A three-judge Superior Court panel in North Carolina ruled Friday that two constitutional amendments approved by voters in 2018 — a photo voter identification requirement and a reduction of the state income tax cap from 10% to 7% — are enforceable, finding the plaintiffs failed to show the General Assembly acted with discriminatory intent or that the laws produce a meaningful disparate racial impact.
The unanimous order dismissed a lawsuit from the state NAACP that sought to undo the referendum results on the ground that the bills placing the measures on the ballot were approved in part by legislators elected from districts later struck down by federal courts as racially gerrymandered. The panel said the NAACP did not meet its burden of proof "beyond a reasonable doubt" that the legislature passed the measures with discriminatory intent or that the laws caused a meaningful disparate impact along racial lines.
The case has a lengthy procedural history. A trial judge initially voided the two amendments in early 2019. In August 2022, the North Carolina Supreme Court — then controlled by a 4-3 Democratic majority — said canceling referendums initiated by an improperly constituted General Assembly was possible but directed the lower court to gather more evidence to determine whether allowing the amendments to stand would let improperly elected legislators escape accountability, further exclude voters from the democratic process or amount to continued discrimination.
Lawyers for the NAACP urged the three-judge panel to conduct the fact-finding the Supreme Court had ordered, but attorneys for Republican legislative leaders argued the record and prior briefs were sufficient for resolution. The three-judge panel heard arguments in October 2024 and issued its order Friday; the panel included two registered Republicans and one registered Democrat.
The panel also noted that the same legislative session that approved the referendum placements enacted a December 2018 session law establishing the mechanics for implementing the voter ID amendment. That implementation law has been used in elections since 2023, and the state Supreme Court, with a Republican majority, upheld the implementation law in 2023 after Democratic justices had previously found it racially biased.
The opinion said retroactively invalidating the session law that enabled the voter ID amendment "would entrench chaos and confusion especially when the Voter ID Law was upheld by the Supreme Court." The judges further described the trial court's 2019 finding that the income tax cap could harm people of color as "at best, a speculative forecast of a disparate impact along racial lines."
Kym Meyer, an attorney for the state NAACP, said the group is discussing next steps and expressed dismay that the panel did not conduct further fact-finding. "We are dismayed that three years later, the lower court has failed to do what the Supreme Court directed," Meyer wrote in an email.
Spokespeople for Senate leader Phil Berger and House Speaker Destin Hall did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Tim Moore was speaker of the House when the 2018 amendments were approved for the ballot.
The ruling can be appealed, and the dispute could return to the North Carolina Supreme Court, where five of the seven current justices are registered Republicans. If appealed, the high court could weigh whether the procedural history and the alleged use of unlawfully constituted legislative votes require invalidating the amendments despite their approval by voters.
The pair of 2018 amendments were central to a broader set of legal and political battles over voting rules and redistricting in North Carolina. Federal courts had previously invalidated nearly 30 legislative districts as racially gerrymandered, and plaintiffs in the referendum challenge argued that lawmakers elected from those districts helped place the amendments on the ballot. Republican leaders have maintained the measures reflected legitimate legislative and voter choices.
With the amendments now deemed enforceable by the trial panel, the voter ID requirement remains in place for current elections and the income tax cap reducing the top rate to 7% stands, unless a higher court orders otherwise. The state NAACP and its lawyers must decide whether to pursue an appeal that could again thrust the issues of redistricting, legislative authority and voter access before North Carolina’s highest court.