North Carolina Republicans want to let justices remove Democratic judges 

By Billy Corriher

Republicans in North Carolina have passed a bill that gives the GOP majority on the state Supreme Court the power to remove judges they don’t like. The bill allows the justices to override the recommendations of the Judicial Standards Commission, which investigates complaints alleging violations of ethics rules. 

If this bill becomes law, the Republican justices could unilaterally determine that the two Democratic justices violated ethics rules and kick them off the court, disregarding the votes of millions of North Carolinians who elected them. Republicans have already tried to sanction or remove these justices. And one of them, Justice Anita Earls, is now facing a tough reelection challenge from a recently retired state legislator. 

The new power grab, which is part of a broader bill, faces a likely veto from Democratic Governor Josh Stein. But that doesn’t mean the bill is dead. Two former Democrats who lost their primaries have voted to override vetoes in recent months. One of them voted for the bill.

The idea of the high court, controlled by Chief Justice Paul Newby, ousting one of its members would be an unprecedented power grab. Still, it wouldn’t be unusual for this state Supreme Court. 

In 2023, Chief Justice Paul Newby pushed for an investigation into Democratic Justice Anita Earls for bogus ethics charges. Earls, a former civil rights lawyer, faced an ethics probe for discussing bias and a lack of diversity within the state Supreme Court. 

The Judicial Standards Commission backed down after Earls filed a First Amendment lawsuit. But the other Democrat on the court, Justice Allison Riggs, faced a baseless ethics complaint in the weeks before her reelection in 2024.

The new bill would open up another avenue of attack for Newby. The chief justice wouldn’t have to rely on the Commission to recommend removal.

State Senator Lisa Grafstein, a Democrat, said this new power could be used to intimidate dissenters. “We are on a really dangerous path in the way that we have vested power in fewer and fewer people, and that we’re doing that at a time when that power is being abused in so many ways,” she warned. 

Newby, possibly the most ethically compromised chief justice in the country, has created a glaring double standard in ethics enforcement. He has flouted the bans on political activity and repeatedly ruled in favor of the state’s largest power company, which his family partially owns. In 2024, ProPublica revealed that the GOP majority refused to sanction two Republican judges who admitted to violating ethics rules, with very serious consequences. 

At the same time, Newby was tightening his control over the only body that could recommend a Democratic justice’s removal. Lawmakers added more Republicans to the Judicial Standards Commission a couple of years ago. But apparently, it still isn’t doing enough to target the chief justice’s enemies. 

Newby has repeatedly pushed his friends in the legislature, including the candidate challenging Earls, to reshape the courts to entrust him with power. The legislature’s recent budget bill, for example, creates a new “special” Family Court, whose judges will be appointed directly by the chief. And these judges can serve until age 78, the highest mandatory judicial retirement age in the country. Newby was already given power over a new business court with exceptionally wide jurisdiction. 

This isn’t how it works in a democracy. Republican legislators — who made judicial elections partisan a decade ago, purportedly to boost turnout — are targeting individual judges who were put on the bench by the voters. At the same time, they have created more unelected “special” judgeships in a series of bills. And with the November elections approaching, GOP lawmakers and election officials seem to be doing everything they can to make voting more difficult. 

Newby and his allies fear that Justice Earls will keep her seat, despite their best efforts. That’s why the Republican legislature passed this bill. No matter what voters decide, the GOP can take matters into its own hands and control the outcome. Unless this bill is vetoed, North Carolinians won’t actually retain the power to choose their judges.

Billy Corriher is the state courts manager for People’s Parity Project Action and the author of Justice for the People: The Anita Earls Story. As a Democracy Docket contributor, Billy writes about voting and election state court cases in North Carolina and across the country.