Senate finalizes new amendments language

Senate follows House, wraps up special session reworking amendments targeted by lawsuits.

Posted 8:03 p.m. Aug 27, 2018 — Updated 11:20 p.m. Aug 27, 2018

Travis Fain

, WRAL statehouse reporter

RALEIGH, N.C. — The state Senate signed off on new ballot language Monday for a pair of constitutional amendments, bringing a brief and hastily called special legislative session to an end.

The votes were nearly party line, with Sen. Joel Ford, D-Mecklenburg, the only Democrat siding with Republicans on the two amendments, which would shift appointment powers from the governor to the legislature.

The Republican majority decided to rewrite the language voters will see as they decide whether to add the amendments to the constitution after a three-judge panel deemed their initial language too misleading to appear on the ballot. Democrats, including Gov. Roy Cooper, say the new language continues to deceive voters, though it seems the changes answered a number of the court's concerns.

Cooper spokesman Ford Porter said late Monday to expect more legal action.

"Less than a week before ballots are to be printed, rather than repeal their old misleading amendments, Republicans have passed more misleading amendments to erode checks and balances in our state’s constitution," Porter said in an email.

"I think the amendments comply with the suggestion that the court made," Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger told reporters after the session wrapped. "I think they fairly and accurately depict what the amendments do."

This was the second special session to tweak the amendments since their initial language passed during the General Assembly's regular session, which ended in late June. Four other amendments will also appear on the ballot in November and were not held up by the courts.

In reworking the ballot language, GOP leaders also changed some of what the amendments would do, particularly in legislation to create a new eight-member State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement to replace the existing nine-member body. Originally, the amendment not only created the new board but asserted the General Assembly's authority to appoint people to hundreds of other state boards and commissions now handled by the governor.

That language was a response to past legal wrangling over appointment powers, but it was dropped as GOP leaders rewrote the amendment.

The other amendment at issue Monday would still shift much of the power to fill judicial vacancies from the governor to the General Assembly, but legislators added language to clear up allegations that the amendment contained a loophole to let the legislature get around gubernatorial vetoes on a range of issues.

Democrats said their Republican colleagues didn't go far enough in describing the amendments to the voters. Sen. Floyd McKissick, D-Durham, and others called the new language "false" and "deceptive."

They also said the amendments were a bad idea regardless of the descriptions. They said an eight-person elections board was bound to deadlock, turning it into a feckless body. They accused Republicans of a power-grab, asking the voters to shift authorities that have long been the governor's over to the General Assembly.

Republicans said it's up to the voters to decide. It takes three-fifths support in the General Assembly followed by a successful statewide referendum to amend the state constitution.

"Let's not forget that that's what this is about, is the people deciding what they want in their constitution," said Berger, R-Rockingham.

Democrats also criticized Republicans for coming back into session to address the amendments but not to put a bond on the November ballot to raise money for school construction. They particularly targeted legislators in potentially tight re-election campaigns this November, including Sen. Tamara Barringer, R-Wake, who did not attend Monday's session or the previous special session on the amendments.

Barringer's husband and campaign manager, Brent Barringer, said the senator was teaching Monday at UNC-Chapel Hill, and that the previous special session fell on their wedding anniversary.

"She's very much a citizen legislator," he said.

Voters will be asked to vote for or against the following language when deciding the judicial vacancies amendment:

"Constitutional amendment to change the process for filling judicial vacancies that occur between judicial elections from a process in which the Governor has sole appointment power to a process in which the people of the State nominate individuals to fill vacancies by way of a commission comprised of appointees made by the judicial, executive, and legislative branches charged with making recommendations to the legislature as to which nominees are deemed qualified; then the legislature will recommend nominees to the Governor via legislative action not subject to gubernatorial veto; and the Governor will appoint judges from among these nominees."

Vote will choose for or against the following language on the elections board amendment:

"Constitutional amendment to establish an eight-member Bipartisan Board of Ethics and Elections Enforcement in the Constitution to administer ethics and elections law."

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