WHAT DO NC GOP
ELECTION VICTORIES
MEAN FOR BLACK ISSUES?
By Cash Michaels
An analysis
The next time Democrats or progressive groups argue that a redistricting map is unfairly drawn by the Republican-led NC General Assembly, and want to take the issue to higher court, a Republican-led NC Court of Appeals or a GOP majority state Supreme Court will be waiting to hear the case.
That’s the scenario last week’s November midterm elections produced - a Republican supermajority in the NC Senate, four more Republican judges elected to the NC appellate court (now holding 12 of 15 seats), and two more Republicans elected to the NC Supreme Court, making that judicial body 5-2 Republicans to Democrats.
State Supreme Court associate justices are elected to eight-year terms.
The two Democrat associate justices are Michael Morgan and Anita Earls.
The year 2028 is the next time there will be an election for the state Supreme Court, but it will be a Democrat seat up for re-election.
“The ramifications are substantial,” former state Sen. Floyd McKissick, first vice chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party told WRAL News. “They are profound with the issues in front of the court and what it could mean in terms of rights.”
In short, the Republican-led legislature now truly has carte blanche’ to pass any legislation it desires, and in his final two years in office, Gov. Roy Cooper can’t veto or do a thing about it, other than go to the bully pulpit.
The state House is one vote shy of a supermajority, meaning either the Republican majority there finds a moderate Democrat to join them, or wait for any Democrat House member to be absent in order to have the numbers to stop Gov. Cooper.
Either way, Cooper’s power over the GOP-led legislature is now tenuous at best.
If Common Cause NC or the NC NAACP wants to take Republican legislative leaders to court, they may get a favorable hearing in Superior Court, but if they lose there and dare to appeal to the Republican-laden state Court of Appeals or Supreme Court, the likelihood of a favorable hearing now is less likely.
“With the heavily populated Republican domination of the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court, there will be a more right-wing conservative application of North Carolina law than we have experienced in the past few years,” says NC NAACP Legal Redress Committee Chairman Irving Joyner. “Legal decisions which address the ability of people to vote, to participate in the political franchise and efforts to expand the powers of the Republican party will be resolved in favor of the General Assembly and the Republican leadership.”
Atty. Joyner continued, “You can expect a dedicated reluctance to expand the constitutional protections and rights of people in criminal cases and a loosing of restraints on the ability of the business community to exploit its dominance within the political and economic areas.”
“In education,” Joyner continued, “there will be continuing support for the General Assembly to short-change the financing of the quest for well-funded, quality and progressive educational initiatives. As a result of the Republican Party’s success in seizing control of the judiciary and the General Assembly, there will be a return to the “ole-school” conservative decision making that controlled North Carolina during the past “Jim Crow” era. None of this bodes well for African Americans, people of color and those individuals who are locked in low wealth communities.”
Now take all of the above from the theoretical to the practical.
A case involving the voting rights of former felons was put off until 2023 by the current state Supreme Court. Now that case will be considered by the new Republican-led High Court.
The current Democratic-led state Supreme Court decided that funding should be transferred to low-wealth public schools per the recent Leandro decision. Will the new Supreme Court find a way to dash that decision?
And a final ruling was expected on a recent congressional redistricting case. A decision is expected in December, but if that doesn’t happen, it falls in the lap of the new High Court as of January 1. 2023.
This will be the new political reality for African-Americans and Democrats in the coming years.
-30-
WHY, AND HOW CHERI BEASLEY
LOST HER BID FOR U.S. SENATE
By Cash Michaels
An analysis
Why, and how did Democrat Cheri Beasley lose her race for the U.S. Senate against Republican Congressman Ted Budd, 51-47 percent?
As we said back in May before the primaries about Beasley’s chances, “Republicans are hopeful that voters in North Carolina’s rural areas will continue their rejection of Democratic candidates come election time.”
Couple that with the national Democratic Party basically ignoring the Beasley-Budd race in favor of the more high profile U.S. Senate contests in Pennsylvania and Georgia, meaning less campaign money flowing in from out-of-state; less defensive/offensive campaign advertising from Democrat political action committees; and almost no help from top-of-the-line Democratic firepower like former President Barack Obama (he did cut a late minute campaign commercial) or Oprah Winfrey, and the Beasley for Senate campaign can only be credited with fighting it’s heart out in a losing cause.
Cheri Beasley, the former chief justice of the NC Supreme Court, was an exceptional moderate Democrat candidate, and she portrayed herself accordingly, promising to fight for regular people when it came to lowering health care costs, standing up for voting rights, and helping working families.
But again, as predicted, the Budd campaign and associated conservative groups, erroneously, and successfully portrayed Beasley as a former judge responsible for putting sex offenders and rapists back on the streets to commit crime, supporting Pres. Biden’s inflationary policies, and someone who can’t be trusted to look out for North Carolina families.
Beasley not only needed to defend herself, but be able to strike back at Budd, and she attempted to do so citing his record as a do-nothing-congressman who was only out for himself.
But it wasn’t enough. While Budd’s supporting groups flooded the airwaves with charge after baseless charge against Beasley, her campaign was not able to nearly match the onslaught dollar for dollar.
As we warned last May, “If Budd is to be successfully attacked, the Democratic Party and other outside groups will have to do it for Beasley.”
That really didn’t happen, and the Budd forces successfully defined Cheri Beasley in the minds of North Carolina voters before she knew it.
Beasley did well attracting votes from the state’s urban areas like Mecklenburg, Wake, Guilford and Durham. But her electoral ship ran aground in the rural areas, where staunch Republicans and unaffiliateds bought Budd’s portrayal of her as a Democrat not to be trusted. Given former Pres. Donald Trump’s ringing endorsement of Budd, especially during a raucous rally in Wilmington last summer, that’s all the rural folks needed to hear to vote “no” on Cheri Beasley.
Ironically, Ted Budd did not have the campaign war chest that Cheri Beasley had - approximately $12 million to her $34 million - but in the end, he didn’t need it. With conservative outside groups forming the front line of attack, all Budd had to do was make sure he didn’t say anything stupid to get himself into trouble. That strategy helped him pull away from a tight contest in the final weeks of the campaign, and unofficially become the next U.S. senator from North Carolina come January.
As for Cheri Beasley, she will be at the center of probing questions as to why North Carolina Democrats are always losing to Republicans in big electoral contests.
In her case, the answer is she would have needed an Obama-like turnout across the state - in ALL areas of the state - in order to overcome the obstacles put before her.
But the history books on the midterm elections of November 8, 2022 will record that Democrat Cheri Beasley didn’t fail.
The national and North Carolina Democratic parties failed Cheri Beasley, who could have been the first Democrat since 2008 elected to the U.S Senate, and North Carolina’ s first African-American U.S. senator. -30-
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