Federal Appeals Court Reverses Voter ID Ruling
By Cash Michaels –
After a slew of NC voter ID victories for the NC NAACP, the tide may be starting turn in the opposite direction.
A three-judge panel of the Fourth US Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ordered the reversal of a lower court decision on the 2018 voter ID law last week, saying, in part, that a Black federal judge made “numerous errors” in not allowing voter ID for the 2020 elections.
That appellate panel consisted of two Trump judicial appointees and one Obama appointee.
On Dec. 31, 2019, US District Court Judge Loretta Biggs granted the motion by the NC NAACP and other local branches for a preliminary injunction in their case NAACP v, Cooper, prohibiting the state from implementing its 2018 Voter ID law for the Nov. 2020 election cycle.
But in its reversal last week, the appellate panel ruled the Judge Biggs had made “fundamental legal errors,” and “…had incorrectly relied on past intentionally racially discriminatory actions of the [NC] legislature.” Those past actions included the legislature’s 2013 Voter ID law, which was determined by the Fourth US Court of Appeals to have discriminated against Black NC voters “with surgical precision.”
In the new ruling, the panel said that the courts can’t use past actions to determine if a legislature is passing racially biased legislation.
“A legislature’s past acts do not condemn the acts of a later legislature, which we must presume acts in good faith,” the Fourth Circuit panel ruled. Later in the ruling, the panel lauded the 2018 voter ID as being one of the best in the nation.
Irv Joyner, the lead attorney representing the NC NAACP on the matter, said the statewide civil rights organization “…is reviewing this decision and we are considering all appellate options. We steadfastly believe that the Honorable Judge Biggs’s findings and determinations were correct at the preliminary injunction phase. Nonetheless, under the reasoning of the decision today, the NC NAACP Plaintiffs’ evidence will also prevail at trial the full merits and we look forward to the fight for justice ahead.”
Rev. Dr. T. Anthony Spearman, president of the NC NAACP, said, “Our fight continues no matter the makeup of any court or any one decision, good or bad, on the journey to free and fair political participation.
In fact, the latest ruling is only one setback and does not mean that North Carolina’s current voter ID will be in force per the next election. The NC NAACP has two other voter ID cases pending in state court that are also enjoined by preliminary injunctions. All three cases have yet to receive 2021 trial dates.
