Law and the Courts

North Carolina election employees could soon be facing stricter scrutiny. House members rolled out a bill Tuesday night (that has not yet been officially posted online) requiring all current and prospective permanent and temporary employees of boards of elections, including the State Board, to undergo criminal background checks and fingerprinting.

Unsurprisingly, the agenda for the General Assembly's "short session" that commences today in Raleigh is shrouded in secrecy. The recent primary election results — which unseated an unprecedented number of legislative incumbents — have North Carolinians wondering if GOP lawmakers will go into the session guns ablaze or if they will take a tamer approach to prepare for the November election.

Hundreds of North Carolinians turned out over the weekend to run a jagged race around downtown Raleigh in an effort to raise awareness about gerrymandering. It’s an issue that has plagued the state for years. Here are some numbers to provide further context: 7 — the number of redistricting legislative bills that have filed this decade calling for an independent redistricting commission or impartial process blind of political consideration.

More than 100 judges with thousands of years of combined experience could be wiped from the North Carolina bench by one bail bondsman who has served less than a decade in the General Assembly, and no one really knows why.

Legislative Services Officer Paul Coble appears to be violating the state public records law and is forcing taxpayers to foot the bill for communications with reporters that could be free. There aren’t any formal policies at the Legislative Services Office (which Coble oversees and that is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the General Assembly) to address communications with reporters or compliance with public records laws, but Coble has informally decided to use the U.S. Postal Service for all of them.

There have only been seven women to serve on the state Supreme Court in its 199-year history. In comparison, 92 men have served during that time.

Giselle Meléndez had five miscarriages, went through three In Vitro Fertilization cycles and had to wait five years before finally becoming a mother.

The North Carolina General Assembly passed a law last year making it easier for third parties to get on the ballot, and the Green Party has achieved official status. The Electoral Freedom Act of 2017 is probably best known for its elimination of judicial election primaries this year, but the bill also eased ballot restrictions for third parties.

When Lucia Salmeron thinks about her trailer, she thinks about her family’s future – her children riding their bikes with their friends in a neighborhood they love; she and her husband working on their home renovations; everyone being surrounded by a close-knit community of which they’ve spent years becoming a part.

It took five deadlocked votes along party lines and a failed suggestion to draw names from a hat for eight members of the State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement to finally agree on two nominees to serve in what could be a tie-breaking ninth seat.

Constitutional challenges, especially over the last year, have been highly politically charged in North Carolina and the three-judge panels appointed to hear those cases wield a lot of power with little transparency as to how they got it.

Any protection the courts offer Dreamers is temporary, but all eyes are on the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether it will take on the Trump administration’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

Lawmakers late last week released two new versions of a judicial redistricting bill, making these the eighth and ninth maps released since last summer.

As lawmakers prepare to vote later this week on measures that are a secret to the rest of North Carolina, there is fear in some circles judicial reform could be put back on the table. House, Senate and joint committees have been talking about judicial redistricting and judicial selection for months without agreement between the two chambers.