Free Republic

RALEIGH --The North Carolina Republican Party on Saturday endorsed Raleigh lawyer Paul Newby for the Supreme Court seat vacated by Justice Robert Orr, and the gesture gave an inkling of how the two major political parties might treat the nonpartisan races this year. The 2004 campaign marks the first election in which candidates for appellate court judgeships cannot denote their party affiliation on the ballot. The Democrat-dominated General Assembly applied the new restrictions during the 2002 session after a string of Republican successes in Supreme Court and Appeals Court races in recent election cycles. Interviews with candidates and party officials,...

RALEIGH - ... "There's been a cavalier attitude toward issues of the state constitution as fewer and fewer attorneys serve in the General Assembly. The state constitution has become an area that is less meaningful to them...." Orr said. ... Orr-- [as] the new executive director of the N.C. Institute for Constitutional Law, a nonprofit formed at the end of 2003 to both litigate in what it calls defense of the constitution and to raise public awareness of it (snip) --already has one target: the legality of business incentives. Or, as the former justice says: "What is the public purpose,...