Allison Riggs

The Nice Marie says, I shudder to think who Josh Stein would put in to replace Cooper.

Anita Earls or Alison Riggs would be my first thought.

Yeah, so again, this is from the rumor mill up in Raleigh.

If Cooper cannot fulfill the term, right, if he can't serve through the end of the term, then Josh Stein would make the appointment to replace him.

She is the last person of color on the bench.

She's only the, the, uh, the second remaining Democrat, and her colleague, the Justice N- uh, uh, Allison Riggs, she was elected in 2024, was the last seat in the country to be certified because we had to go through so many different lawsuits and recounts because the guy that lost to her just wouldn't concede.

And finally, we went to court, and, uh, it was our court of appeals judges that said you can't change the rules after the ballots have been cast.

And then it was a Trump-appointed judge that actually agreed with that court and said that Allison's race was to be certified for her with the winner.

[clears throat]

And it touches on things that a lot of people don't realize, but Justice Earls is absolutely incredible.

We need to keep her there and our three statewide, uh, court of appeals judges, Toby Hampson, who ruled in, uh, that, that Allison Riggs case, uh, John Arrowood, and, uh, we gotta put Christine Wallsick on there as well.

And I'll say this, uh, to, to close that part out, um, when we have these judges, this t- this is how we get justice in terms of redistricting-

She's only the second remaining Democrat.

And her colleague, Justice Allison Riggs, She was elected in 2024 with the last seat in the country to be certified because we had to go through so many different lawsuits and recounts because the guy that lost to her just wouldn't concede.

And finally, we went to court and it was our court of appeals judges that said you can't change the rules after the ballots have been cast.

And then it was a Trump appointed judge that actually agreed with that court and said that Allison's race was to be certified for her with the winner.

Yeah, I can only imagine.

Who is it that you turn to? And I know it might be might be an inside, as you said, baseball conversation.

But who is it that you turn to in terms of the other leaders that are your colleagues that you send as your go to person as a chair to say, listen, this is what we've done.

It's working.

beyond simply their party labels.

And that was enough to let Alison Riggs outperform all those Court of Appeals candidates and win by a little bit.

So my assumption about where we're headed for this fall is the Democratic Court of Appeals candidates probably win by something like two to four points.

And then maybe Anita Earls wins by a little bit more than that from the perspective of actually having real resources to run an individualized campaign and that sort of thing like Alison Riggs did.

two years ago, and then we'll just be set up for a huge election in 2028.

Yeah, I guess I should backtrack on what I said about 2030 and redistricting being so important because 2028 in Supreme Court and whether Democrats can get control of the Supreme Court has the potential to rein the Republicans in a little bit on redistricting if they have total control after 2030.