Defending Our Rights Through State Courts:
What We Learned from Justice Riggs and Community Leaders
Last week’s webinar made one thing clear: state courts are one of the most powerful tools we have to defend our democracy and to protect our rights, especially our right to abortion access and reproductive healthcare.
Pro-Choice North Carolina understands the fight for democracy as essential to our mission to protect and advance the reproductive rights and healthcare access of all North Carolinians.
Justice Riggs: A Career Fighting for Civil Rights
Justice Riggs kicked off our webinar by sharing her journey to the NC State Supreme Court bench and recent developments in the fight to restore balance and end politicization of our state judiciary.
Justice Riggs was a civil rights attorney for 15 years before joining the bench in North Carolina. She worked for Southern Coalition for Social Justice, an organization that was founded by her esteemed NC State Supreme Court colleague, Hon. Anita Earls.
Working to protect and advance civil rights in small communities across the South, Justice Riggs learned firsthand that she needed to understand how the deck has been stacked against these communities and that they face challenges on multiple fronts in the fight for their civil rights and freedoms.
Justice Riggs emphasized that we can secure more rights through our state court systems and constitutions that are not guaranteed to us at the national level. Legal work in state courts is crucial and timely, as there is more opportunity to use this system as a tool to advance our rights and freedoms. Conservative interests have long seen the courts as a way to push their agenda, while progressive voters have not paid as much attention to state courts.
North Carolina judicial elections became partisan in 2018, and this was also the year that Anita Earls was elected to the State Supreme Court. While all judges should strive to be fair, impartial, and above the political fray, this move towards partisan elections by the GOP-controlled NCGA was a big step in politicizing the judiciary.
The NC Supreme Court had a Democratic majority until 2022 and during that time:
The North Carolina State Supreme Court lost this Democratic majority in 2022, and much of the progress made between 2018 and 2022 was reversed. Previously “settled law” cases were retried at the Court, with the only difference from the original cases being the political make-up of the Court. Election districts were once again gerrymandered to benefit Republican candidates, and voter ID was pushed forward for future elections.
After the 2022 election, Justice Riggs decided that she wanted to get involved to help bring balance back to the Court.
The 2024 State Supreme Court Election
Justice Riggs won the seat in the 2024 election but her opponent requested a recount of the votes. Her opponent was willing to throw out ballots to overturn the election in his favor, but groups like our webinar panelists got involved to contact voters whose ballots were being challenged, in order to ensure every valid vote was counted.
The results of the 2024 NC Supreme Court election were finally confirmed in April 2025, and Justice Riggs won fair and square!
Our fight to certify Justice Riggs’ election will guide voting rights and democracy advocates in other state supreme court elections across the country who may face similar attempts to overturn election results.
Thank you to everyone who helped us protect those votes!
How the courts impact a variety of rights
Beatrice Beaubrun, Deputy Director of North Carolina For the People, discussed ways that voter suppression in North Carolina has worked to rig NC elections and to disenfranchise voters, particularly Black and Brown voters. She cited examples of when partisan judges ignored precedent as well the state constitution to side with powerful political interests on issues like voting rights and gerrymandering.
Melissa Price Kromm, Chair and Executive Director of North Carolina For the People, discussed in detail how the make-up of the state courts has left our public education system in limbo and underfunded, as partisan judges have ignored the state constitution’s mandate that North Carolina provide a robust and fully-funded public education system for all students in the state.
Tara Romano, Executive Director of Pro-Choice North Carolina, shared examples from state courts around the country that have directly weighed in the right to abortion access in their state. The results have been a mixed bag for abortion rights, but Kansas is a good example of a state with a reliably anti-abortion legislature that still has a Court that reaffirms the right to abortion. This is a good example of how courts can provide a check on the overreach of legislatures, which is what they are supposed to do!
Who gets fair treatment in our courts? Citizens or corporations?
Billy Colliher, State Courts Manager at People’s Parity Project, talked about his work with the People’s Parity Project to point out how state courts have unfortunately been using their power to give advantages to big corporations over everyday citizens.
One project led by People’s Parity Project has counted how many times judges in state courts have sided with corporations rather than with citizens who are filing suits against these very powerful entities. By siding with the powerful, Courts are allowing too many corporations that do harm to do so with impunity.
North Carolina’s right-wing legislative policies are supported by right-wing judiciaries
Dawn Blagrove, Executive Director and Attorney for Emancipate NC, talked about her work with the organization and how Emancipate NC is working to address racial discrimination in the NC Judicial system.
As a result of the 2022 elections, when conservatives made gains in the state judiciary, we have too often seen the judiciary enable a racist and discriminatory agenda coming from the NCGA leadership. This includes limits to post-conviction relief for those wrongly convicted, and escalation of the punitive “drug war” that disproportionately impacts Black people.
Dawn emphasized that judicial elections are important because it is the NC State Supreme Court’s job to determine whether the laws passed by the NC General Assembly are constitutional.
The bottom line is that our elections are partisan right now, and we need justices who share our values, so let’s get out the vote and elect them!
Wrapping Up:
Why Judicial Elections Are So Important
Tara Romano wrapped up the webinar with key takeaways from the panelists, and shared ways that everyone can learn more about the upcoming NC judicial elections in 2026.
It is important to vote in judicial elections because it matters who sits on those benches. There is still a large drop-off in the number of voters who vote in federal elections versus those who participate in state and local government elections. Close results in judicial elections are not because people in our state are actually split 50/50 on political issues. Rather, results are so close because there are so many fewer people voting in these elections. This is our opportunity to bring balance back to our state courts, because the majority of North Carolinians are not truly represented in these election results.
How do we educate ourselves about judicial elections?
From racial discrimination in our legal justice system to ending access to abortion and reproductive health care, state courts have a huge impact on our rights and freedoms. As voters, we can have a direct say in who sits on these benches! Starting the work now to elect fair and independent judges in 2026 and 2028 will take us far towards bringing balance back to our judiciary, and towards building a better democracy for all people in North Carolina.
