#ncpol: Here we go AGAIN ?
In 2016, state Republicans blew what should have been an easy reelection for Supreme Court justice Robert Edmunds. That loss threw the balance of power on the court to Democrats. In 2018, we’ve got another big Supreme Court race involving a Republican incumbent. Sources familiar with the inner workings of that race tell me they are really worried about Justice Barbara Jackson (R) going the same route as Edmunds. 
Asked for clarification, one source familiar with the Supreme Court race’s inner workings told me:
“Jackson’s numbers are not good. They are really not where we’d like them to be at this point.”
An awful lot of NCGOPe political capital is being expended on these six proposed constitutional amendments — meant to bring out the conservative base. well-placed folks I’ve talked to are concerned that the debate over the amendments in Raleigh is (1) overshadowing the promotion of Jackson’s candidacy, and (2) actually firing up the leftist base to Jackson’s detriment.
Anita Earls, Jackson’s Democrat challenger, is a radical that would make Sonia Sotomayor look like Clarence Thomas. What good will these amendments be if there is a 5-2 liberal majority ready to strike them down in 2019?
I still can’t decide if Republican leadership is made up of incompetents or saboteurs.
The Republican Party leadership warned of the Democrats running one or more plants as fake Republicans in the jungle primary, and gave this as the reason to do an endorsement. Knowing this was likely to happen, and did happen, it was either gross political malpractice or sabotage for the NCGOP to fail to field its own plant(s) filed as Democrats to even the score. Hayes and Woodhouse should resign for failing to do so. The endorsement alone just does not cut it, as many voters will be totally unaware of it.
Much of the problem for Edmunds and the unfolding problems for Jackson have to do with dimwit legislators and consultants. A normal partisan election would have reelected Edmunds and Jackson. But our legislators, led by David Lewis got cute and did something different, and that is the root of the problem. In 2016, they made the Supreme Court race non-partisan while the Court of Appeals was partisan (and the GOP won EVERY seat) and that cost us Edmunds. For 2018, they have come up with the stupid “jungle primary” that puts Jackson at a real disadvantage with a fake “Republican” also on the ballot.
Why would the GOP legislature do such stupid things? Non-partisan elections are what the Democrats in NC have always preferred because the system gives them an advantage. Why would our legislature throw them into that briar patch? Jungle primaries were concocted in Louisiana to put Republicans at a disadvantage and then copied by California for the same reason. Why in the dickens would Republican legislators impose that Democrat scheme on NC?
The Haymaker called these correctly as GOP disasters when Lewis and others pushed them through the legislature. Conservative legislators also voiced concern within the legislature.
Progressive consultant Shumaker was the source of the idiot non-partisan election in 2016, but why did Lewis and others go along with him? Senate Republicans who wanted to undermine the citizens right to vote for our judges had a lot to do with the idiot “jungle primary” but why did cooler heads not shut that down.
If the idiots in the legislature lose a second Supreme Court seat for us by monkeying with the election process, the GOP grassroots needs to demand a fruit basket turnover of legislative leadership. What they have done to the election process for our courts is totally unacceptable.
And why was NCGOP asleep at the switch on this unfolding disaster? We need someone who knows what they are doing minding the shop..
They really just have to be sure she is the first person on the ballot so they do not suffer the boondoggle that happened when the demorat was first in line back in 2016.
What created that problem was that for the Court of Appeals, which was partisan, the Republicans came first, but for the Supreme Court, which was non-partisan, it went by the alphabet and the law on that put the Democrat first. Many low information voters looked at the placement on Court of Appeals and assumed that the first Supreme Court name also ought to be the Republican and the second name the Democrat. It is more complicated than you state. In my county, Edmunds outperformed the other Republicans in Democrat precincts due to some Democrats thinking he was the Democrat and underperformed in Republican precincts also due to voters thinking he was the Democrat. A partisan race would have solved that problem regardless of the order on the ballot..
Again, we have Paul Shumaker and David Lewis to thank for that snafu.
One real question here is whose side is consultant Shumaker really on? He is supposed to be Jackson’s consulttant, but he is also working for the Democrat group working against the Constitutional amendments and that stabs Jackson in the back. It is a lot like Red Dome getting caught working both sides of that State Senate primary.
Civitas caught Shumaker taking money from extreme left national environmentalists to push Obama environmental policy in the NC General Assembly, payments that were well hidden, so Shumaker will apparently take money from anybody to work for any cause.
When Shumakler was Edmunds’ consultant, did he take money from Democrat sources to push for election methods that were helpful to Democrats and harmful to Edmunds?
Please explain to me how a constitutional amendment passed by the voters in a statewide referendum can be thrown out by any NC Supreme Court…whether liberal or conservative?