House Republican leaders pushed forward Tuesday with a half-dozen nominees to the University of North Carolina Board of Governors despite complaints from a leading Democrat that they were acting in bad faith and decreasing diversity on a board that sets policy for the state's public university system.
The six names are mostly re-appointments, but a black Democrat would come off the board, replaced by a white Republican. The appointees include at least one lobbyist, the managing partner of a company that two top members of House leadership have worked for and a developer who is friends with Speaker of the House Tim Moore.
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House Minority Leader Darren Jackson took issue Tuesday with the process: An up-or-down vote on a resolution naming members to the board as opposed to an election that would force legislators to choose from a larger field of candidates. That gives leadership closer control of the slate.
"The fact that a few people got to decide ... is wrong," Jackson, D-Wake, said during a lunchtime committee meeting.
Republicans, including House Rules Chairman David Lewis, said the House has done Board of Governors appointments this way before, and that it's legal. He was vague about other potential candidates that didn't make the cut.
"The House elected to appoint six people," Lewis, R-Harnett, told Jackson in committee. "I can't speak, nor can anyone else, about those names who do not appear on the ballot."
The General Assembly voted two years ago to gradually shrink the Board of Governors from 32 members to 24. That means the House and the Senate will each make two fewer appointments this year – six each instead of eight.
On the House side, board member Ann Maxwell told legislators she didn't want to be reappointed, House members said. But the House also declined reappointments for Joe Knott and Walter Davenport. Knott told WRAL News Tuesday that he volunteered to serve again and didn't know why he wasn't selected. Knott has clashed at times, though, with Board of Governors Chairman Harry Smith.
Jackson said that Davenport, a black Democrat, actively lobbied for reappointment.
He will be replaced by Hilton Terry Hutchens, a white Republican from Cumberland County. Jackson said that, when he agreed to go along with shrinking the board two years ago, he was given assurances that it wouldn't decrease diversity on a board already dominated by white Republican men.
"I took people at their word, and then we're doing exactly that," Jackson said Tuesday.
The university system has seen some upheaval in recent years as the Republican General Assembly reworked the board. East Carolina University Chancellor Cecil Staton announced his resignation Monday, becoming the third campus or system leader to leave early within the last six months.
The House appointees heading for approval are:
- Pearl Burris-Floyd of Gaston County
- C. Philip Byers of Rutherford County
- James Holmes Jr. of Wake County
- Hilton Terry Hutchens of Cumberland County
- J. Alex Mitchell of Durham County
- David Powers of Wake County
Everyone but Hutchens is a reappointment. Burris-Floyd is a governors affairs officer at Partners Behavioral Health, which has a contract with the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. Byers is a former Rutherford County sheriff who now works in the charter school industry.
Holmes is the managing partner of Sentinel Risk Advisors, which Lewis worked for until Decenmber and House Majority Leader John Bell, R-Wayne, works with now. Hilton Terry Hutchens is an attorney in Cumberland County. Mitchell is a developer and a friend of the speaker's who is part of the 751 South deal that drew law enforcement attention because of Moore's legal work for one of the companies involved. Moore was eventually cleared in the matter.
Powers is a lobbyist at the General Assembly.