As Orange County Democratic Convention goers sliced into a “blue wave” cake on Saturday afternoon, keynote speaker Lucy Inman urged local Democrats not to rely on a second blue wave in 2020.
“We can’t count on a blue wave like a natural occurrence, it’s got to be a man-made wave and a woman-made wave,” Inman, an N.C. Court of Appeals judge and a 2020 candidate for the state’s Supreme Court, said.
Inman was joined at the convention by U.S. Rep. David Price, D-N.C., and candidates for state offices. During the convention, delegates elected Marilyn Carter as the party’s county chairperson and Jonah Garson as first vice chairperson for 2019-2021.
Inman said statewide judicial elections are particularly important moving forward, though they tend to be overshadowed in gubernatorial years. Gov. Roy Cooper and U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., are up for reelection in 2020.
Inman said North Carolina courts have been a key barrier to unconstitutional Republican legislation, including legislation intended to weaken Democratic control of the Supreme Court itself.
She referenced a 2015 state election law which disallowed a contested election for Justice Robert Edmunds, a Republican-affiliated N.C. Supreme Court judge. The law was deemed unconstitutional by the Wake County Superior Court, allowing Democratic challenger Michael Morgan to unseat Edmunds in 2016.
“And that was not the first, nor was it the last, unconstitutional legislation in North Carolina that could only be stopped by the court,” she said.
Inman said North Carolina voters striking down a 2018 state amendment, which empowered state legislators to fill judicial vacancies, was particularly important in retaining the courts’ integrity.
"If that amendment had passed, the same politicians whose gerrymandered districts allow them to choose who elect them, would be choosing the judges who decide whether their legislation violates the law,” she said.
