New Ethics Commission members sail through legislative committee

No complaints, no comments as Ethics Commission appointees clear committee.

Posted 2:51 p.m. Jan 31, 2019 — Updated 3:52 p.m. Jan 31, 2019

Travis Fain

, WRAL statehouse reporter

Editor's note: Due to an editing error, a previous headline incorrectly conflated the State Ethics Commission with the State Board of Elections. WRAL News regrets the error.

RALEIGH — New appointments to the new State Ethics Commission cruised through a key legislative committee Thursday.

There were no comments and no complaints, either from Senate Rules Committee members or the public, signaling smooth sailing as the board is reconstituted.

The Senate appointees are:

Clarence Newsome, the former president of Shaw University
Former Sen. Shirley Randleman, R-Wilkes

The House appointees are:

Carl J. Stewart Jr., a former speaker of the House
Former Rep. Thomas "Roger" West, R-Cherokee

Gov. Roy Cooper will also make four appointments, and the commission will hear ethics complaints against state officials. For a time, this function was combined with the State Board of Elections, but the state courts struck down that arrangement last year in a long-running legal battle between Cooper and lawmakers over control of the board.

The five-member State Board of Elections will be reconstituted separately Thursday, but that appointment process has not been so smooth. Both the state Democratic and Republican parties failed to nominate enough eligible people on their first go-around and had to forward new names to Cooper, who must pick members from those lists.

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That board's first major decision will be what to do about the still-unresolved 9th Congressional District election, which has been under investigation for two months, some of that time without a valid state board in place.

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