against the will and interests of the people. The Berger Family’s tangled conflicts of interest undermine the integrity of our state and erode public trust in our institutions.

It took years for the Bergers to amass this much power, and we aren’t going to wrestle it from their hands overnight. Like the GOP, we need to play the long game.

But we can fight back. The first step is to take back our state courts and return checks and balances to our state government. We can flip our state courts blue again by 2028, before new maps are drawn – and the Bergers cement their power – for another next decade.