The U.S. Supreme Court should dismiss the appeal of a ruling that struck down a North Carolina voting law based on racial bias, the state’s new Democratic attorney general says. Lawyers for Republican lawmakers still want the appeal considered. Attorney General Josh Stein’s office also rejected accusations made by the GOP’s lawyers that he had a conflict that disqualifies him in the matter. Stein was a state senator opposed to the 2013 law and testified in the trial for the groups and voters who challenged the law. It required photo identification to vote in person, reduced the number of early voting days and eliminated same-day registration during the early-vote period.
“These ethics claims lack merit,” says the brief filed Thursday and signed by Stein’s chief deputy Grayson Kelley. “They also err by trying to turn this court into a forum for unseemly political attacks.”
Then-Gov. Pat McCrory and fellow GOP legislators appealed last summer’s ruling of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which threw out the law. The judges determined the General Assembly enacted it with intentional discrimination in mind against black voters who overwhelmingly voted Democratic. Then-Attorney General Roy Cooper had said he wouldn’t defend the law anymore.
Full Article: Attorney general: North Carolina voting law should end.