A single Democratic Wake County trial judge, Bryan Collins, tonight ruled that the entire North Carolina General Assembly was an unconstitutional usurper body for approximately 1 ½ years. The millions of votes cast by citizens and certified by the North Carolina Board of Elections could potentially be thrown out by one Democratic judge.
Collins issued his opinion in response to a lawsuit from the NAACP seeking to invalidate two constitutional amendments that passed by wide margins: one requiring photo identification when voting and the other decreasing the maximum allowable state income tax rate.
Although the ruling only directly invalidates the two laws that were challenged in the suit, under Judge Collins’s theory every act that we passed between June 5, 2017, and December 31, 2018, is invalid. Collins wrote, “An illegally constituted General Assembly does not represent the people of North Carolina,” and that “the General Assembly lost its claim to popular sovereignty.”
It appears that no court in the history of the United States has ever declared a state legislature to be an illegal body.
Collins does not appear to have included in his opinion whether the four million votes in support of voter ID and the income tax cap also represent the will of the people. The voter ID constitutional amendment passed with 55 percent of the vote; the tax cap constitutional amendment passed with 57 percent of the vote.
Collins also argued that his decision “will not cause chaos and confusion," but I disagree.
We are duty-bound to appeal this absurd decision. The prospect of invalidating 18 months of laws is the definition of chaos and confusion. Based on tonight’s opinion and others over the past several years, it appears the idea of judicial restraint has completely left the state of North Carolina.
Senator Phil Berger
http://www.philberger.org/
