Editorial: Cooper's veto no pig in a poke
Tuesday, May 9, 2017 -- It is time for the election-fixing, gerrymandering-obsessed N.C. legislature to stop trying to do the same with the courts. Leave judges and juries alone and let them do their jobs. A good start would be sustaining Gov. Roy Cooper's veto of HB 467.
Posted — Updated
The North Carolina Chamber of Commerce’s reaction to Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto unfairly and inaccurately suggested the governor was anti-business, anti-jobs and anti-agriculture. For lack of a better phrase – that’s just HOGWASH.
Once again, it really is about the General Assembly, along with its wholly-owned subsidiary the N.C. Chamber of Commerce, over-reaching to control access to the courts and dictate how judges must rule.
It is all too reminiscent of when the state Chamber traded silence on legalizing discrimination in disastrous House Bill 2 in return for a provision to restrict citizens’ access to state courts to address discrimination in the workplace and to stop a minimum wage increase.
State Chamber President Lew Ebert said: “This anti-jobs veto spurns North Carolina farmers and fails to remedy ambiguity plaguing our state’s legal system.” What Ebert wants is a pro-business thumb on the scales of justice. That is no remedy for whatever he sees as ambiguity.
The outcome of a veto override is at best uncertain. But what isn’t, is the point that Cooper -- a lawyer, former legislator and attorney general -- was driving home.
It is time for the election-fixing, gerrymandering-obsessed legislature to stop trying to do the same with the courts.
Leave judges and juries alone and let them do their jobs. A good start would be sustaining the governor’s veto of HB 467.
Copyright 2024 by Capitol Broadcasting Company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
