Yesterday, Governor Stein vetoed HB377, another GOP power grab that would give Chief Justice Newby the power to suspend judges without pay or due process. In an OpEd, Senator Woodson Bradley explains why the veto was necessary and how uniquely unfit Newby is for more power and responsibility.
Reporting from Cardinal & Pine earlier this month revealed that Chief Justice Newby recruited Trey Allen to run in a primary against April Wood because she refused to raise money with convicted child predator Harvey West. Until Newby recruited Allen, Wood was widely regarded as the frontrunner for the Republican nomination in the 2022 Supreme Court election. Senator Bradley also highlights Newby’s long criticized refusal to recuse himself from cases where he has financial interest.
Before the far-right flank of the state legislature went home to focus on their reelection campaigns, they passed two more bills to give their friends more power.
Many folks have heard of House Bill 958, which would shorten early voting and give State Auditor Dave Boliek and his partisan election boards more power to throw out votes that they don’t like.
Fewer folks are familiar with House Bill 377, which was presented to the governor on Aug. 7, would give extreme-right state Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Newby the power to suspend judges across our state without pay if they run afoul of him and his Republican-controlled Judicial Standards Commission, of which he appoints six members.
In other words, Newby gets to decide who stays and who goes in his treehouse.
It’s so much power for one person that even prominent Republicans have cautioned the legislature about giving it to the chief justice in case a Democrat wins the office in 2028.
No one partisan official should have that much power, and no one can be trusted with that power less than Chief Justice Newby.
National news outlets have chronicled his abuse of power since becoming chief justice in 2013, including purging the judiciary of staff who won’t toe the party line and punishing those who speak out against him. Observers have called Newby “possibly the most ethically compromised chief justice in the country,” and it’s not hard to see why.
Newby regularly presides over cases involving Duke Energy rate increases and rules in their favor — despite owning more than $10,000 in Duke Energy stock. As a judge, Newby participated in two rulings involving a program that paid tobacco farmers to transition to other crops–a program that he himself had received payments from.
He has also ignored our constitution’s requirement that our children be provided a sound, basic education, allowing the legislative majority to shortchange our schools, teachers and students.
Paul Newby and the four other Republican justices who hold the Court majority bend over backwards to rule in favor of their party’s political goals and take power away from North Carolinians. They’ve thrown out fair congressional maps to allow legislators to rig our elections in their favor, allowed legislative power grabs, and are currently weighing a request by Chemours and DuPont to prevent our Attorney General from suing on our behalf when they poison our air and water.
I may not be a lawyer, but I’ve seen enough of these power grabs up close in the General Assembly to know that they need to be called out.
As the unofficial head coach of the far-right flank of judges, Newby games the system to ensure his team wins, no matter the clear ethical boundaries he crosses. It was recently revealed that Newby and Associate Justice Phil Berger Jr. helped convicted child sex offender Harvey West establish himself as the NCGOP’s top judicial fundraiser.
Just how important is West and his fundraiser to Newby’s political machine? According to a prominent Republican Party leader, in 2021, Judge April Wood — a leading Republican Supreme Court candidate — refused to attend West’s fundraiser when she became aware of his child sex offender record.
Newby responded by recruiting Trey Allen to run against her, who won the primary with Newby’s backing and became a regular guest at West’s judicial fundraisers. As a survivor myself, this betrayal to women and children burns me up.