Supreme Court Vacancy Presents Biden Opportunity

 By Mildred Robertson

President Biden stands on the precipice of perhaps the most daunting task of his administration. The nomination of the next Supreme Court Justice. With the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, he will have the opportunity to nominate a justice who will at least hold the status quo in an extremely conservative court. Biden has compiled an impressive list of highly qualified jurists to consider for the appointment.  He has pledged to nominate an African American female, and two North Carolina judges are on his shortlist.

Among those Biden is considering is North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls, an African-American civil rights attorney and educator and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and Cheri Beasley, former chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court. Beasley had previously served on the North Carolina Court of Appeals and as a district court judge in Cumberland County, NC. She is the presumptive nominee for the 2022 U.S. Senate race in North Carolina.

Both of these jurists are highly qualified and would provide a much-needed balance on a court that has been skewed hard right thanks to Mitch McConnell’s manipulation of the Senate rules. Just this past July the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a severe blow to the 1965 Voting Rights Act as it ruled against the Democratic National Committee in the Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee case. The court’s ruling diminished the power of federal courts to protect U.S. citizens from voting rights discrimination. It is one of the many decisions the court will address in the near future that has far-reaching implications on the daily lives of American citizens.

So as President Joe Biden prepares to make his first, and perhaps only, nomination to the court, his decision will influence this nation’s jurisprudence for years to come. Supreme Court judges receive what can amount to lifetime appointments; a constitutional design intended to ensure the Court's independence from the President and Congress.

This nomination should be a slam-dunk; at least if the Democratic Caucus can hold together all fifty of its members, and Mitch McConnell doesn’t come up with some new shenanigans. But even with a successful nomination, the court is currently wildly slanted to the right. McConnell artfully blocked President Obama from seating his Supreme Court pick, rammed through a Trump nominee accused of sexual misconduct, and confirmed an ultra-conservative female just days before a presidential election.

The next nominee to the Supreme Court is but one of the issues this administration and this congress must face. The court plays a crucial role in invalidating legislation or executive actions that conflict with the Constitution. It is designed to ensure individual rights and maintain a Constitution whose broad provisions are continually applied to complicated and new situations. "EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAW” are words written above the main entrance to the Supreme Court Building. They express the ultimate responsibility of the Supreme Court of the United States.

It seems, however, that the John Roberts Supreme Court has greater allegiance to preserving partisan ideals than to upholding the provisions of the constitution that validate our freedoms.  The Court no longer appears to hold to the concept of settled law and is forging its own conservative path on issues such as abortion and voting rights. Instead, it now allows states to chip away at the foundation of these long-held beliefs.

So as Biden contemplates his Supreme Court nominee, he must also ponder whether it is time to look at the overall makeup of the court. He and congress must determine whether additional seats must be added to the court in order to negate its current partisan bent. It may be the only way for all Americans to receive equal justice under the law from the highest court in the land.  

The Southern Strategy Revisited: Suppressing Minority Votes

 By Mildred Robertson

Well, as North Carolinians await an NC Supreme Court decision on litigation of recently gerrymandered redistricting maps they don’t know when they will get to cast their primary ballots. The Court has scheduled an expedited hearing on February 2 to hear challenges against the redrawn maps. North Carolina’s primary was already moved from March 8 to May 17 to accommodate ongoing litigation. Now Republicans want to move NC Primaries to June 7 in hopes of getting the Court’s approval to use gerrymandered maps in the 2022 mid-term elections. On January 19 the NC Senate will determine whether to schedule the Primary on June 7.

Plaintiffs presenting at the February 2 Supreme Court hearing oppose the redrawn district maps saying they are partisan gerrymandered, and therefore unconstitutional. While the trial court judges agree that the maps were drawn to give Republicans an advantage, they don’t see anything in the constitution that would prohibit it. They say partisanship is part of the political process and does not affect a person’s right to “cast” a ballot.

A major issue we face nationwide is the matter of voter nullification. It is not our desire just to have access to the ballot. We must also make sure that once a ballot is cast, it is counted. Republican legislatures across the nation have engaged in a series of efforts to not only manage who has access to the ballot box, but how each ballot is tallied once it is cast.   North Carolina is among the states working to quash the voice of minorities and progressives across this nation through gerrymander voting districts.

So that is the challenge in North Carolina. Voters must wait to see whether the Court will allow their votes to be nullified by maps that don’t reflect their will. By packing and cracking minorities and progressives into several districts (either packing these voters into several large districts or separating and diluting the number of like-minded voters in a target district), Republicans can reduce the number of districts that might deliver seats to the Democratic Party. The GOP maps are expected to give North Carolina Republicans a 10-4 or 11-3 majority in House and strong majorities in the state’s 2022 election.  

Republican Sen. Ralph Hise complains that the current schedule is an extremely short time frame that will cause unnecessary confusion and chaos. However, what is causing confusion and chaos is the Republican attempt to lessen the impact of minority and progressive voters. Note that Carolina Demography indicates that as July 2020 roughly 36% of North Carolinians are registered Democrats, with only 30 % registered Republican. The remainder of North Carolinians are unaffiliated or registered with another party.

The NC Court’s decision that the gerrymander districts do not impede access to the ballot box is just a clever way to ignore the fact that, while everyone may have the right to cast a ballot, the weight of each individual vote is skewed based on packing and cracking by the Republican majority that diminishes the impact of some ballots.

Let’s hope the North Carolina Supreme Court sees it differently.

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Update January 19, 2022: Republican state lawmakers passed a bill Wednesday that would delay North Carolina’s primary election a second time, but that bill is facing a potential veto by Gov. Roy Cooper (D) as Democrats were united in their opposition to it.  --CBS17.com

America’s Checkered Voting Rights History

By Mildred Robertson

While this nation is known as a representative government for the people by the people, its actual history tells quite a different story. It appears the idea of America as a bastion of freedom is somewhat of a misnomer. As a young nation, we have spent more time denying citizens the right to self-govern than we have allowed them the freedom to participate.

For the disenfranchised masses, the battle has been ongoing throughout this nation’s history. That battle continues today as the Voting Rights legislation proposed by the Democratic Party languishes in a Congress that would prefer to exclude citizens rather than to gain full participation in the political process.

Even at its founding, this nation limited access to self-governance to white, landed males. During the Colonial and Revolutionary periods voting was restricted to property owners over the age of 21. When the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776, only landowners were allowed to vote. That translates to white males. When the U.S. Constitution was adopted in 1787 no federal voting standard existed. That meant that states decided who could vote. That, again, generally meant white male landowners. When George Washington became the first president of the United States in 1789, he was elected with only 6% of the U.S. population eligible to cast a vote.  

It seems that our inclination was to deny access to the vote rather than to promote democratic inclusion. As more and more immigrants came to America, the 1790 Naturalization Law was passed; explicitly stating that only “free white” immigrants could become naturalized citizens, and thus have access to the ballot box.  It wasn’t until 1856 that voting rights were extended to white men who were not property owners, with North Carolina being the last state to remove the property ownership requirement. It was thirteen years later, under the 14th Amendment when former slaves were granted citizenship. Still, only males were allowed to vote.

Even though in 1870 federal legislation held that the vote could not be denied because of race, explicitly, voting rights were left in the hands of the states. That is when primarily Southern states began to use discriminatory tactics to enact measures such as poll taxes and literacy tests to restrict the actual ability of African Americans to register to vote.

While disenfranchised populations struggled against this lack of inclusion, they met with fierce opposition. Violence and other intimidation tactics were widely used to discourage those who might want to exercise their right to vote.

In 1872 the white suffragette Susan B. Anthony attempted to vote in the presidential election. She was arrested and brought to trial in Rochester, New York. At the same time the former slave Sojourner Truth, an advocate for justice and equality, attempted to cast a ballot in Grand Rapids. She was turned away at the polls.  

Native Americans remained among the disenfranchised until 1887. The vote was denied to Indigenous people under the pretext that they were not citizens as defined by the 14th Amendment.  The vote was also denied to people of Chinese ancestry. In 1887 Native Americans were granted the right to vote if they agreed to give up their tribal affiliation.

It was 1890 when Wyoming was admitted to statehood and became the first state to legislate voting rights for women in its constitution. Native Americans were still required to go through Naturalization in order to be considered citizens and gain voting rights. It was 1920 before the 19^th Amendment granted women the right to vote both in state and federal elections. Still excluded were Asian Indians and people of Japanese descent. While The Indian Citizenship Act granted citizenship to Native Americans, many states still made laws and policies to keep them from voting. It was 1947 before legal barriers were removed to keep Native Americans from voting. It was 1952 when those of Asian ancestry were granted citizenship rights.

Citizens in Washington D.C. only gained the right to vote in the U.S. presidential election in 1961. Yet in 2022 citizens of the District of Columbia, most of whom are African American, still do not have voting representation in Congress.

As you can see, this fight is not new. But over the years those excluded from the democratic process have had victories that move us closer to the ideal governing state that we purport to be. It is time for America to become the stronghold of freedom and self-governance it professes itself to be. It is time that Congress enact the John Lewis Voting Rights Act of 2021.

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Source: Northern California Citizenship Project Mobilize the Immigrant Vote 2004 - Capacity Building Series