“Oh my god, that’s you!”: How a Cary woman became the second name in Moore v. Harper

Until recently, the closest Becky Harper got to fame was as a North Carolina real estate agent.

That’s about to change.

Harper, 70, of Cary, will watch her name go into the history books on Wednesday when the U.S. Supreme Court hears oral arguments in Moore v. Harper. She has secured a coveted seat in the Supreme Court gallery for the hearing.

“Never in my life did I expect that I would be party to a Supreme Court case,” Harper told me. “It’s exciting and humbling and somewhat frightening that this court elected to take this case.”

The Moore in the case is North Carolina House Speaker Tim Moore. He represents state Republican lawmakers who have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review a 2022 state Supreme Court ruling that congressional election maps drawn by the legislature were illegally gerrymandered. The Republicans argue that the U.S. Constitution gives state legislatures exclusive authority over elections. Should they prevail, state courts would lose the power to declare federal election maps illegally gerrymandered or rule on voting restrictions imposed by a state legislature.

Former federal judge Michael Luttig, a prominent conservative who opposes the effort to remove judicial oversight of elections, has said Moore v. Harper “is the single most important case on American democracy — and for American democracy — in the nation’s history.”

Should the case become a landmark ruling, Harper’s name could be included among the parties in the court’s most famous and controversial cases, such as Marbury, Brown, Plessy, Scott and Miranda.

Harper, being a fairly common name, hasn’t brought the respondent in this case local fame. Harper, who owns rental properties, recently mentioned the case to one of her tenants, who told her, “Oh my God, that’s you! I’ve heard about the case, but I had no idea that it was you.”

Harper came to her new prominence by happenstance. When she and her then-husband decided to move from California, they looked for an area with “not serious winters,” good public schools and moderate housing costs and a tech community that would suit her husband’s work as a lawyer. It came down to Austin and Raleigh. They moved to Raleigh in 1993, she said, “knowing absolutely nobody.”

In 2008, Harper filed a complaint with the State Board of Elections over a campaign finance issue. Common Cause supported her complaint and she became active in the good government group and became a member of its board of directors in 2019.

When a group of good government organizations decided to challenge gerrymandered district maps, lawyers sought citizens to be plaintiffs. “There was a whole list of plaintiffs, but my name was put first. I don’t know the reason for that,” Harper said. “So here I am with my name on a Supreme Court case.”

This prominent case has moved through the courts bearing the names of Republicans who oversaw the drawing of new district maps, Harper v. Lewis, Harper v. Hall and now, on review, as Moore v. Harper.

Harper said she has never met the state House speaker. She is aware, however, that when Moore was a Republican in the House minority, he introduced bills for nonpartisan redistricting. Now he’s going to the Supreme Court to defend the Republican majority members’ right to draw election maps as they – and they alone – see fit.

“It’s just so sad when elected officials claim to believe something and, when they have the power to fix that thing, they change their mind because power is more important than doing the right thing,” Harper said.

The Harper of Moore v. Harper hopes a majority of justices will do the right thing. She said, “I am hopeful that the Supreme Court will not upend democratic procedures that will affect all 50 states, which is really what’s at stake here.”

Associate opinion editor Ned Barnett can be reached at 919-829-4512, or nbarnett@ newsobserver.com