Go-along justices enable the NC Supreme Court’s radical shift to the right | Opinion

As the North Carolina Supreme Court careens to the right, overturning recent rulings and now poised to reject the landmark Leandro decision on school funding, attention focuses on the court’s two most openly partisan members, Chief Justice Paul Newby and Justice Phil Berger Jr.

But these two have little power alone. They need the cooperation of the three other justices who give the court its 5-2 Republican majority, Tamara Barringer, Richard Dietz and Trey Allen.

These three are not the initiators of the court’s partisan turn, but they are the enablers. They make possible the court’s abdication of its role as a check on the other branches of government, particularly the radical Republicans who control the General Assembly.

Barringer, elected in 2020, and Allen and Dietz, elected in 2022, have meekly consented to the overturning of the previous court’s rulings on a discriminatory voter ID law and reversed the previous court’s finding that partisan gerrymandering violates the state constitution. They reversed a lower court ruling allowing those who completed their prison terms to regain the right to vote. They supported Justice Berger’s claim that he can sit in judgment of cases involving his father, state Senate leader Phil Berger Sr.

Now they are likely to join Berger and Newby in reversing a state Supreme Court ruling that supports more school funding in the decades-old Leandro case.

Given their party affiliation and their backgrounds, the compliance by these three should not be a surprise. Barringer is a former Republican state senator from Cary. Allen is a former law clerk to Newby. Dietz is so conflict-averse that he served six years on the state Court of Appeals without writing a single dissent.

The measure of their compliance is clear in a Carolina Journal report. The Journal reported that the state Supreme Court issued 50 rulings in 2023 in which the justices’ votes were released. Barringer and Allen voted with the Republican majority in 49 cases, Dietz voted with the majority in 45 cases. By contrast, Justice Anita Earls, the court’s senior Democrat, voted with the majority in just 24 cases and wrote seven dissents.

North Carolina Supreme Court justices are elected to eight-year terms to distance them from elections and political pressure. Supposedly, Barringer, Dietz and Allen are independent thinkers who would occasionally see the law differently than their Republican colleagues.

What’s most damning about these three justices isn’t their go-along record, but how it contrasts with their pledges as candidates.

Consider what Dietz told Attorney At Law Magazine in September 2022 when he was seeking a state Supreme Court seat:“I think the idea that the law is going to swing back and forth based on the composition of the Supreme is troubling for me and, I think, troubling for a lot of lawyers. If you look at my decisions, I’m highly doctrinal. I believe strongly the courts should commit to stare decisis (respect for precedent).”

Or candidate Allen in 2022: “I think that as a general rule that courts should follow precedent. That’s also about judicial humility. It’s about recognizing that people who came before you might have had an insight that you don’t necessarily have.”

Or candidate Barringer in 2020: “What you need to know as a voter is that when that judge puts on the robe and takes that oath that is so important before God and the constituents that they are no longer a Democrat and no longer a Republican. They are a judge, a judge that will apply the law as it was written and not legislate from the bench. Defend the constitution as it is written and not change it to the way that we would like for it to be.”

All three said it was essential that the court not lose the public’s confidence that its decisions are based on the law, not politics.

In the years since gaining control of the court, the Republican majority has battered that confidence by reversing previous rulings despite no change in the facts. If the court overturns the previous court’s Leandro ruling, that battering will be complete.

Associate opinion editor Ned Barnett can be reached at 919-404-7583, or nbarnett@ newsobserver.com