North Carolina: Republican lawmakers want Supreme Court review of voting law continued | News & Observer

North Carolina Republican legislative leaders want the U.S. Supreme Court to reject the new Democratic state attorney general's bid to dismiss their appeal of a lower court ruling that struck down a voting law based on racial bias. Lawyers the General Assembly hired to defend the 2013 law approved by the GOP objected Monday to Attorney General Josh Stein's petition last week and want the justices to continue considering their previously filed appeal. They say Stein lacks authority to step in because previous Attorney General Roy Cooper stopped defending the law last summer after the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declared the law unconstitutional. A three-judge panel of the 4th Circuit found the law targeted minority voters. The legislature's private lawyers continued the appeal.

North Carolina: Law firm disputes dismissal from voter ID case | Greensboro News and Record

A prominent law firm is disputing the authority of Gov. Roy Cooper and Attorney General Josh Stein to withdraw a petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold North Carolina’s hotly debated voter ID law. An attorney with the Ogletree Deakins law firm contends that the Republican-led General Assembly hired it more than three years ago to defend the controversial measure on behalf of state government. That means the two Democratic officials overstepped their authority this week when they sought to fire the firm and to independently scuttle the appeal of last year’s lower-court ruling that rejected parts of the law as unconstitutional, Raleigh-based lawyer Thomas A. Farr said in a letter.

North Carolina: Gov. Cooper, Attorney General Stein withdrawing from appeal to U.S. Supreme Court on Voter ID case | Winston-Salem Journal

Gov. Roy Cooper and N.C. Attorney General Josh Stein announced Tuesday that they will no longer appeal a federal appeals court ruling that struck down North Carolina's sweeping and controversial elections law. In a news release, Cooper and Stein said they were taking steps to withdraw a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court. Former Republican Gov. Pat McCrory had joined in a petition for the high court to hear the case late last year. The Republican-led State Board of Elections, its individual members and its executive director will remain in the case, according to the news release from the Governor's Office. But Patrick Gannon, spokesman for the State Board of Elections, said no decision has been made. The board will meet Wednesday and will likely take up the issue. "We need to make it easier for people to exercise their right to vote, not harder, and I will not continue to waste time and money appealing this unconstitutional law," Cooper said in a statement. "It's time for North Carolina to stop fighting this unfair, unconstitutional law and work instead to improve equal access for voters."

North Carolina: State Supreme Court halts legislature’s elections board revamp | News & Observer

The state Supreme Court has restored a block on the legislature’s overhaul of the state elections board and ethics commission while Gov. Roy Cooper’s lawsuit awaits resolution. The court sided with Cooper in an order released Monday. It did not explain its reasoning. The decision is the latest legal twist in a power struggle between Cooper, a Democrat, and the Republicans at the helm of both General Assembly chambers. Cooper sued Phil Berger, the leader of the state Senate, and Tim Moore, the state House speaker, earlier this year over a December law that called for the merger of the five-member elections board and the state Ethics Commission, which administers ethics laws governing lobbyists, elected officials and government employees. At issue is whether the General Assembly overstepped its state constitutional authority when it adopted a law that establishes an eight-member board to oversee elections and consider ethics complaints and issues. The governor would appoint four members and legislative leaders would appoint the other four, with the board split evenly between Democrats and Republicans.

North Carolina: Black voters in Jones County haven’t been heard, they say. Can a new lawsuit change that? | CSMonitor

Black residents of Jones County, N.C., have struggled for years to ensure local representation, some say, but they hope that a new lawsuit will finally bring results. On Monday, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., joined with two law firms to bring a suit on behalf of black residents of Jones County, N.C. The lawsuit, filed in federal court, alleges that the county’s at-large voting system has systematically prevented black residents, who comprise almost one-third of the county, from electing the candidates of their choice to the county’s five-member Board of Commissioners. Since the five candidates receiving the most votes from across the county are elected to the board, the white majority can vote as a bloc to prevent black candidates from winning seats, the plaintiffs say. They argue that this election system has effectively sidelined the black community’s issues, since it is relatively easy to be elected without their votes. Instead, the plaintiffs propose creating single-member local districts, giving predominantly black neighborhoods a higher likelihood of electing their chosen candidate.

North Carolina: Lawsuit seeks voting rights for black rural residents in North Carolina | USA Today

In a bid to create a better chance for black residents of rural areas to get elected to local office, a team of civil rights and private lawyers has filed what one prominent civil rights organization calls the first major voting rights lawsuit of the year. Attorneys from from the Washington-based Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and two private law firms filed the suit Monday in federal court in North Carolina. The suit alleges that the black residents who account for about a third of the population in Jones County, N.C., are prevented from electing candidates who represent their needs because the county elects commissioners at large rather than by district. The complaint alleges the at-large system prevents black residents from electing black candidates from their communities, and says the at-large system dilutes black voting power.

North Carolina: Judges hear arguments over restricting governor’s powers | Associated Press

North Carolina's new Democratic governor and the entrenched Republican-led legislature battled in court on two fronts Friday over efforts to restrict the chief executive's ability to alter the state's recent conservative direction. A panel of three state trial court judges spent three hours listening to arguments over whether to continue blocking a law requiring Senate confirmation of Gov. Roy Cooper's Cabinet secretaries. The judges did not say when they would decide whether to continue blocking the law. Any order would be in effect until after a full hearing next month. Meanwhile, a revamped state elections board met for the first time Friday, hours after an appeals court temporarily reinstated a law stripping Cooper of his oversight of elections. Cooper's attorneys are asking the state Supreme Court to step in and again block that law. The General Assembly passed the law requiring Senate consent to Cooper's top appointees in December. It came in a surprise special session barely a week after Republican incumbent Pat McCrory conceded to Cooper in their close gubernatorial race and just before the Democrat took office.

North Carolina: Legal challenges leave future North Carolina elections in limbo | Carolina Public Press

The prospect for new state legislative districts this spring and elections this fall are dimming despite a court order, legal experts say. The situation is just one of several ongoing legal battles surrounding North Carolina elections. An elections schedule ordered by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in November requires new General Assembly districts to be drawn and approved by March 15 followed by a candidate filing period, primaries and a November election. The ruling came after a three-judge panel from the court ruled in August that nine North Carolina state Senate districts and 19 House districts were unconstitutional because they were drawn using race as the predominate factor.

North Carolina: Judges Suspend Limit on Governor’s Powers | The New York Times

A three-judge state court panel in North Carolina on Tuesday held up part of a new Republican-backed law that strips important power from the newly elected Democratic governor. The ruling, temporarily halting the requirement that the governor seek legislative approval for his cabinet selections, escalated the partisan tensions that have shaken up the state, and came shortly before a scheduled State Senate hearing on one of Gov. Roy Cooper’s cabinet picks. Mr. Cooper has called the law, which was signed in December in the waning days of his Republican predecessor’s tenure, a politically motivated power grab. “The court is absolutely correct in their decision and should not be intimidated by threats from legislative leaders,” Mr. Cooper said in a statement, in which he urged the state “to put these partisan confirmation games behind us.” Passed in the bitter aftermath of November’s election, the limits on Mr. Cooper’s power prompted protests outside the North Carolina Capitol, where Republicans hold majorities in both chambers.

North Carolina: Cooper not tipping hand on whether he’ll withdraw voter ID appeal | WRAL

In a blog post and a Slate Magazine column Thursday, election law expert Richard Hasen suggests Gov. Roy Cooper could score a victory for opponents of North Carolina's voter ID law by scuttling the state's appeal of a 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling striking down the law. That 4th Circuit ruling did away with voter ID rules that were in place for last year's primary during the November election and forced elections officials to expand early voting times across the state. Former Republican Gov. Pat McCrory appealed the 4th Circuit decision, which struck down much of the 2013 law, including a provision that eliminated same-day registration. Cooper, a Democrat, refused to make the appeal himself when serving as attorney general and took over as governor on Jan. 1. Josh Stein, a Democrat and former state senator, took over as attorney general the same day.

North Carolina: After voter fraud claims, legislature could change election laws | The Charlotte Observer

Legislators are expected to revisit election laws this year in the wake of voter-fraud allegations made by former Gov. Pat McCrory’s campaign after the November election. McCrory’s campaign and Republican allies filed protests about voters who they suspected were either dead, serving felony sentences or voted more than once. They also challenged community groups funded by the N.C. Democratic Party that assisted voters with casting absentee ballots.

North Carolina: US Supreme Court makes no decision on redistricting case requiring 2017 elections | News & Observer

The U.S. Supreme Court justices offered no clue Thursday as to whether special elections ordered for North Carolina in 2017 will move ahead. The justices went behind closed doors together in the morning. Materials had been distributed to the eight Supreme Court members on the North Carolina redistricting case in which a federal three-judge panel found 28 state House and Senate districts to be unconstitutional racial gerrymanders. The justices issued no order – leaving uncertainty about whether the high court would take up the case, and if so how quickly it would be heard and decided. The three-judge panel issued its ruling in August. In November, after voters went to the polls to elect candidates in the districts that had been declared unconstitutional, the judges ordered new maps to be drawn for the 28 flawed districts by March and elections held in any of the altered districts this year.

North Carolina: US Supreme Court puts 2017 legislative election, redistricting on hold pending appeal | News & Observer

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday put a court-ordered legislative redistricting and 2017 special election on hold while it reviews Republican legislators’ appeal in an ongoing lawsuit. A lower federal court ruled months ago that the current legislative districts are an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, and it ordered the General Assembly to draw new districts by March 15 and hold a rare off-year election in altered districts this November. Tuesday’s Supreme Court order puts that order on hold until a Jan. 19 conference among the justices at which they will consider an appeal seeking to keep the current districts in place. From that conference behind closed doors, it could become clearer whether there will be elections held in 2017. The justices could immediately dismiss the appeal and keep the order for new maps and new elections this year. Or they could ask attorneys involved in the case to give them more briefs in the case and set arguments for later in the year, leaving the question of an election this year ambiguous. Since the court is currently missing a ninth justice following Antonin Scalia’s death, a 4-4 decision would keep the lower court’s ruling in place.

North Carolina: Another call for independent redistricting | News & Observer

A coalition of organizations called again on Wednesday for an independent redistricting process aimed at removing politics from the drawing of legislative and congressional maps in North Carolina. While the effort has failed several times in the past, advocates say the uncertainty surrounding the latest legal complication might lead to more bipartisan support. On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily halted a lower court’s order that the state redraw what it called racially gerrymandered maps and hold new elections in them. For now, that leaves unresolved the question of whether new maps and new elections will be required. A special election would mean some legislators would serve one-year instead of two-year terms.

North Carolina: Supreme Court Blocks Special Elections in North Carolina | The New York Times

The Supreme Court on Tuesday blocked a trial court’s ruling ordering special elections in North Carolina that would have truncated the terms of many lawmakers in the state. The Supreme Court’s brief order included no reasoning, and it said the temporary stay of the lower court’s decision would last only as long as it took the justices to consider an appeal from state officials. In August, the trial court found that the state’s legislative map had been tainted by unconstitutional racial gerrymandering. But it allowed the November election to proceed, saying there was not enough time to draw new legislative maps.

North Carolina: Judges decide to keep North Carolina election law blocked | Associated Press

A law North Carolina Republicans approved scaling back the new Democratic governor's control over election boards won't be enforced until his legal challenge to it is resolved, state judges decided Thursday. A panel of trial court judges is granting the request by Gov. Roy Cooper to extend a temporary 10-day block on the law, which Cooper argues is unconstitutional because it shifts appointment powers from him to legislative leaders. Cooper sued GOP legislative leaders just before his New Year's Day swearing-in, challenging a law the General Assembly approved in a surprise special session barely a week after Republican incumbent Pat McCrory conceded to Cooper in their close race. Barring any appeals, the incremental victory for Cooper keeps separate the State Board of Elections and the State Ethics Commission and halts what his allies considered an illegal power grab by Republicans. But GOP legislators said the blocked law would promote bipartisanship in carrying out elections. "We're pleased with the result," Cooper spokeswoman Noelle Talley said in an email.

North Carolina: Judges block elections board overhaul as Roy Cooper’s lawsuit pends | News & Observer

A three-judge panel Thursday upheld Gov. Roy Cooper’s request to block a revamp of the state elections board while his lawsuit makes its way through the courts. In the first hearing before the panel of judges assigned to the case this week, Greensboro attorney Jim Phillips argued for Cooper that a law adopted by the General Assembly in one of its special sessions last month violates the constitutional separation of powers. It was a similar argument to one made last week by Phillips on the eve of the date the law would have disbanded the five-member state Board of Elections and passed its duties to the state Ethics Commission. The merger was set to happen on Jan. 1, but Wake County Superior Court Judge Donald Stephens temporarily blocked the law from taking effect. His restraining order was set to expire Monday. The three-judge panel – assigned to the case because of the constitutional questions the new law raises – heard from the lawyers for nearly three hours before retreating behind closed doors. The panel contacted attorneys in the case several hours later, letting them know that they had granted Cooper’s request. They instructed Phillips to write an order, circulate it among the legislators’ lawyers and return it to them by Friday.

North Carolina: Judges refuse to delay court-ordered 2017 legislative elections | WRAL

Three federal judges on Wednesday denied a request by state lawmakers to postpone their earlier order requiring new state House and state Senate districts be drawn and elections be held this year. The judges ruled last August that lawmakers had relied too heavily on race when they drew 28 legislative districts in 2011, but they said there wasn't enough time to rectify the situation before the November elections. So, they later ordered lawmakers to redraw the districts by March 15 and hold primaries in the summer and a special general election in the fall. Lawmakers have appealed the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, but they also filed a motion with the three-judge panel to stay their decision, arguing that voters chose their legislators to serve for the next two years and that the state shouldn't have to invest resources in a special election.

North Carolina: Justice Roberts Sets New Filing Deadline In North Carolina Racial Gerrymandering Case | TPM

Chief Justice John Roberts requested on Tuesday that a response be filed to an emergency request by North Carolina late last month that the 2017 special elections ordered by a federal court be put off as the case that prompted them -- a major racial gerrymandering lawsuit -- is appealed. The move Tuesday was a fairly minor procedural move by Roberts, who oversees the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals where North Carolina resides, but the emergency request suggests an attempt to put off special elections where Republicans risk losing seats with the redrawn districts. The state officials' legal moves are also part of a series of last-ditch efforts by North Carolina Republicans to undermine incoming Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.

North Carolina: GOP legislative leaders ask US Supreme Court to halt 2017 elections | News & Observer

Attorneys for state leaders on Friday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block elections ordered for 2017 after a federal court found 28 state Senate and House districts were illegal racial gerrymanders. The 39-page filing asks Chief Justice John Roberts for emergency intervention to put a halt to the three-judge panel’s order for redrawn districts by March and a special election in 2017. The petition asks for the chief justice to enter an order by Jan. 11, when the General Assembly is set to convene its next session. “On Election Day, millions of North Carolina voters went to the polls and selected the state legislators who would represent them in the General Assembly for two-year terms in accordance with the North Carolina Constitution. Or so they thought,” Paul Clement, a Washington-based attorney representing the state, stated in the petition signed by Thomas Farr, a Raleigh-based attorney who has represented the legislators on redistricting, Phil Strach, another Raleigh-based attorney, and Alexander McC. Peters of the state attorney general’s office.

North Carolina: Judge puts GOP elections board makeover on hold after Roy Cooper sues | News & Observer

Governor-elect Roy Cooper filed a lawsuit Friday challenging the General Assembly’s special session law that revamps the state elections board. The lawsuit was the second filed in the waning days of Gov. Pat McCrory’s administration that challenge changes that were adopted by the General Assembly in a special session in December and signed into law by the Republican governor. On Thursday, the state Board of Education sued legislators over a law that would transfer their power to set education policy to the new state superintendent, a Republican. An attorney representing Cooper said at a court hearing Friday that more challenges could be filed next week by the new Democratic governor contesting other changes to his appointment powers – setting the stage for a contentious beginning between the state’s chief executive officer and the Republican lawmakers at the helm of both General Assembly chambers. Cooper is scheduled to be sworn in as governor as soon after midnight on Jan. 1 as possible, though his public inauguration is not taking place until Jan. 7.

North Carolina: Election-count fight may foreshadow new GOP legislation | Associated Press

A fight over vote-counting that stretched beyond Election Day offers a likely preview of how Republicans may attempt to re-do North Carolina’s ballot-access laws in 2017. Earlier this month, Republican Gov. Pat McCrory conceded his narrow loss to Democrat Roy Cooper several weeks after the Nov. 8 general election. His concession followed a protracted debate over how ballots were cast, though the tug-of-war has implications beyond the election cycle. North Carolina voting-rights activists say little or no evidence of fraud has been found despite weeks spent reviewing formal complaints. But on Wednesday, the conservative-leaning Civitas Institute said it has formally requested information from six county elections boards and the state that could serve as evidence for changing voting laws at the General Assembly or as the basis for legal action.

North Carolina: Gov. Pat McCrory sought SBI probe in Bladen County, but agency isn’t investigating | News & Observer

The State Bureau of Investigation hasn’t launched the criminal probe that Gov. Pat McCrory requested recently into allegations of voter fraud in Bladen County. Republicans had filed a complaint claiming that a handful of people there may have improperly submitted hundreds of absentee ballots, while also getting paid for get-out-the-vote efforts by a community group funded by the N.C. Democratic Party. The State Board of Elections held a hearing on the complaint earlier this month and rejected it, arguing that attorneys for Republicans had not presented substantial evidence sufficient to change the outcome of the election. But they unanimously agreed to refer the matter to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The issue stems from absentee ballots submitted with help from the Bladen County Improvement Association PAC, which received $2,500 from the N.C. Democratic Party for get-out-the-vote efforts. The ballots featured similar handwriting and the same choice for a write-in candidate for soil and water commissioner.

North Carolina: Governor Signs Law Limiting Successor’s Power | The New York Times

Amid a tense and dramatic backdrop of outrage and frustration, North Carolina’s Republican-controlled legislature on Friday approved a sweeping package of restrictions on the power of the governor’s office in advance of the swearing in of the Democratic governor-elect, Roy Cooper. Protesters spent a second day chanting and disrupting debate, as some were arrested and led away from the state legislative building in plastic wrist restraints. Democratic lawmakers repeatedly referred to the move as a “power grab” carried out by a Republican Party upset that their candidate, Gov. Pat McCrory, had lost the governor’s race. Republicans countered by emphasizing that they had suffered similar indignities for many decades when Democrats controlled the legislature here. State Senator Chad Barefoot, a Republican, said that the changes return “power that was grabbed during Democratic administrations in the 1990s, and some in the ’70s.” But some here said that Republicans’ effort to hobble the incoming governor had few parallels in recent North Carolina history.

North Carolina: Senate passes controversial merger of ethics, elections boards | WRAL

The state Senate has signed off on legislation that creates a single board to oversee the state's ethics, lobbying and elections administration. Republican sponsors insist it is aimed at creating a bipartisan panel to oversee all decisions on lobbying, elections and ethics rules. But that eight-member board would need six votes to take any action, something critics say would bog it down and make it less able to act. Senate readies elections, ethics overhaul "That will require bipartisan cooperation," said Sen. Tommy Tucker, R-Union. The idea, he said, would be to encourage consensus decisions. The measure passed 30-16 and is now headed to the House for consideration. Deliberations were interrupted by protestors who at various times laughed, clapped or expressed disapproval. After a third interruption, Lt. Gov. Dan Forest ordered the visitor's gallery cleared. That provoked an even louder outburst followed by chanting once the doors were finally locked.

North Carolina: Proposal to split elections boards between political parties moves ahead | News & Observer

A proposal to combine North Carolina’s elections, ethics and lobbyist regulation, among other provisions, was approved in the Senate on Thursday. Republican legislators who wrote Senate Bill 4 describe it as an effort to make elections oversight bipartisan. But the result would be to deprive the incoming Democratic administration of control of state and county elections boards. After Senate Republicans won a 30-16 vote along party lines, the bill was sent to the House. The Republican-led General Assembly called itself into special session on Wednesday and has been considering major changes to state government operations. SB 4 would replace the current State Board of Elections with the current eight-member State Ethics Commission. The new board would assume lobbying regulation duties from the Secretary of State. It would be run by the current director of the state elections office, Kim Strach, until a new board is seated in July and choses a director.

North Carolina: Concession in auditor race wraps up North Carolina elections | Associated Press

North Carolina's fall election essentially wrapped up Friday as the trailing candidate in the state auditor's race conceded near the end of a statewide recount and officials certified results for president, U.S. Senate, governor and scores of other contests. Democratic State Auditor Beth Wood won another four-year term after Republican challenger Chuck Stuber said it appears his campaign would come up short on the vote count. With nearly all 100 counties completing the recount Stuber requested earlier this week, Wood was leading by a little over 6,000 votes from more than 4.5 million votes cast. "Now that we have won I am ready to move forward with my third term to continue the mission in helping our state become a model for the nation in efficiency and budgetary effectiveness," Wood said in a release.

North Carolina: Gov. Pat McCrory concedes defeat to Roy Cooper as Durham County recount wraps up | News & Observer

Gov. Pat McCrory announced Monday that he’s conceded the election to Roy Cooper, assuring a new period of divided power in state government. Four years after becoming the first Republican to win the North Carolina governor’s office in more than two decades, McCrory made the concession in a video message posted around noon Monday as a recount he requested in Durham County entered its final hours. Durham officials finished the recount later Monday with virtually no change in the vote tally there. “I personally believe that the majority of our citizens have spoken, and we now should do everything we can to support the 75th governor of North Carolina, Roy Cooper,” McCrory said in the video. “The McCrory administration team will assist in every way to help the new administration make a smooth transition. “It’s time to celebrate our democratic process and respect what I see to be the ultimate outcome of the closest North Carolina governor’s race in modern history.”

North Carolina: Pat McCrory, North Carolina Governor, Concedes After Acrimonious Race | The New York Times

Ending an acrimonious stalemate that dragged on for nearly a month, Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican, conceded in his bid for re-election here on Monday, clearing the way for the ascension of his challenger, the Democrat Roy Cooper, and giving the national Democratic Party a rare cause for celebration. Mr. Cooper, the state attorney general, declared victory on election night, but Mr. McCrory’s allies lodged election challenges in dozens of North Carolina counties, enraging Democrats who accused Republicans of being sore losers, or worse, in one of 2016’s closest statewide races. Most of the challenges proved to be of little consequence, however. And by Monday, as partial results of a recount of more than 90,000 votes that Republicans had demanded in Durham County showed no significant change in the results, Mr. McCrory — whose one term was buffeted by nationwide anger over a law he signed that curbed anti-discrimination protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people — had little choice but to admit defeat.

North Carolina: Durham County officials should meet Monday deadline for vote recount | News & Observer

The recount of about 94,000 ballots in Durham County should be finished well before the 7 p.m. Monday deadline, officials said Sunday as the tabulations were in full swing. The Durham County Board of Elections hired more than 50 locals and brought in extra vote-counting machines to help speed the recount, which began Saturday afternoon after emergency meetings held by both the county board and the state board of elections that tackled controversial election issues around the state. Workers were on pace to count more than two-thirds of the disputed ballots by the end of the day Sunday, officials said, leaving more than enough time Monday to finish the rest and let people know where the governor’s race stands. The recount worked like an assembly line. One worker handed ballots to another worker standing at one of 26 machines, feeding them in. Others watched to make sure everything was proper. Several hours into Sunday’s work, the recount was averaging approximately 5,000 ballots per hour.