Neighbors on Call’s NC Policy Update for 1/13/2025

Governance

• The NCGA’s legislative session began on Wednesday. New members were sworn in, including Democrats Bryan Cohn in the NC House and Terrence Everitt in the NC Senate, whose victories were finalized with the issue of certificates two days prior to the start of the session.  Legislators signaled that relief for Western NC counties affected by Hurricane Helene would be a top priority once debate begins later in January.

Voting Rights 

• Last Monday U.S. District Judge Richard Myers II sent Jefferson Griffin’s challenge in the race for NC Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs’s seat back to state court. Shortly after Myers’s decision, both Justice Riggs and the State Board of Elections filed notice of appeal in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. The next day the NC Supreme Court issued a ruling blocking the certification of Riggs’s victory, voting 4-2 to allow Griffin’s challenge to move forward. Griffin had improperly followed appeal procedure by asking the NC Supreme Court to review his challenge rather than appealing in Wake County Superior Court, which means that the State Board of Elections could have certified Rigg’s win had the state Supreme Court not intervened.

• A federal appeals court will hear the NC Supreme Court elections case: Ruling comes hours after a state court judge denied a GOP request for immediate action to invalidate votes cast in November. –Lynn Bonner, NC Newsline

• In a separate lawsuit brought in Wake County Superior Court, the state Republican Party and the Republican National Committee, along with the Wake County Republican Party and two voters, challenged over 60,000 ballots, seeking to have votes in many statewide races discarded. The Democratic National Committee submitted a brief opposing the challenge, pointing out that most of the races in question have already been certified, and that throwing out these ballots would mean retroactively disenfranchising tens of thousands of legitimately registered voters.