The Biggest Judicial Races in the Country Are in North Carolina.

[In It to Win It]

Slate

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Abortion, voting rights, criminal justice, gerrymandering—it’s all on the line in November.

North Carolina voters will soon decide whether their state constitution will be defined by a slim Democratic majority that has broadened civil rights or by a new conservative majority that will narrowly interpret the rights of voters, criminal defendants, and people seeking abortion care.

A recent poll by WRAL in Raleigh suggests that one race is too close to call, though the Republican candidate, Trey Allen, holds a two-point lead. In the other race, the Republican candidate, Richard Dietz, holds a five-point lead, but nearly a third of voters are still undecided. Another poll by a conservative group claims the GOP candidates have a substantial lead, with fewer undecided voters. Early voting begins next week.

Conservative groups in D.C. are also pouring money into the race. A billionaire-backed organization called Fair Courts America has pledged to spend $22 million—a record-breaking sum—to help conservative high court candidates around the country. The Judicial Crisis Network, a dark-money group whose leader has lied about spending in high court races, could funnel money into groups that run ads attacking the Democrats.

In recent years, the North Carolina Supreme Court has cracked down on blatant partisan gerrymandering by the Republican-led legislature.

But the North Carolina Supreme Court races will decide much more than the future of redistricting. Since Democrats took over in 2017, the majority has issued a series of groundbreaking rulings in criminal justice and voting rights cases. Many of these groundbreaking opinions were authored by Justice Anita Earls, a former civil rights attorney elected in 2018 despite the legislature’s attempts to help the Republican incumbent.

In 2020, the justices drastically limited the impact of a bill that repealed the landmark Racial Justice Act (RJA), a law that allowed people on death row to be resentenced if racial bias infected the process. The justices invalidated a provision of the repeal bill that would’ve sent four people back to death row after their sentences had been commuted to life imprisonment. They also ruled that 130 people on death row must get hearings on their racial bias claims under the RJA.

The court has also finally cracked down on racism in jury selection, after decades of inaction and evidence showing that prosecutors routinely struck Black people from jury pools.

Yet all of the North Carolina Supreme Court’s progress in protecting individual rights and addressing discrimination in the criminal justice system could come to a screeching halt next year if voters elect a new Republican majority.