North Carolina Supreme Court dismisses motion asking justice to recuse from Leandro lawsuit involving father
Phil Berger Jr. had asked the court to review the motion. That lawsuit known as Leandro is back before the state Supreme Court next week, with potentially billions of dollars for public schools on the line.
Posted — UpdatedBerger’s father, Senate President Phil Berger Sr., is an intervenor in the 30-year-old lawsuit, Hoke County Board of Education v. State of North Carolina, known as the Leandro case for one of the plaintiffs.
Plaintiffs in the case — families and school boards in five lower-income counties — had asked Berger to recuse himself from the case, citing his familial relationship to an intervenor.
Associate Justice Allison Riggs, with Associate Justice Anita Earls joining, dissented.
“I am confident that my work with an organization that represented Penn-Intervenors in a distinct matter almost twenty years ago will not impair my ability to impartially decide this appeal,” Earls wrote in her decision Jan. 31.
Legislative-intervenors, including Senator Berger, had asked Earls to recuse herself.
Both justices faced similar requests to recuse themselves back in 2022 and decided not to. Back then, both declined to recuse.
But rather than decline to recuse himself this time, Justice Berger asked the Supreme Court to consider the plaintiffs’ request. He wanted to err “on the side of prudence,” according to his filing.
The court has a 5-2 Republican majority over Democrats, with Berger in the majority and Earls in the minority. When the court last ruled in the case, in November 2022, the court had a 4-3 Democratic majority over Republicans. Part of the dispute before the court now is over the extent to which the court is being asked to re-hear and re-rule on matters decided in 2022 decision.
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