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Fair Representation
Candidate filing for the May 17 primaries closed Friday in North Carolina after a delayed start due to legal battles over redistricting. The NC State Board of Elections provides a complete list of all candidates who filed here.
On Wednesday the NC Department of Justice, voter advocacy groups, and a group of voters asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reject Republican lawmakers’ request to intervene in the state’s congressional redistricting process. After their redrawn congressional map was rejected by the trial court panel tasked by the N.C. Supreme Court with deciding whether new maps passed state constitutional muster, Republicans in the NC General Assembly appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to reject the state court’s decision, claiming that it was against the U.S. Constitution for the state Supreme Court to overrule the state legislature in redistricting. A recent article in Vox provides a detailed overview of what the U.S. Supreme Court might choose to do and the potentially high stakes of its choices.
Voting Rights
On Thursday the NC Supreme Court decided to take up a case about North Carolina’s voter ID law. The case, Holmes v. Moore, is one of several cases making their way through the courts that target the law, and by agreeing to hear the case in the summer, the NC Supreme Court is expediting the case by skipping the N.C. Court of Appeals. This case, brought by the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, doesn’t directly target the voter ID constitutional amendment; rather, it targets the law about enforcement of voter ID rules that was passed in a lame-duck session after passage of the constitutional amendment.
Health Care Policy
On Tuesday the NCGA’s joint committee to study Medicaid expansion met for the second time to hear from experts about the benefits and potential logistics of expanding Medicaid in North Carolina. The experts, both state and national, told lawmakers that Medicaid expansion would be very helpful for North Carolina, which they said is lagging behind other states in health care metrics. The committee will meet next on March 15.