THE BLUE AND WHITE

By Ferrari Zhang

All eyes are on perhaps the most important election in US history: the ultimate showdown between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. This is very much understandable: every US presidential election will produce headlines continuously. Mr. Trump’s policy positions and statements have an especially wonderful effect on the media. To cite P.T. Barnum, “There is no such thing as bad publicity”.  

This leads me to my next point. You probably don’t know about the State Supreme Court elections in each state because all the attention is directed towards the antics of presidential candidates. It is also not your fault, because American civics is equally hard, if not harder than Canadian civics. It is also very perverted, as you’ll see, because winning enough of these State Supreme races can allow both parties to gain a ridiculous amount of political power in these states. Let me illustrate this to you.

Tracing Power Dynamics:

This is the state of North Carolina. It is one of the seven swing states currently winnable by both sides, but Trump won here by 1.4% last year. In 2024, it will hold elections for President, House of Representatives, Governor, State General Assembly, and nine other important positions known as the Council of State. 

As you might have heard already, the Republican candidate for governor, Mark Robinson, self-identified as a “Black Nazi” on a certain type of public forum and there was a torrent of media attention on that. But this is inconsequential to political power in the state, because the State General Assembly, controlled by a veto-proof majority of Republicans, has continuously stripped the governor of more of his powers since 2017. Conveniently, the governor since 2017 is Roy Cooper, a Democrat. 

So now you might ask: why can’t the Democrats just flip the General Assembly? Well, in most states in the US, including North Carolina, the state legislature draws their own maps. This allows them to draw districts in a way that disproportionately favors them, a phenomenon known as gerrymandering. This is why Republicans win very big majorities in the GA even when Democrats win the popular vote. In 2018, Democrats won 50.5% of the vote, but only 55 out of 120 seats. 

Of course Democrats can hope to one day win 60% of the vote in North Carolina, but that won’t happen anytime soon. So what is “really” the most important election in North Carolina? 

Answer: the North Carolina Supreme Court elections. 

What exactly do state Supreme Courts do de jure and de facto? Why does it matter?

State Supreme Courts do so many things and have so many powers it’s frankly illogical that they are not discussed more during election season. 

They are technically the final arbiter of any state law in their state, and appeals to their interpretation of federal laws are not guaranteed to be heard by the federal Supreme Court. It can always review redistricting at both the state level and the congressional level, and can sometimes also review popular initiatives. Some state courts can block popular initiatives as they Even though it usually only hears appeals from the State Appellate Courts, in some states, disputes surrounding redistricting and the State Constitution start directly from the state Supreme Court. To put that in more simple terms, state Supreme Courts have almost unlimited control over how state laws are interpreted and can strike down congressional maps they don’t like. 

State Supreme Court justices are extremely partisan in all but name. The media can typically identify justices as “liberal” or “conservative” even if they do not have party labels. Once elected, they serve terms of six to ten years and can only be removed in the middle of their term if two-thirds of the state Senate votes to do so. They are also almost never defeated for reelection because people don’t pay attention to their elections. In short, this is a system with high partisanship and almost zero accountability. 

This affects both social issues and national politics. On the state level, this looks like abortion rights, now a state issue, being determined not by the people but arbitrarily by state Supreme Courts. For example, in Arkansas, the Republican-controlled Court struck down a referendum on abortion rights when its current policy, a complete ban, is only supported by around one-eighth of all Arkansans. On the federal level, this looks like both parties fighting over control of Congress not by campaigning, but by electing state Supreme Court justices that are friendly to manipulation on their side. That’s how North Carolina is in the situation it is right now: the state Supreme Court flipped back to Republican control, which allowed the GA to draw congressional districts in a way that ensures a loss of three seats by Democrats this year. In this political climate, those three seats may be the difference between controlling Congress or not. This is probably a strong case, then, on why you should follow state Supreme Court elections in the twenty or so states that have them.

Conclusion:

As a certain Pierre Elliott Trudeau once said, being next to the US is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered the beast is, one is affected by every twitch and grunt. In an America like this, every single state Supreme Court justice has immeasurable power over how the state, even the entire nation, is run. So if you want to look for the twitches, grunts, and roars of a not-so-even-tempered beast, look at the State Supreme Court elections. You’ll learn surprising things.