New Dem Governor Reverses Course In Major North Carolina Voting Rights Case
Source: Talking Points Memo
By ALICE OLLSTEIN Published FEBRUARY 21, 2017, 1:25 PM EDT
North Carolina Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who narrowly unseated Republican Pat McCrory in November, announced Tuesday that he is reversing course in a major voting rights case before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The state will no longer defend a series of voting restrictions passed in 2013 by the GOP-controlled legislature and signed by McCrory that a federal appeals court has ruled constitute unconstitutional "race-based vote suppression."
Since 2013, the state has fought to implement a law that eliminated same-day voter registration, cut a full week of early voting, barred voters from casting a ballot outside their home precincts, scrapped straight-ticket voting, and got rid of a program to pre-register high school students who would turn 18 by Election Day. That law also included one of the nation’s strictest voter ID requirements.
The NAACP sued the state, and the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the civil rights group in a blistering ruling last July, holding that Republican lawmakers set out to suppress African-American voters “with almost surgical precision.”
Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/north-carolina-cooper-voter-suppression
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I don't live in NC, but do visit. My husband is there now as his family is there. Right next door, actually.
I donated the max allowed to Cooper's campaign. That was the one bright spot of this last election.
We've got to keep digging in at the state and local level.
Even in the depths of the hell of a GOP legislature, a Democratic governor (like we have here in PA in a similar situation) can serve as the firewall.
