Do you remember the show Extreme Makeover? Ty Pennington and his crew would take a steamroller to a struggling family’s home and completely remodel it in a week. That’s kind of like what’s happening in North Carolina - except it’s the legislature instead of Ty, the family isn’t struggling, it's unclear if a remodel is needed or if updating the drapes would do the trick, and it’s the entire judicial branch instead of a house.
One of the best exchanges from this week's Select Committee on Judicial Redistricting and Reform hearing:
North Carolina State Senator Paul Newton: “Regardless of which [judicial] system you are under now, if you are in a situation where the public believes that the judges are ruling consistent not with the law but with a political ideology, that would severely undermine the public’s confidence in the system and would be a trigger to change the way you are nominating judges. Do you agree that would be time to make a change?”Scott Gaylord, Professor of Law at Elon University and judiciary pro: “Our perspective influences what we think the law is.”Paul Newton gets up and walks out several minutes later.
Extreme Makeover: Judicial Branch edition
Do you remember the show Extreme Makeover? Ty Pennington and his crew would take a steamroller to a struggling family’s home and completely remodel it in a week. That’s kind of like what’s happening in North Carolina - except it’s the legislature instead of Ty, the family isn’t struggling, it's unclear if a remodel is needed or if updating the drapes would do the trick, and it’s the entire judicial branch instead of a house.
A super quick primer on the judicial branch:
The state judicial system deals with cases that involve state law, and the federal judicial system deals with cases that involve federal law. Simple enough. But within the state judicial branch, there are several types of courts that process everything from traffic tickets to the constitutionality of laws passed by the North Carolina General Assembly:
Does the judicial branch need an Extreme Makeover?
Both Republicans and Democrats believe that the judicial branch needs some updating, especially because some districts could be considered unconstitutional. Ideally, districts should have have equal populations. It has been over 40 years since the districts were drawn, so the population disparity between urban districts and rural districts has become pretty extreme. Despite the need to address population concerns, watchdog groups are extremely freaked out by the legislature's moves given their history of disenfranchising voters (see “gerrymandering”). Gov. Cooper believes that the legislature is simply mad that the courts have not always ruled in their favor on how legal the laws are that they've passed, so they want to pick their own judges. Given the exchange above and tweets from legislators, these are justified concerns.
How do they want to remake the judicial branch? Here’s how they want to remake the judicial branch in North Carolina: