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editor's brief

Lawmakers Are Now Targeting Courts Over Rulings They Don’t Like

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March 22, 2018 10:58 a.m.

As we reported Wednesday, Pennsylvania Republicans have taken the remarkable step of introducing a measure to impeach four of the state Supreme Court’s seven judges. The judges, all Democrats, had angered GOP lawmakers by striking down an extreme gerrymander that favored their party and ordering that it be replaced with a fairer map.

But it’s worth noting that it’s not just in the Keystone State where lawmakers, almost always Republicans, are trying to manipulate state courts in order to make it easier to advance their political goals. The most egregious case is in North Carolina, where the GOP legislature conducted a sweeping overhaul of the state court system after judges blocked parts of their conservative agenda. Among other steps, lawmakers drew new state judicial districts in an effort to boost the number of Republicans on lower courts, and cut the number of seats on the state Court of Appeals so that the Democratic governor couldn’t fill an open seat.

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