#ncga: TWO MORE justices?
I am hearing from sources inside and outside the legislative building in Raleigh that the GOP super-majority will attempt to use its last days in power to ram through an expansion of the state Supreme Court’s membership. Word is they will try to add TWO additional justices — basically cancelling out the gains by Democrats in the last two years.
It’s a bad idea for many reasons. First, you’re simply creating two more opportunities for Democrats to build influence on the courts. After what we’ve seen in 2016 and 2018, can we really trust the NCGOP gang-that-can’t-shoot-straight to get TWO new justices elected?
Second, it’s moving the goalposts. Changing the rules. Pulling some of the same hijinks the East German and Soviet judges used to pull in The Olympics. Eight years ago, if Democrats had tried this against Republicans, Republicans would be screaming holy hell. There is no real good reason to expand the court other than for political insiders to try and score some political points.
In short — DON’T DO IT.
Instead, why not weed out all the amateurs and shysters infesting the NCGOP political operation, bring in some pros, and win back what you lost THE RIGHT WAY?
Selling the party’s message in a competent manner. Actually doing in office what you said you were going to do on the campaign trail. That kind of thing.
Because this is DOING SOMETHING. What you describe is super hard and takes lots of planning and work and would normally require lots of resignations if people still had any shame. DOING SOMETHING is way easier. Besides, court packing was invented by the Republicans during the Depression to help Roosevelt get re-elected, this is nothing new.
Probably a bad idea, and this is the last opportunity Republicans will have to do this. Maybe they will even pass a law after the new judges that limits the number of Supreme Court judges after their appointment. I am overall neutral about this, as I am afraid the Dems will use the courts to overthrow the Amendments.
Best meme choice EVER!
Without Barbara Jackson, we are about to be down 5-2 on the State Supreme Court. Adding two seats, to which we would appoint Republicans until the next election, would have us down 5-4. It really would’nt accomplish anything. If Jackson had won and we did this, we would be up 5-4. I could at least understand the reason for doing that. Our Constitution allows us to have up to nine justices on our Supreme Court. So, technically, we could do this. However, I think this would be more bad optics that wouldn’t really accomplish anything positive. Just because you CAN do a thing doesn’t mean you SHOULD do it. If this is atrempted, I’ll be voting no. It won’t correct the problems that started way back when our leadership tried the retention election foolishness that I tried to tell them was unconstitutional. They need to stop digging the hole deeper.
Agreed, the House and Senate GOP caucuses still haven’t learned that when you dig yourself into a hole, digging more won’t help. The optics of doing this are precisely the thing that will doom NCGOP in 2020, and by the way, lose North Carolina for Donald Trump. Trump and Ronna McDaniel really needs to intervene NOW and turn out the current clowns running the NCGOP, and Mark Meadows needs to tell Trump that bit of news ASAP.
Yes, please… Stop digging the holes. They’re killing the party. Who comes up with this garbage and manipulation?
Let’s all change party affiliations and the problem is solved for R’s. Oh wait, I don’t want to sell my soul to win at a crooked game.
Let’s find our values… Shall we?
Republicans could add two seats for the 2020 election. If they add now, GOV Cooper appoints
Right, Dallas, they would have to be elected. I misspoke saying we would appoint them. My main point was that even if we added two new seats on the court, and both went to Republicans, at this point, it would still leave us in the minority on the court, and the bad optics would hurt us, too.
Dallas – why did you not do what you promised and recruited our own fake Democrat to counteract Anglin? Why should you keep your job after failing to do so? Why should Robin Hayes after this devastating fail?
There is no real good solution to the Bob Edmunds disaster. The legislature has tried and failed; Pat McCroy and Jim Martin saw to that. It probably means that the GOP will become once again the permanent minority party in NC. It’s a bitter pill for the hard-working conservative activists who have given so much, but no less a pill we will have to swallow. Many of us will probably drift into the Constitution Party if it gets off the ground. There are simply too many RINOs in the leadership of the NC GOP to salvage it.
I would call this a legislative disaster as they wrote the stupid election rules for 2016 and 2018 for the courts.
More important than two more judges is changing the election system while they still can. We need partisan elections for judges with primaries. If we had had those in 2016 and 2018 we would still have a Supreme Court majority.
I have doubts regarding the accuracy of this information.
There is zero upside, and the voters just made their feelings known regarding issues of this nature. It would not be wise.
We will know very soon…but I believe this is nothing more than rumor mill.