North Carolina State Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs, a Democrat, has released a new campaign commercial in which she says she will protect abortion rights.
A spokesman for her Republican opponent, Jefferson Griffin, an appellate court judge, says justices shouldn’t be commenting on issues that may appear before the court. Riggs said she has long been a proponent of abortion rights.
Ever since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling in 2022 that overturned Roe v. Wade, abortion rights has been one of the Democratic Party’s strongest issues with voters.
A year later, Wisconsin Democrat Janet Protasiewicz won a seat on the state Supreme Court after campaigning heavily on protecting abortion rights.
In North Carolina, Riggs — who Gov. Roy Cooper appointed to the court a year ago — is taking a similar approach.
She narrates her first ad:
“I’m Justice Allison Riggs. At 43, I’m the youngest woman to serve on the state Supreme Court and the only serving during my childbearing years. As women, we should be in charge of our own reproductive health care, but our rights are at risk. Mark Robinson says he wants to ban abortion with no exceptions, and my opponent could decide if his ban becomes law. I’ll fight for your rights, protecting families like mine and yours.”
The state’s Code of Judicial Conduct says judges should “abstain from public comment about the merits of a pending proceeding in any state or federal court dealing with a case or controversy arising in North Carolina.”
In an interview with WFAE last year, Riggs said she planned to talk about abortion rights — but do so in a way that did not violate the code of conduct.
Riggs’ campaign referred questions about the code of conduct to a news release that accompanied the launch of the ad.
“The contrast between Justice Riggs and her opponent, Judge Jefferson Griffin, should tell North Carolinian women everything they need to know about who will protect their rights on our state’s highest court,” said Embry Owen.
“Justice Riggs has been outspoken about guarding reproductive freedoms. By contrast, Judge Griffin signed onto a judicial opinion just last year, since withdrawn, that stated ‘life begins at conception.’ Similarly flawed legal logic was used by the Alabama Supreme Court, resulting in the loss of women’s access to IVF treatment, and it was used by the Texas Supreme Court to greenlight the criminalization of miscarriage care,” Owen said.
Paul Shumaker, a consultant for Griffin, said the ad “crosses a line set by the Code of Judicial Conduct.”
He called the ad a “new low” and said: “She is showing she believes judges should make the law from the bench instead of interpreting our existing laws."
Democrats have complained that the state’s highest court — which has a 5-2 Republican majority — has become overly partisan.
They are upset about recent decisions, such as allowing Justice Philip Berger Jr. to sit in judgment of cases involving his father, state Senate leader Phil Berger. The court’s Republican majority also recently ordered the state Board of Elections to reprint mail ballots so Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s name could be taken off.
RFK Jr. dropped out of the race and then endorsed former President Donald Trump for president. Having Kennedy’s name on the ballot could have siphoned votes from Trump.
Should Riggs lose, there will only be one Democrat on the court: Anita Earls.
