2025-05-17
The right wing just committed a major blunder
Over the last several decades, few initiatives of the American political right have met with greater sustained success than the relentless crusade to capture control of the courts. The U.S. Supreme Court’s reactionary majority is, of course, the ultimate and most visible example of this success, but the ongoing effort to politicize and radicalize the judiciary has borne fruit in many places.See, for example, the appellate courts in North Carolina where, thanks to the investment of big dollars and a whatever-it-takes-to-win approach to campaigning, Republicans have captured sizable majorities on the state’s Supreme Court (5-2) and Court of Appeals (11-4).By spending millions of dollars and waging a determined and unabashed culture-war-based ground game that has helped spur conservative voters to action in bottom-of-the-ballot races that once were treated as nonpartisan, the GOP has transformed the state appellate courts through a series of narrow electoral wins into a rubber stamp for its gerrymandered legislative majorities.And while progressives have tried to push back periodically, they’ve mostly found themselves in a defensive posture and promoting bland messages like “let’s keep the courts fair” or “we need judges who will respect the Constitution” – themes that are true and accurate enough, but that were never capable of firing up the troops.And then along came Jefferson Griffin.Six months ago, millions of Democratic- and progressive-leaning North Carolinians had only the vague idea of how the state’s courts were organized – much less the identities of the people who serve on them. Incumbent Democratic Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs was a mostly anonymous jurist – well-known only among the state’s small cadre of civil rights and civil liberties lawyers of which she was once a member.Today, thanks to Griffin’s ill-conceived and politically disastrous effort to overturn his loss to Riggs in last November’s state Supreme Court election by tossing thousands of ballots, everything has changed.Conservative pundits and pols may be spinning the brave face notion that Griffin’s failed challenge helped advance the cause of “voter integrity” – that is, identifying categories of voters on whom Republicans can impose new roadblocks to voting – and one suspects that’s something they will pursue.But by far the biggest and most important impact of Griffin’s failed effort is the transformative boost it’s given to progressives and Democrats in awakening them to the importance of judicial elections.Indeed, a lot of Republican and conservative operatives are likely wanting to kick themselves right now, or at least, Griffin. Had he quietly conceded last November after a second recount confirmed his defeat, it would have been a disappointment for the right, but hardly a defeat of great consequence.Republicans would have still maintained their large majority on the high court and most North Carolinians would have quickly forgotten about the contest.Today, however, after six months of dreadful nationwide publicity for Griffin in which he was rightfully portrayed as a sore loser, along with six months of unprecedented organizing and messaging by dozens of progressive good government advocates and advocacy groups, the visibility of the state courts is dramatically different.Meanwhile, Justice Riggs has emerged as a minor political rock star.Thanks to her willingness to abandon the traditional tight-lipped posture of Democratic judicial candidates by stepping out and running a very public campaign to rally public support for her legal argument to count all the votes that were cast, Riggs, in effect, beat the right at its own game.For the first time in recent memory, a young, progressive Democratic judge presented herself as (and spoke to average people like) a real person with whom they could easily identify – not just a distant and vaguely mysterious figure in judicial robes voicing sober legal platitudes.It’s no wonder that other Democratic judicial candidates are already lining up to invite her to headline their campaign fundraisers.And, of course, for Democrats and other progressives looking to alter North Carolina’s political environment by breaking Republicans’ gerrymandered strangleholds on the legislature and U.S. House delegation, all of this news could scarcely have come at a better time.At the heart of the GOP gerrymandering success is the party’s control of the state Supreme Court. If Democrats are to have any hope of seeing fair redistricting maps return to North Carolina – maps that would reflect a state that, as the Riggs-Griffin election demonstrated in stark terms, is evenly divided between the two major parties – they’ll have to end the current GOP dominance of the high court. And that will necessitate winning elections in 2026, 2028 and 2030, prior to the next scheduled round of redistricting in 2031.Whether Democrats can capitalize on their recent good fortune in those upcoming elections remains, of course, very much an open question. Notwithstanding the outrage and enthusiasm of recent months, voter memories can be short, and it’s a sure thing that that big GOP dollars and hardball tactics aren’t going anywhere.For now, though, the chance that Democrats can reverse recent patterns in judicial elections looks much brighter than it did at this time last year. And all those concerned can thank Jefferson Griffin for the sea change.
