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The N.C. Supreme Court issued two interesting opinions today.

In WAKE CARES, INC V WAKE COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION the court said school boards could assign students to year-round schools without parental permission:

We hold that the Board is statutorily authorized to compel attendance at year-round calendar schools. The Board's action in converting traditional calendar schools to year-round calendar schools comports with its statutory duty to provide a school system adequate to the needs of increasing student enrollment while assuring appropriate class sizes in its schools. See N.C.G.S. § 115C-47(1), (10). Moreover, the more efficient use by year-round calendar schools of existing school facilities complies with the public policy of the state to create a public school system “in the most cost-effective manner” while ensuring a sound basic education for all North Carolina children.

In a case that has bearing on the ongoing death penalty dispute the court ruled in N.C. Department of Correction V North Carolina Medical Board that the Medical Board can't prevent doctors from participating in executions:

Accordingly, we hold that N.C.G.S. § 15-190, by its plain language, envisions physician participation in executions in some professional capacity. Defendant's Position Statement exceeds its authority under Chapter 90 of the North Carolina General Statutes because the Statement directly contravenes the specific requirement of physician presence found in N.C.G.S. §15-190. Because plaintiffs have standing, a genuine controversy exists, the issue is ripe for decision, and the trial court did not impermissibly decide questions of fact or fail to allow additional presentation of evidence; and because the Position Statement is an invalid exercise of defendant's statutory powers, we affirm the decision of the trial court.

The Court of Appeals this afternoon will hear the N.C. Libertarian Party's appeal of their loss in a 2005 declaratory judgment action. In that suit, the Libertarians contend that their party and its members have been deprived of a fundamental right to have the state sanction the party of their choice.

The state argues no such right exists.

A lot has happened since the 2005 suit. In 2008, Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Mike Munger won enough votes to keep the party on the ballot until the next election.

But if the Libertarians were to win, it might open the official political marketplace of ideas to more purveyors, such as the Green Party.

Read the Libertarian's brief here.

Read the state's brief here.

Before heading over to the court house, this line from the Libertarian's appeal caught my attention:

All members of the General Assembly, which enacts the election laws, including those on recognition of political parties, are either Democrats or Republicans. There are no members of the General Assembly affiliated with any other political party nor, upon information and belief, have there been any in at least thirty-five years.

Oh, how soon we forget.

Rep. Steve Wood, who represented High Point in the 1990s and early part of this decade, was once a member of the Reform Party. This came about after his own party wouldn't have him in their caucus and now-Rep. John Blust ran against him and beat him in a Republican primary in 2000. (Wood switched to the Reform Party and ran against Blust in the General Election, losing that one too.)

In fact, Wood was for a short time the highest ranking elected official in the Reform Party, an outgrowth of Ross Perot's quixotic presidential campaign. It was also the party of Jesse Ventura, the wrestler turned Minnesota governor, until he switched to Independent in 2000.

Now, the larger point the brief was making is still valid and Wood was never ELECTED to the General Assembly as a member of the Reform Party, he switched after voters put him in as a Republican.

But for the record, there you go.