Early this month, the North Carolina Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on a range of issues. Arguments will be split into multi-day periods, with the state’s high court hearing cases between September 8th-10th and September 15th-17th.
One of the arguments includes a major lawsuit on water contamination. On September 15th, the high court is scheduled to hear from North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson, who is leading a lawsuit against Chemours and DuPont over decades of discharging toxic PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals, from the Fayetteville Works facility into the Cape Fear River and surrounding environment.
Big polluters, Chemours and DuPont, are urging the Republican-leaning state Supreme Court to rule that Attorney General Jackson cannot pursue his lawsuit.
The big polluters’ attempt to skirt around the lawsuit comes months after the federal government made a “backroom deal” with Chemours, reaching a $450 million settlement over the company’s chemical release in North Carolina, West Virginia and New Jersey.
“For decades, Chemours knowingly contaminated North Carolina’s air and water by discharging PFAS from its Fayetteville plant into the Cape Fear River,” said Governor Josh Stein after the deal in June. “Now, the EPA is cutting a deal with Chemours that does next to nothing for North Carolinians and allows polluters to choose what to clean up and where.”
As North Carolinians and advocates push back against the big polluters, judicial experts and state leaders have raised concerns about the conservative-leaning high court.
National outlets have called Chief Justice Paul Newby “possibly the most ethically compromised chief justice in the country”. Under Newby, the conservative majority on the NC Supreme Court has become a rubber stamp for political interests and wealthy corporations attempting to skirt accountability.
In the last few years, the Newby court has ruled in favor of heavily gerrymandered voting maps, disenfranchising Black voters, and has refused to hold the Republican-led legislature accountable for its failure in fully funding public education.
When it comes to wealthy corporations, the Newby Court has ruled in favor of Duke Energy’s rate increases on customers at least seven times since 2015. Duke Energy’s latest rate hike proposal that would cost North Carolinians an additional $129 million also received a “green light” from Newby along with fellow Republican justices.
Time and again, Newby and the four other Republican justices have bent over backwards to protect their party’s political interests. Fortunately, North Carolina voters have the power to determine who sits on the state’s highest bench.
With the court representing the last line of defense for our civil rights and freedoms, we need justices who will fairly interpret the law, not partisan politicians who will just do favors for special interests and big donors.
In November, North Carolina voters will have the power to vote for a justice like Justice Anita Earls, who has spent her career fighting to defend the rights and freedoms of North Carolinians, or support Newby’s politicization of the court through Sarah Stevens, who has a record of defending predators and selling out North Carolinians.
You can watch the oral arguments live-streamed on the Supreme Court’s YouTube channel. Arguments will also be archived on the channel.
