Debate over abortion rights leads to expensive campaigns for high-stakes state Supreme Court seats

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LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Abortion and reproductive rights have been central to the races for president and governor in North Carolina, a battleground state that has more moderate abortion restrictions than elsewhere across the South.

That’s been even truer in the fight for a seat on the state Supreme Court that abortion rights supporters say will play an important role in determining whether Republicans can enact even more restrictions. Registered Republicans currently hold five of seven seats and could expand that majority even further in Tuesday’s election.

Justice Allison Riggs, a Democrat who is running for reelection, is focusing heavily on the issue and touts her support for reproductive rights. Her first television ad featured images of Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the Republican nominee for governor, who prefers to restrict abortions earlier than the current 12 weeks. She says her GOP rival for the court could be a deciding vote on the bench for such restrictions.

“This is an issue that is landing in front of state Supreme Courts, and it is one that is very salient to voters now,” Riggs said in an interview.

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Her Republican opponent, Court of Appeals Judge Jefferson Griffin, said Riggs is saying too much about an issue that could come before the court.

“I think it’s an inappropriate manner, a clear violation of our judicial standards, our code of conduct,” he said.

The North Carolina race emphasizes how much abortion is fueling expensive campaigns for Supreme Courts in several states this year. Groups on the right and left are spending heavily to reshape courts that could play deciding roles in legal fights over abortion, reproductive rights, voting rights, redistricting and other hot-button issues for years to come.

Experts say the campaigns show how the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning constitutional abortion protections that had been in place for half a century has transformed races for state high courts.

“What Dobbs did was made clear to both political stakeholders and the public that these state courts that hadn’t got a lot of attention are actually going to be really important and they’re going to be deciding some of the biggest cases that people might have expected to go to the U.S. Supreme Court,” said Douglas Keith, senior counsel in the judiciary program at the Brennan Center, which has tracked spending on state court races.

Thirty-three states are holding elections for 82 Supreme Court seats this year. The 2024 election cycle follows record-breaking spending for judicial races in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania last year.

Groups on the left have ramped up their spending on state courts considerably this year. The American Civil Liberties Union has spent $5.4 million on court races in Montana, Michigan, North Carolina and Ohio. Planned Parenthood and the National Democratic Redistricting Committee earlier this year announced they were collectively spending $5 million, focusing on court races in Arizona, Michigan, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas.

“We have never invested this heavily in state Supreme Courts before,” said Katie Rodihan, spokesperson for Planned Parenthood Votes. “This is really a groundbreaking move for us, and I expect this will be the norm for us moving forward.”

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The targets include Ohio, where Republicans hold a 4-3 majority on the court. Democrats are defending two seats on the court, while a third is open, and Democratic victories in all three races are considered a longshot in the Republican-leaning state.

Control of the court could be key if the state appeals a judge’s ruling that struck down the most far-reaching of the state’s abortion restrictions. The ruling said the law banning most abortions once cardiac activity is detected — as early as six weeks into pregnancy and before many women know they’re pregnant — violated a constitutional amendment approved by voters last year that protected reproductive rights.

Two seats are up for election on Michigan’s court, where Democratic-backed justices hold a 4-3 majority. Court races are technically nonpartisan, but candidates are nominated at party conventions. Republicans would need to win both seats to flip the court in their favor.

Justice Kyra Harris Bolden is defending the seat she was appointed to two years ago by Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Bolden was the first Black woman to sit on Michigan’s bench. She faces Republican-backed circuit court Judge Patrick O’Grady for the remaining four years of the eight-year term.

Republican state Rep. Andrew Fink is competing against University of Michigan law professor Kimberly Anne Thomas, who was nominated by Democrats, for the other open seat that is being vacated by a Republican-backed justice.

Michigan voters already have locked abortion rights in the state constitution, though groups backing Bolden and Thomas are framing the races as crucial to defending those rights, with one group’s ad warning that “the Michigan state Supreme Court can still take abortion rights away.”

The most heated races are for two seats on the Montana Supreme Court, which has come under fire from GOP lawmakers over rulings against laws that would have restricted abortion access or made it more difficult to vote.

Former U.S. Magistrate Judge Jerry Lynch is running against county attorney Cory Swanson for chief justice, while state judge Katherine Bidegaray is running against state judge Dan Wilson for another open seat on the court.

Progressive groups have been backing Lynch and Bidegaray. Both said in an ACLU questionnaire that they agreed with the reasoning and holding of a 1999 state Supreme Court ruling that the constitutional right to privacy includes the right to obtain a pre-viability abortion.

Groups on the right have been painting them both as too liberal and echoing national Republicans’ rhetoric, with text messages invoking the debate over transgender athletes on women’s sports teams.

The Republican State Leadership Committee, a longtime player in state court races, said its Judicial Fairness Initiative planned to spend seven figures in Arizona, Michigan, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas.

The group’s ads are focusing on issues other than abortion. In one touting three Republicans running for Ohio’s court, the group shows images of President Donald Trump along with images related to immigration.

A super PAC backed by conservative donor and shipping executive Richard Uihlein also has given to groups involved in state Supreme Court races in Montana and Ohio.

Progressive groups are even focusing attention on longshot states such as Texas, where Republicans hold all the seats on the Supreme Court. They’re trying to unseat three GOP justices who were part of unanimous rulings rejecting challenges to the state’s abortion ban.

One group, Find Out PAC, has been running digital ads in San Antonio, Dallas and Houston criticizing justices Jimmy Blacklock, John Devine and Jane Bland. In its ad, the group accuses the three of “playing doctor from the bench.”

In North Carolina, Riggs’ campaigning on abortion rights has prompted complaints from Republicans who say she’s stepping outside the bounds of judicial ethics. But Riggs said she’s not saying how she would rule in any case and is merely sharing her values with voters.

“I’m going to keep talking about my values because, at the core, our democracy works best when people cast informed votes,” she said.

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Associated Press writers Isabella Volmert in Lansing, Michigan, Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio, and Amy Beth Hanson in Helena, Montana, contributed to this report.