The nation’s top court will hear arguments over a North Carolina voter identification law, it announced on Wednesday.
The Supreme Court agreed to hear Philip E. …
The nation’s top court will hear arguments over a North Carolina voter identification law, it announced on Wednesday. The Supreme Court agreed to hear Philip E. Berger et al. v. North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP et al. Top North Carolina lawmakers, including Senate President Pro Tempore Philip Berger, tried intervening in a challenge to the law but were rejected by an appeals court, which deemed the defendant in the challenge, North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, could not be replaced. The lawmakers are Republicans and Stein is a Democrat. The Republicans told the Supreme Court ( pdf) that there should not be a presumption of adequate representation and that they should be allowed to defend it. The matters that affect the case date back to 2013, when the state legislature passed Session Law 2013-381 and then-Gov. Pat McCrory signed it. The law required showing photo identification to vote and tightened other aspects of the state’s voting system. A court struck down some provisions of the law, ruling they were enacted with racially discriminatory intent.
