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High-stakes Supreme Court primary sees little attention KYLE PERROTTI N EWS E DITOR recent poll commissioned by the N.C. Values Coalition found that most prospective Republican primary voters know who they’ll likely cast a ballot for in the U.S. Senate race, with most in favor of either Ted Budd (32%) or Pat McCrory (29%) and only 25% saying they’re undecided. Of that same group, 82% didn’t know who they were going to vote for in the Republican Supreme Court primary. But the lack of awareness surrounding the race doesn’t reflect its importance. The balance of the court is currently 4-3 in favor of Democrats, and both seats up for election in 2022 are held by Democrats, meaning Republicans only need to win one of the two seats to gain the advantage. While the race for Seat 3 between Democrat Lucy N. Inman and Republican Richard Dietz may be tight, there will be no primary. However, for seat 5, there’s a Republican primary to see who takes on incumbent Sam Ervin IV in November. Running in that race are Trey Allen and April Wood, who polled 8 and 6 percent, respectively. There is a third Republican candidate, Victoria Prince. However, she has no website or social media presence and didn’t respond to email requests and phone calls from The Smoky Mountain News seeking an interview.
April 6-12, 2022
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A MAJORITY HANGING IN THE BALANCE
Smoky Mountain News
Wood and Allen spoke with SMN about their campaigns, as well as why the race is so crucial. “The court majority is at stake with this election, so I think it’s the most important Supreme Court election of the last 20 years,” Allen said. “I’m running for the North Carolina Supreme Court because I believe we need to have a constitutional conservative majority, and we have an opportunity to do that,” Wood said. They both also talked about the court itself and its ability to set precedent that applies to all future cases across the state. “The state Supreme Court is the last resort,” Wood said. “It’s the highest court in our state and has final say as to what the law is and what the North Carolina Constitution says. The decisions it makes are binding in all lower courts.” “The Supreme Court makes decisions that affect many aspects of our daily lives,” Allen said. “It issues decisions that deal with indi10 vidual rights with the scope of local govern-
ment authority and state government authority over matters such as land use, criminal law and taxes.” Chris Cooper, who heads up Western Carolina University’s political science program, said people don’t typically pay as much attention to state Supreme Court races simply because they aren’t as high-profile. “There’s less money and less advertising,” he said. “And it’s a profession that, by design, tries to avoid attention. It’s an uneasy mix of the judiciary and politics.” Both of those are true. Many in the judiciary dispute whether judicial races should even be partisan in the first place. And while many candidates running for the NC-11 congressional seat have raised well over a million dollars, as of the end of 2021 Allen and Wood raised $167,457 and $96,798, respectively, and Ervin IV raised $196,888. Cooper added that no primaries typically offer the level of information and attention as general elections. “Little things like who’s higher on the ballot order matter much more than they would if it was something like a U.S. Senate election,” he said.
ESTABLISHING PRECEDENT Bob Orr spent much of his career practicing law in Western North Carolina before serving as an appellate judge and eventually an associate Supreme Court justice from 1995-2004. Orr spoke generally of the court’s importance and its role as final arbiter of cases that come in front of it. Specifically, he discussed a few cases that have had lasting impacts on every North Carolinian. First, he talked about one that came to the court after he’d already retired — 2016’s Kirby v. NCDOT — which called into question a law passed by the General Assembly that allowed the NCDOT to use land without technically owning or condemning it, thus restricting abilities of property owners to have say what happens on their own property. “There was a group of property owners in Forsyth County area who brought suits saying … ‘we’re entitled to just compensation,’” Orr said. “It ended up at Supreme Court, and the court unanimously held that it was, in fact, tantamount to taking [the property], and owners were entitled to just compensation.” He cited another case heard when he was on the court, Maready v. The City of Winston-Salem from 1996, a case that led to Orr’s dissent from the majority opinion. Basically, it challenged whether state and local governments should be able to provide economic incentives to lure companies to cer-
Trey Allen (right) with North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Newby. Newby has not endorsed Allen but has indicated unwavering support (below). Donated photo
tain areas. Most recently, the consequences of that were seen in the state’s successful bid to bring in the startup Vietnamese car manufacturer, Vin Fast, which will build a multibillion-dollar manufacturing facility in the triangle. This is also seen on a much smaller scale across Western North Carolina as towns and counties offer money for things such as façade improvement for businesses that invest in a property. “From my perspective, the constitutional question was, what about the existing businesses who have to pay $25,000 for façade improvement out of their own pocket? How
is that fair?” Orr posited. Raising the stakes even more, the next court will likely hear a case involving election maps. The current court ruled that Republican Chief Justice Paul Newby would appoint special masters (two Republicans and one Democrat) to draw General Assembly and congressional maps, something that now may be heard by the United States Supreme Court. Crucially, it also determined that the maps would need to be redrawn prior to the 2024 election. Considering how the past few maps have been received by Democrats in the minority in the General Assembly and voting rights
