On September 8, North Carolina’s Attorney General filed this brief in Crowell v Bipartisan State Board of Elections, m.d., 1:17cv-515. This is the case that challenges the North Carolina policy that will never permit an independent voter to be a member of the state board of elections, or any county board of elections. The case is assigned to Judge William Osteen, a Bush Jr. appointee.
The brief does not discuss the merits of the case. Instead, it reacts to the request by North Carolina legislative leaders that they be allowed to intervene in the case. The Attorney General’s brief says that the Attorney General is capable of defending the state law, and that there is no reason for the legislature to intervene in the case. But, it says that the Attorney General won’t oppose intervention by the legislature. The Attorney General is a Democrat and Republicans have a majority in each house of the legislature.
The Attorney General’s brief is interesting because it sets forth the position of the Governor, who is also a Democrat. The brief says the Governor has never taken any position that independents should be allowed to sit on election boards.
So is there any indication that the Republican Legislature’s position will be different from the Democratic Governor’s position? (And if not, doesn’t that suggest that there is in fact a duopolist bias against the non-duopolists?)
Roy Cooper has refused to implement the law that is being challenged in federal court. I’d think that was an adverse position to that of the legislature.
I’d hope that the federal court would hold off while the case is being litigated in state courts.
Voting is so we can hold elected officials accountable and so their thinking of prohibiting independents is fine because they are ok with losing elections from time to time.
Voting and elections can have random wins and random loss.
The only voting system that insures free speech with equal treatment that reflects stable incremental improvements is pure proportional representation.
The Mid-Atlantic Super-states Parliament espouses that traits as we prepare for 2018.
Nobody has it as good as the United Coalition.
http://www.usparliament.org
Nonpartisan AppV for all elected executive officers and all judges.
A legislative body should have *standing* only if it is injured by the executive action/nonaction — but may file amicus briefs in all cases.
Obviously in most cases other persons are the injury plaintiffs — voters (in the above case), candidates, political parties, etc.
Sadly, this seems to be the norm around the country for a lot of things.