Team Berger wants Speaker Timmy’s BFF presiding over lawsuit targeting them
We first told you here and HERE about a lawsuit targeting politicians, political operatives and operations close to 
state senate president Phil Berger over their involvement in the March races for Rockingham County board of commissioners. The defendants in the suit apparently want Judge Clayton Somers — a special Superior Court Judge, former chief of staff to Speaker Timmy, former UNC system official, and longtime BFF to Speaker Timmy — to hear the case. As an added bit of intrigue — the decision on whether to assign Somers to the case falls in the lap of state Supreme Court chief justice Paul Newby.
Republican officials named in a defamation lawsuit surrounding failed efforts to bring new casinos to North Carolina are asking for a specific judge to hear the case — one who has ruled in favor of casinos before and has worked for one of the state’s top lawmakers.
On July 12, lawyers representing defendants in the lawsuit filed a motion requesting Clayton Somers as the judge in the case. Defendants include Kevin Berger, a Republican Rockingham County Commissioner and son of Senate leader Phil Berger, as well as other Republican county commissioners, the local GOP chair and three political organizations.
Somers, a former UNC-Chapel Hill administrator who helped broker the university’s settlement over the Confederate Silent Sam statue, became a special Superior Court judge last year on the recommendation of Republican House Speaker Tim Moore. That was after Republican state lawmakers included a provision in the state budget allowing themselves to appoint 10 additional special Superior Court judges. Although most judges in North Carolina are elected, these special judgeships have typically been appointed by the governor — not legislators.
In this case, lawyers for Berger and the other defendants are requesting Somers to be the judge by asking the court to deem the case “exceptional,” a designation typically afforded to complex cases with many defendants who have diverse interests. Unlike most civil suits, exceptional cases have one judge overseeing the entire process from start to finish.
Berger’s lawyers say this case should be considered exceptional because it could involve extensive discovery disputes and also involves “multiple public officials, some of whom are currently in office, and other political issues.”
Craig Travis, a former Republican Rockingham County Commissioner who brought the lawsuit, disagrees. “Neither the familial relationship of any defendant to a person in a position of power nor the likelihood that relevant evidence may be in the possession of state legislators and/or employees should render this case exceptional,” Travis’ lawyers wrote in a court filing.
As Berger’s lawyers point out in their court filing, Somers recently ruled in a case involving the same casino proposal at issue in this lawsuit. The filing says the case would benefit from a judge “who is familiar with this litigation and issues in dispute,” and therefore could “ensure uniformity and consistency of rulings on the multiple issues anticipated.” In the prior casino lawsuit, a camp for children with special needs sued Rockingham County for rezoning nearby land to allow a casino to be built. Somers ruled in the county’s favor, dismissing the camp’s lawsuit.
In Travis’ lawsuit, which was filed last month, he alleges that during the 2024 Republican primary campaign, other county commissioners and political organizations defamed him in attack ads stemming from his opposition to allowing a casino in Rockingham. Ultimately, plans to build new casinos in Rockingham and other counties were scuttled when state lawmakers failed to negotiate a deal to approve them last year.
Travis’ lawsuit notes that out-of-state casino executives gave campaign contributions to top state lawmakers and alleges that Rep. Jason Saine, a key proponent of gambling legislation, pushed a political organization to prepare a document in support of legalizing casinos after he received his donation.[…]
