southern coalition for social justice
June 29, 2023 -
On the 10th anniversary of the Supreme Court's Shelby County v. Holder ruling, which weakened the Voting Rights Act, North Carolina's conservative majority is pushing a raft of new measures that voting experts say will add new barriers to voting and increase political meddling in elections.
March 30, 2023 -
A coalition of advocacy groups recently released a report offering ideas on ways to protect and promote democracy in the state. Some of these proposals have since been incorporated into legislation that’s been introduced at the General Assembly.
February 9, 2022 -
The president has pledged to nominate the first Black woman to the highest court in the land to replace retiring liberal Justice Stephen Breyer. A few of the potential justices are judges or judicial nominees from Southern states, including two with extensive experience as voting rights lawyers.
December 2, 2021 -
Voting rights groups have filed multiple lawsuits against North Carolina lawmakers over their new legislative and congressional district maps, which advantage the GOP. The state Supreme Court could have the final say on the cases, as well as another lawsuit challenging a gerrymandered legislature's authority. But before the court weighs in, it must deal with conflicts of interest.
October 29, 2021 -
The Republicans who control legislatures in Arkansas, North Carolina, and Texas have drawn congressional maps that favor their party and disadvantage voters of color. Meanwhile, an independent redistricting commission has faltered in its effort to draw new election maps in Virginia.
October 15, 2021 -
The N.C. Court of Appeals recently rejected a request from the Pat McCrory Committee Defense Fund and the law firm Holtzman Vogel to throw out a libel suit filed against them for falsely accusing voters of committing fraud in the 2016 election. After the former Republican governor narrowly lost to Democrat Roy Cooper that year, McCrory's campaign and its legal agents worked to sow doubt about the election's integrity — a strategy taken to new levels by Donald Trump following his 2020 loss to Joe Biden.
September 29, 2021 -
Senate Democrats recently introduced the Freedom to Vote Act, a compromise alternative to the For the People Act, far-reaching pro-democracy legislation blocked by a Republican filibuster. If the GOP again uses the filibuster to obstruct the bill, Democrats say they'll take on reforming the Senate policy, which requires 60 votes to end debate on a measure. But that will require moving conservative Democrats like West Virginia's Joe Manchin, a filibuster defender who's also among the new bill's sponsors.
