North Carolina’s Devastating New Abortion Ban and the Fight Ahead
Moral Monday March & Interfaith Social Justice Rally, by twbuckner (CC BY 2.0)
From 2013 through 2018, North Carolina Republicans had a veto-proof supermajority in the Legislature and engaged in a series of power grabs.
On Tuesday night, over the cries of hundreds of protesters, Republican lawmakers in North Carolina overrode the Democratic governor’s veto to enact an unpopular 12-week abortion ban, a bill that they refused to debate in a public hearing.
Republicans now enjoy more power in the state Capitol than they’ve had in years, after a Democratic lawmaker switched parties to give the GOP a veto-proof majority in both chambers. And it could get worse after they gerrymander election districts later this year, enabled by a conservative-controlled state Supreme Court. That new GOP majority on the court recently reversed course on democracy to sanction gerrymandering and voter suppression. This could lead to more new laws that hurt schools, trans people, workers, and so many more, in addition to giving Republicans near-total control over government in a state that has split evenly and twice elected a Democratic governor in recent years.
But hope is not lost. North Carolina has been here before. From 2013 through 2018, Republicans had a veto-proof supermajority in the Legislature. They engaged in a series of power grabs, but some of their most brazen abuses of power faltered after massive protests at the Capitol. Despite Tuesday’s abhorrent circumvention of the democratic process, North Carolina’s citizens can rally to save the state’s democracy once again.
Ten years ago, just days after the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder, North Carolina lawmakers passed a sprawling voter suppression bill that included a draconian voter ID mandate and several other provisions that made it harder to vote. This brazen attack on democracy led to fierce protests in Raleigh. Tens of thousands of people flooded the streets to protest this bill and others. Hundreds of them were arrested, including 64 people at an abortion rights protest.
The Rev. William Barber, who was head of the state NAACP, helped launch the “Moral Mondays” protest movement that April. Barber said that he began this work after the Legislature’s “mean-spirited quadruple attack” on poor people: raising taxes on working-class families, cutting unemployment benefits, rejecting Medicaid expansion, and slashing education funding.
The intersectional movement that Barber led unified young people, labor organizers, civil rights activists, and progressive religious leaders in their opposition to the Legislature’s extreme agenda. As lawmakers’ list of targets grew, so did the movement. When legislators targeted trans people with a “bathroom bill,” they generated an enormous backlash, boycotts, and the loss of beloved college basketball tournaments in the state. Ultimately, a compromise was struck that significantly softened the initial anti-trans legislation
The Moral Mondays protesters were inspired by Barber’s fiery rhetoric that called out lawmakers for their immoral agenda. He was fond of quoting a Bible verse, “Woe unto those who make unjust laws that rob the rights of the poor.” In his booming preacher’s voice, Barber would call out the movement’s slogan: “Forward together!” And the crowd would thunder in response: “Not one step back!”
The movement helped stop some blatant power grabs. In 2016, after voters elected a new progressive majority to the state Supreme Court, conservatives responded by suggesting that legislators pack the court. The idea was to expand the court and allow the lame-duck Republican governor, who’d just been defeated, the power to fill the two new seats. They had already passed bills to slash the incoming governor’s authority.