The Republican Takeover of Our State Courts
In 2022, Republicans swept our state court races. They now hold large majorities on both our State Supreme Court (5 of 7 seats) and our Court of Appeals (12 of 15 seats).
The new right-wing majority has been trampling our rights and aiding right-wing lawmakers’ unconstitutional power grabs for partisan gain.
The Corrupt republican judges’ dirty deeds
ATTEMPTED ELECTION THEFT. Republicans on both our State Supreme Court and our Court of Appeals tried to help Judge Jefferson Griffin throw out legal, valid votes to steal an election he lost to Justice Allison Riggs – until a conservative, Trump-appointed federal judge stepped in to stop them.
RIGGED ELECTION MAPS. Immediately after taking the majority, the Republican-controlled court took the unprecedented step of overturning a prior decision that Republicans’ rigged election maps are unconstitutional, instead ruling that any amount of partisan rigging of our election maps is acceptable.
ATTACKS ON FAIR JUDGES. The Republican Chief Justice, Paul Newby, who won his race by just 401 votes out of 5.4 million ballots cast, uses his power to target any judges who stand in the way of his far-right agenda, demoting more moderate Republicans in favor of extremists and initiating trumped-up disciplinary action against Democrats.
CORRUPT HEARINGS. Justice Phil Berger Jr.’s father, N.C. Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger Sr. has led the General Assembly in slashing public school funding; cutting taxes for the wealthy and eliminating them for corporations; shredding North Carolina’s safety net; and attacking reproductive rights. The constitutionality of Phil Berger Sr.’s bills regularly come before the NC Supreme Court. Yet his son, Justice Phil Berger Jr., has never recused himself from any case involving his father, consistently ruling in his father’s favor.
BLOCKED PUBLIC SCHOOL FUNDING. In an unprecedented move, the Republican justices blocked $677 million in desperately needed public school funding. North Carolina currently ranks near the bottom in education spending, despite large budget surpluses.
UNETHICAL INVESTMENTS. Several Republican judges and justices regularly rule on cases involving corporations they have a financial interest in, most notably Duke Energy. They have never recused themselves from these cases and consistently rule in the corporation’s favor.
ANTI-WORKER DECISIONS. The extremist Republicans on the court rule in favor of corporations over injured parties the vast majority of the time.
We must stop the corrupt, extremist takeover of our state courts and protect the rights of all North Carolinians.
The Fight for Fair Maps
The extremist Republican judges ruling that Republican legislators can rig our election maps in their favor is the reason Trump came into office with a Republican majority in the US House.
We cannot get fair maps and return the power to the people until we take back our state courts. We have a path to take back the N.C. Supreme Court by 2028 – before new maps are drawn for the next decade.
In 2024, Justice Riggs was elected to a full 8-year term. In 2026, every other statewide judicial seat held by a Democrat – and no seat held by a Republican – is up for election. It’s critical that we re-elect Justice Anita Earls to the N.C. Supreme Court, re-elect Judges John Arrowood and Toby Hampson to the N.C. Court of Appeals (COA), and elect Democratic candidate Christine Walczyk to the COA seat currently held by Judge Allegra Collins (who is not running for re-election). Winning these races is the critical first step in the 3-year plan to take back our state courts.
If we can hold our Democratic seats in 2026, then in 2028, we can flip both courts blue when three Republicans on our state supreme court and five Republicans on our state court of appeals who will be up for election, including Jefferson Griffin, who tried to overturn his election loss, and four of the six judges who tried to help him do it. We need judges who will respect our constitution and protect our rights and our democracy, and it’s vital that we elect them before new election maps are drawn for the next decade.
This is our one big shot in the next decade to end extreme partisan gerrymandering and get fair maps, so voters can choose representatives who stand for their values and interests instead of extremists forcing harmful and unpopular laws on voters.
