Progressives on the North Carolina’s Supreme Court voted 4 to 3 last week that because the state’s legislature was – in their opinion – unconstitutionally gerrymandered, Republican lawmakers may have lacked the power to approve amendments to the state constitution and put them before voters.
The ruling threatens to strike down two amendments Republicans passed in 2018—one to require photo voter ID and another to cap any state income tax at 7 percent. State House Speaker Tim Moore decried the ruling as a “judicial coup” and vowed to fight the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
But North Carolina voters, along with electorates in states like Michigan and Ohio, will have a chance to rein in such excesses this November when judicial elections will decide the ideological majority of the state supreme courts. If conservatives win one more seat in any of those states, the make-up of the new courts will favor pro-liberty outcomes.