Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-248_4fc5.pdf
Page Number: 9.0

Cite as:  597 U. S. ____ (2022) 

5 

Opinion of the Court 

Id., at 127, n. 1. 

The District Court denied the motion to intervene.  North 
Carolina State Conference of NAACP v. Cooper, 332 F. R. D. 
161  (MDNC  2019).  In  doing  so,  the  court  applied  a  “pre-
sumption”  that  the  legislative  leaders’  interests  would  be
adequately  represented  by  the  Governor  and  Board  and 
their  legal  representative,  the  attorney  general.  Id.,  at 
168–170.  On the court’s view, the legislative leaders might 
someday have an interest sufficient to warrant intervention 
if the existing parties refused to offer any defense of S. B. 
824.  Id., at 166.  But because nothing like that had yet hap-
pened,  the  District  Court  denied  the  motion  to  intervene 
without prejudice to renewal later.  Id., at 172–173. 

In  time,  the  legislative  leaders  took  up  the  District 
Court’s  offer  to  renew  their  motion.    They  pointed  to  this
Court’s intervening decision in Bethune-Hill, which “clari-
fied” that legislative leaders sometimes may be legally en-
titled to intervene and represent “the interest of the State 
in defending the constitutionality of ” a state law.  App. 159.
They also updated the District Court on the Board’s conduct
in state-court proceedings.  There, the Board had conceded 
that its “ ‘primary objective’ ” wasn’t defending S. B. 824, but 
obtaining  guidance  regarding  which  law  it  would  need  to 
enforce  in  an  upcoming  election  (S. B.  824  or  preexisting
law).  Id., at 156.  Seizing on this concession, the state-court 
plaintiffs argued that even the Board did not think it would
ultimately prevail on the merits.  Id., at 157.  In the end, 
however, the District Court was unmoved by these develop-
ments.  It  denied  the  legislative  leaders’  renewed  motion
and addressed Bethune-Hill only in a footnote stating that
the decision did not “change the calculus.”  North Carolina 
State  Conference  of  NAACP  v.  Cooper,  2019  WL  5840845, 
*2, n. 3 (MDNC, Nov. 7, 2019). 

As the federal litigation proceeded without the legislative 
leaders, the NAACP sought a preliminary injunction to pre-