(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . North Carolina Open Thread: Voter suppression on the docket at NC Supreme Court [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-02-05 ABC-11, 2/4/2023 RALEIGH, N.C. -- The new Republican majority on North Carolina's Supreme Court agreed on Friday to rehear redistricting and voter identification cases less than two months after the court's previous edition, led by Democrats, issued major opinions going against GOP legislators who had been sued. The extraordinary decisions, granted in orders backed by five justices with the Republican voter registrations on the seven-member court, mean the issues will return to the court for oral arguments in mid-March. With hopes of getting new legal results, lawmakers led by House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate leader Phil Berger asked two weeks ago that the justices rehear the litigation. The two Democratic justices lamented the orders and said they stood against more than 200 years of court history in which rehearings have been exceedingly rare. They said it appeared it was happening simply because the court's partisan makeup had changed. Two new Republican justices took office in early January after winning November elections for seats held by Democrats. "The legal issues are the same; the evidence is the same; and the controlling law is the same," Associate Justice Anita Earls wrote in the dissent of the order agreeing to rehear the redistricting case. "The only thing that has changed is the political composition of the Court." NC Policy Watch, Kelan Lyons, 2/3/2023 They packed the courtroom early, filling so many seats that a line stretched out the door of the building in downtown Raleigh that houses the North Carolina Supreme Court. In years past, many of the onlookers had been in handcuffs, jails and prison cells. Now, they wanted access to the ballot box. Those in line were told the courtroom was full shortly before oral arguments began. The overflow crowd walked down the street to First Baptist Church to watch the hearing streamed live in a basketball gym. Below the projection screen was a sign with a simple demand: “Unlock Our Vote.” The state Supreme Court on Thursday held a hearing on whether North Carolinians should have the right to vote while on probation or parole. The case, CSI vs. Moore, is a challenge to North Carolina’s felony disenfranchisement law, which bars people from voting if they are incarcerated and if they are on some form of supervision over a felony conviction. Last year, a Superior Court in Wake County issued a landmark ruling in favor of the plaintiffs, effectively restoring the right to vote of 56,000 people in the run-up to the 2022 midterms. The ruling kicked off a rush among civil rights organizers in North Carolina to tell those “second-chance voters” that they had regained their access to the ballot box, NC Policy Watch and Bolts reported in November. Some of them got to vote in November thanks to the ruling, which made North Carolina one of 24 states where anyone not incarcerated can vote.. But the 2022 midterms upended the political context in North Carolina by flipping the partisan majority of the state Supreme Court. Republicans picked up two seats, shifting the court to a 5-2 Republican majority and significantly diminishing the odds of major civil rights litigation like this lawsuit. Thanks for reading and contributing, wishing you a safe week. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/5/2151191/-North-Carolina-Open-Thread-Voter-suppression-on-the-docket-at-NC-Supreme-Court Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/