Richard Chew is joined by Anita Earls, associate justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court and 2026 candidate for re-election.

Here are a few key points from the conversation:
- Justice Earls explained that North Carolina’s Supreme Court changed U.S. House representation by first rejecting partisan gerrymandering and later permitting maps that produced a 10–4 Republican congressional delegation.
- Earls said North Carolina’s districts do not reflect statewide voting patterns and that gerrymandering discourages participation. "If you add up all the votes of everyone in North Carolina, more people voted for Democrats for state House and state Senate in 2024," Earls said. "And yet the state Senate has a veto-proof supermajority of Republicans and the state House lacks just one vote of having a supermajority of Republicans in that body. So that's what I mean when I say that the results are not representative of how people have actually voted."
- She said the court’s handling of military and overseas ballots, voter ID, and absentee voting could influence voting rights tactics nationally.
- She contrasted her 30 years of civil rights litigation and appellate experience with conservative opponent Sarah Stevens’s legislative background and lack of appellate experience. "To me, it is somewhat stunning," Earls told WCPT. "She has no appellate experience, so she's never even argued a case in our court before wanting to sit on the bench. I was a litigator for 30 years. I argued cases in state and federal court, had jury trials, had appellate arguments. I argued cases in the North Carolina Supreme Court and several federal circuit courts of appeals. Our court needs someone with with that kind of litigation and appellate background because our job as justices is very different from legislators, and it makes a difference. And I think the other thing I would say is that this is fundamental to our democracy that we have districts that fairly represent voters' choices, and that's what my entire career has been about: trying to make sure that our democracy works for everyone, and that we apply the law equally to everyone. And on the other side is someone who's a champion of the view that because her party is best for the country, it's fine to gerrymander."
- Earls emphasized that she is currently the high court’s only African American justice and that her loss would leave an all-white court in a state with a 22 percent African American population. "In the over 200-year history of our court, there's been over 100 justices," she said. "There's only ever been seven African Americans. We're all still alive, so it's been very recent."

Catch "Chew's Views with Richard Chew” weekdays from 6:00 to 8:00 a.m. Central on WCPT (heartlandsignal.com/programs/chews-views).

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