Four Republican women serving on the North Carolina Court of Appeals fired back Thursday at the McClatchy-owned Charlotte Observer and its sister paper, the Raleigh News & Observer, accusing the two outlets of erasing their service in a judicial endorsement published ahead of the November elections.
RedState first flagged the episode Thursday afternoon, reporting that the two papers — which the site refers to collectively as the "Observers" — rolled out their endorsements in the state Supreme Court race and the three Court of Appeals contests. According to RedState, the papers opened by complaining that judicial races in North Carolina are "partisan," with party labels attached to candidates on the ballot, then endorsed Democrats in all four races.
The flashpoint came in the Court of Appeals Seat 3 race. RedState reports the endorsement noted that the winner would fill the seat vacated by Democrat Allegra Collins, and claimed the outcome could leave the court "without a woman among its 15 justices." The endorsement went on to praise District Court Judge Christine Walczyk as "an active advocate for women in the judiciary and legal community."
The problem: the North Carolina Court of Appeals already has four female Republican judges.
Those four judges responded with a letter released Thursday. "An endorsement should not erase the service of four women simply because they belong to a different political party," the judges wrote. "Recognizing women's contributions to the judiciary requires recognizing Republican women, too. Their experience, leadership, and public service are no less meani—" the letter states, according to RedState's account.
RedState has documented the Charlotte Observer and Raleigh News & Observer's political coverage for years, pointing to what it describes as a cozy relationship between North Carolina Democrats and local media. The outlet's Thursday report was blunt about the broader pattern, calling the state's establishment press "hopelessly and notoriously biased."
The letter from the four judges lands in the middle of an election season in which every Court of Appeals seat and a state Supreme Court seat are on the ballot, with party labels now printed next to judicial candidates' names. The Observer papers opposed that setup in their own endorsement — then proceeded to back Democrats in every race anyway, per RedState.
Republicans control the North Carolina Supreme Court and have made inroads on the Court of Appeals in recent cycles, turning judicial races into expensive, high-turnout battles. The state's congressional map and its Supreme Court majority have both been central to national fights over redistricting and election law, which is why the composition of the appellate courts draws attention far beyond Raleigh.
For the four Republican women on the Court of Appeals, the dispute is simpler than the electoral map: they hold seats, they have records, and an endorsement that discusses women in the judiciary without mentioning them is, in their view, a deliberate omission.
RedState's report notes that the winner of Seat 3 fills the vacancy left by Collins, who is a Democrat. The outlet also noted that the papers framed their endorsement around the idea that keeping a woman on the court mattered — a claim the four Republican jurists say is flatly contradicted by their presence on the bench.
The Charlotte Observer and Raleigh News & Observer did not respond publicly to the judges' letter as of Thursday evening. It is not yet known whether the papers will issue a correction, clarification, or follow-up endorsement addressing the four judges by name.
What is known is that the letter exists, it was released Thursday, and it puts the two McClatchy papers on record being corrected by the very jurists their endorsement overlooked.
Our Take
This is what happens when a newsroom decides ideology comes before arithmetic. The Charlotte Observer and the News & Observer wanted to argue that women belong on the bench — a fine sentiment — and then wrote a sentence that erased four sitting Republican women to make a Democratic endorsement sound nobler than it was. That is not an oversight. Oversight is missing a typo. This is a decision to treat Republican women as if their robes were costumes.
And notice the shape of it. The papers opened by complaining that judicial races are "partisan," then endorsed Democrats in all four. They draped the endorsement in the language of women's representation while ignoring the women already doing the job. When four judges — four women, four public servants with records — have to write a public letter to remind a legacy newspaper that they exist, the newspaper has told you exactly whose contributions it considers worth counting.
Patriots in North Carolina should read that letter, and then read the endorsement, and then remember which masthead produced which. The ballot has party labels now. So does the coverage. The only difference is the paper still pretends otherwise.
