With election day this week, tightly-contested races across North Carolina are reaching a boiling point. Perhaps the most overlooked elections this cycle are the seats up for grabs in the North Carolina Supreme Court. The insistence of partisan judicial elections in our state and elsewhere do a disservice to democracy and should play no part in future elections.
The NC Supreme Court currently consists of seven justices with a 4-3 Democratic majority. This week, two seats currently occupied by Democrats will be contested, with incumbent Sam Ervin running for reelection against Trey Allen, while Lucy Inman faces Richard Dietz for the soon-to-be-vacated seat of Justice Robin Hudson. With issues like abortion rights and gerrymandering at stake, the makeup of the highest judicial authority in the state is worthy of attention.
The current partisan makeup of the court has been a crucial check on the Republican-dominated General Assembly. Last year, the court threw away the legislature’s gerrymandered drawings of the state’s congressional districts, opting instead to adapt their own maps. This was not the first time the courts butted heads with the legislature; since the passage of a law with a voter ID requirement, the state’s Supreme Court has barred its enforcement on several occasions and reviewed the subject again last October.
The slim majority combined with the prospect of contentious political decisions has seen the Supreme Court elections flooded with outside spending. North Carolina’s judicial elections have been a major part of a national campaign focused on states’ supreme courts. Political action committees from both sides of the aisle have already poured millions into the two elections being held this week.
The inclusion of party affiliations makes the involvement of big money all the more likely; candidates with a (D) or (R) next to their name are easy to identify as allies to a cause. For example, the leading political action committee funding the Democratic candidates is a liberal-leaning organization that supports access to abortion. The millions they inject into the race are indicative of their support of this policy — distorting the independence of the potential justices on the ballot.
While the elections are certainly of a partisan nature, all the candidates involved have sworn to leave politics out of the courtroom. Though it is heartening for the potential justices to express their commitment to nonpartisanship, the evidence suggests their party standing does sway their decisions. A greater issue may lie with the electorate’s response to their ballots — it’s not difficult to imagine votes being cast solely on the basis of a candidate’s party.
While supporting a political party and its candidates is a fundamental component of American politics, the idea should not encroach onto the judiciary. Since the landmark decision overturning Roe v. Wade and the political maneuverings that gave rise to a conservative majority in the U.S. Supreme Court, the notion of justices becoming politicians is gaining more and more prevalence. With the inclusion of partisan judicial elections and the influx of outside spending that accompanies it, it appears the sentiment has permeated down the rungs of federalism.
Political judges are not something any American should be comfortable with; the backbone of the country’s democracy is an independent judiciary. The capacity of the judicial branch to remove itself from the interests of politics and partisanship is crucial to justice consistently prevailing, a notion all the more important in an era of rapidly increasing polarization.
The persistence of party-affiliated judicial elections disparages not only the principles of law but democracy in its entirety. North Carolina should move past these kinds of elections and reinstate justices as nonpartisan players in our government. When voting for your judges this year, keep in mind the imposing role of parties and try to vote beyond blue and red.
