Cooper sues NC lawmakers, claiming 'blatantly unconstitutional legislative power grab'
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper is suing Republican state lawmakers, claiming a new law they passed Tuesday is a "blatantly unconstitutional legislative power grab."
It's not the first time legislative leaders have sought to reduce the governor's power, nor the first time he's sued them over it. Even before Cooper had been sworn into office, in the days following his first gubernatorial win in late 2016, the legislature began chipping away at the power of the governor's office.
The latest effort is SB 512, which takes away the governor's ability to appoint dozens of members of state boards and commissions dealing with education, public health, transportation, the environment and more. Instead, the law gives that power to the leadership of the state General Assembly.
“This law is a blatantly unconstitutional legislative power grab,” Cooper said in announcing his lawsuit. “Over the years, the North Carolina Supreme Court has repeatedly held in bipartisan decisions that the legislature cannot seize executive power like this no matter what political parties control which offices. The efforts of Republican legislators to destroy the checks and balances in our constitution are bad for people and bad for our democracy.”
Spokespeople for the top state legislative leaders didn't respond to a request for comment about Cooper's lawsuit, which was filed in state court in Wake County, but Republican lawmakers earlier on Tuesday defended the law as their attempt to increase accountability.
“It does not make sense for these boards to be made up of appointments by one individual," said Sen. Warren Daniel, R-Burke, who added that while governors are elected every four years, the legislature is elected every two years — hypothetically giving voters more options to vote out the party in power if they're upset with how things are going.
Democrats said that makes no sense since the governor is elected statewide, yet each individual legislator represents only a small sliver of North Carolina. Since the state Senate has 50 districts and the House has 120 districts, that means each individual lawmaker represents, at most, just 2% of the population.
"How can the public know who to hold accountable for these decisions going forward?" Sen. Julie Mayfield, D-Buncombe, said during Tuesday's vote. "And even if the public is able to determine the legislative appointees are causing mischief, it is virtually impossible to hold us accountable as a body."
Mayfield also noted that while elections for governor tend to be highly competitive, the same is not true of elections for the state legislature. In many recent years, only a small number of the state's 170 legislative districts have been competitive.
And Mayfield predicted it's about to get even less competitive at the legislature. GOP lawmakers are in the process of drawing new district maps for themselves, to be used in 2024 and beyond, with new guidance from the GOP majority on the state Supreme Court that politically motivated gerrymandering doesn't violate the state constitution.
"The General Assembly might be the least accountable branch of government in our state at this point, given how secure most of our seats are, how few of us have primaries, and how even fewer of us have any meaningful challengers in general elections," Mayfield said.
Those new maps are expected to be shown to the public next week, GOP lawmakers said Tuesday.
