Although it has not gotten much coverage, a number of states had partisan elections for their supreme courts this year, and the GOP won consequential victories in Ohio and North Carolina.
Republicans went into the Ohio election with a 4–3 majority. (Two of the four, U.S. Supreme Court watchers might find amusing, happen to be named O’Connor and Kennedy.) Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor was past the state’s age limit and could not run again. A swing justice, she had repeatedly broken with other Republican justices and sided with the Democrats on Republican-drawn legislative maps, ruling that they were unlawfully gerrymandered. In fact, she used her final state of the judiciary address in September to criticize Republican leaders who rejected the court’s rulings and stated that she would work after her retirement to secure an amendment to the state constitution authorizing an independent redistricting commission.
Ohio had three seats in contention this year, including a contest for O’Connor’s seat between two sitting justices, Republican Sharon Kennedy and Democrat Jennifer Brunner. Kennedy won the election for chief justice, replacing a swing justice with a consistent conservative who has been outspoken against judicial activism. The vacancy created by Kennedy’s elevation to chief justice will be filled by Governor Mike DeWine, who has said he would announce his selection by the end of the year and did not comment on media reports that Hamilton County prosecuting attorney Joe Deters will be chosen. In the other two races, challenges to Republicans Pat DeWine and Patrick Fischer, both incumbents were able to retain their seats. (Mike DeWine is Justice Pat DeWine’s father and became governor two years after his son became a supreme court justice.)
In North Carolina, the state supreme court had a Democratic 4–3 majority—one that has made national headlines for its activism in inventing a state constitutional right against partisan gerrymandering and triggering review in Moore v. Harper before the U.S. Supreme Court. Two Democratic seats were on the ballot this year. Republican Trey Allen challenged incumbent Sam Ervin IV, and Republican Richard Dietz challenged Democrat Lucy Inman for the seat occupied by Robin Hudson, a Democrat who was nearing the state’s mandatory retirement age and did not seek re-election. Both Republicans won, flipping control of the court.
For years, the Left, most prominently former Attorney General Eric Holder’s National Democratic Redistricting Committee, has been pouring unprecedented amounts of money into state supreme court races. In recent years, however, conservatives have shifted their focus to this front, and Republican sweeps in both states are, in the words of the Republican State Leadership Committee, “a major blow to Eric Holder’s sue until it[’]s blue gerrymandering scheme.”
Time and time again, the activism of state supreme courts has displaced the authority of elected representatives. North Carolina provided an egregious example when its supreme court seized from the legislature the power to draw congressional districts and had its state courts create their own map. This past summer, the same court concocted a baseless legal standard by which voter-approved constitutional amendments proposed by the legislature could be struck down. This year’s election goes a long way to ensure that these judicial shenanigans will stop.