NE Atlanta News

Tom Spencer, vice president of the Lawyer's Democracy Fund, is praising the U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling that North Carolina state legislators have a right to intervene in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a voter identification law passed by the legislature.

"Today is a great day for all litigants who seek to intervene in a lawsuit to defend a state law," Spencer said. "This decision thwarts opportunities in the future for the state attorney general to work with plaintiffs to overturn laws the attorney general does not agree with for political reasons by not defending them. Now the legislature can intervene and make sure their duly enacted laws are vigorously defended."

He added that the Supreme Court's ruling in Berger v. North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP "will have an acute effect in elections cases as partisan attorneys general and secretaries of state will have a harder time colluding with plaintiffs to sue and settle. This is not only a big win for the North Carolina legislature, this is a major win for democracy and fair elections!"

Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the opinion in an 8-1 decision rendered June 23.  Justice Sonia Sotomayor was the lone dissenter. The Court found that North Carolina state legislators had a right to intervene in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a voter ID measure that they had passed into law. 

Republican legislators had sought to intervene in the lawsuit because they did not have confidence in Josh Stein, North Carolina's Democrat Attorney General, to defend the law, Reuters reported.          

According to the SCOTUS Blog, Gorsuch wrote that it was not proper to assume that North Carolina's Attorney General had "adequately represented the state’s interests" and that the state lawmakers did indeed "bring a distinct state interest".                  

The voter ID measure was passed into law in 2018, over the veto of Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper. It has been on hold pending the outcome of this Supreme Court decision after being blocked by state court judges in September of 2021, Reuters reported.                  

Gina Swoboda, executive director of Voter Reference Foundation, praised the Supreme Court’s ruling, saying that it "ensures that the government closest to the people, their legislative branch, is able to protect and defend the election integrity measures enacted by their states.”         

In 2021, Georgia enacted a wide-ranging election integrity law that was the source of significant controversy, sparking lawsuits, protests, and boycotts, the Peachtree Times reported. The law extended voter ID requirements, required requests for absentee ballots, prohibits using private funds to administer elections, regularly updates voter registration records, and provides security guidelines for ballot drop boxes.