Source: Cardinal & Pine, WXII
The North Carolina Supreme Court currently has a 5-2 Republican majority and could start 2025 with a 6-1 advantage depending on the outcome of this November’s election. That prospect has reproductive and education advocates getting the word out about this year’s high court race.
Incumbent Democrat Justice Allison Riggs, a civil rights and voting rights attorney, is facing off against a right-wing challenger, Court of Appeals Judge Jefferson Griffin.
Judicial elections in North Carolina were officially nonpartisan for much of this century – until after Republicans suffered election losses in 2016 when Republican legislators passed a bill to make judicial elections a partisan contest.
The move helped Republicans take control of the Supreme Court in 2022, after which, in a blatant rejection of legal precedent, they promptly issued new rulings on decisions made mere months earlier when Democrats had a 4-3 majority before the election.
Two U.S. Supreme Court cases have left states in charge of redistricting and abortion rights, which means the Riggs-Jefferson contest is even more important and even more in the spotlight than many state court races often are.
It’s safe to say that most voters likely don’t know much about either candidate, but some past rulings show how Griffin would rule while on the Supreme Court. For example, he previously concurred with an opinion that would have established the legal precedent of life beginning at conception in North Carolina, which would effectively prohibit all abortions as well as many forms of birth control and fertility treatments. The case had nothing to do with abortion and the ruling sparked widespread criticism from legal experts, which resulted in Griffin and another judge withdrawing their ruling after facing weeks of criticism. On the other hand, Riggs is a fierce supporter of reproductive rights.
Griffin proudly calls himself a constitutional “textualist” and an “originalist,” meaning that he believes the words in the Constitution are unchangeable and that judges should interpret the Constitution based on the laws at the time they were written, not within the context of modern times.
To put it another way, Griffin believes in deciding cases based on laws written during a time when Black people were enslaved and women had no rights.
Whether Riggs or Griffin wins in November, the odds are high that they will at some point in their time on the court be required to rule on reproductive rights.
Alexis McGill Johnson, president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, underscored what’s at stake this fall. “We are in the fight of our lives to protect and restore our fundamental freedoms. And our courts are the front lines.”
Advance NC’s Yolanda Taylor recently spoke at an event focusing on the dangers Griffin’s judicial beliefs present for North Carolinians and said, “Who is he to play God? Who is he to play doctor? And who is he to play master of our bodies? When life begins, is truly above his pay grade.”
Griffin “[p]resents a clear threat to North Carolinians who want to protect their basic freedoms, and especially for people of color, women, LGBTQ+ community and countless others,” said NC For the People Action’s Melissa Price-Kromm at the event.
Griffin’s views on reproductive rights aren’t the only thing that should concern voters. This fall’s winner will also likely have to rule on education cases, including the possibility of a future ruling on the three-decade-long Leandro school funding case. In 2022, the Supreme Court upheld a 2021 ruling from Wake County Superior Court judge David Lee, a Democrat, ordering the legislature to provide $1.7 billion in additional funding to the state’s public schools to fulfill the “sound basic education” requirement outlined in the plan. The GOP-controlled legislature refused to adhere to the court’s ruling.
In October 2023, after the court had switched from a Democratic majority to a Republican one, the justices voted 5-2 to rehear Leandro for a fourth time after Republican Speaker of the House Tim Moore and Senate leader Phil Berger petitioned the Court to hear the case again. Riggs and the court’s only other Democrat, Justice Anita Earls, dissented and voted against rehearing Leandro. The court’s conservatives got their way and reheard the case in February. A ruling has not yet been made.
Griffin has also ruled on Leandro, though not in the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling on rehearing the case. He ruled following a November 2021 decision when the case was appealed to the Court of Appeals. Griffin voted with the appeal court’s majority to block the state from spending $1.7 billion to fund public education.
The court’s impending Leandro decision could have serious implications for the future of public school funding as well as implications for challenges to the legislature’s power.
No matter what happens this November, Democrats cannot win a majority on the court this election cycle, but the outcome could help determine the future of the court. A Democratic win this year will set them up to cut into the GOP majority in 2026 with the potential to flip the court in 2028.
