The NC-NAACP’s challenge to North Carolina’s draconian 2013 voter suppression law — widely judged to be the worst in the nation, but currently poised to take full effect for the coming election — has bounced from U.S. District Court to the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court, and back again to U.S. District Court (where we recently lost) and now finds its way once again back to the 4th Circuit, in Richmond VA. Yesterday, the three-judge panel shown above heard oral arguments in the case, while bus-loads of NAACP supporters packed the gallery.
According to the Winston-Salem Journal:
Judge Henry F. Floyd questioned the timing of the changes — done after Republicans took control of state government for the first time in a century and after the U.S. Supreme Court undid key provisions of the Voting Rights Act — and whether they weren't done to suppress minority votes for political gain.
"It looks pretty bad to me," Floyd said.
Likewise:
Judge James A. Wynn Jr. asked pointed questions about why public assistance IDs, used disproportionately by minorities, were not acceptable in the final version of the law.
"Why did they take it out?" asked Wynn, a former North Carolina state appeals judge.
The last time these same three judges heard this case, in 2014, they were being asked by plaintiffs including the NC-NAACP and the U.S. Dept. of Justice to issue a preliminary injunction preventing the new law’s provisions from taking effect for the 2014 general election, while the case against it worked its way through the courts. They granted that injunction, but their decision was appealed to the (then) 9-member U.S. Supreme Court, where the injunction was overturned. U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Schroeder (a Bush appointee) then heard the full case in 2015 in Winston-Salem NC (where thousands of protesters, including your humble and obedient diarist and many other wonderful Kossacks, were on hand). We lost that round (predictably). Now we’re back again at the appellate level, where the court has fast-tracked the proceedings, presumably in order to issue a ruling before the November election.
I hate to risk jinxing things, but I (along with a lot of other, more knowledgeable people), like our odds here. Still, even a win in Richmond likely won’t put the matter to rest once and for all. Another appeal to the Supreme Court by NC Gov. Pat McCrory (R), currently embroiled in a neck-and-neck re-election campaign against NC Attorney General Roy Cooper (D), seems inevitable.
Except there are only eight justices on the Supreme Court this time around….
Revenge is a dish best served cold.