openpolitics.com

North Carolina’s ‘Legislative Coup’ Is Over, and Republicans Won

Legislators passed a slate of bills to sharply reduce the power of the incoming governor, over the heated objections of Democrats and hundreds of protestors.

The North Carolina General Assembly on Friday wrapped up a special session in which the Republicans who dominate both chambers mounted a brazen and successful effort to strip the incoming Democratic governor of a host of powersafforded to his Republican predecessor and many governors before. Having lost the governor’s seat in November’s election, the GOP legislature opted to simply reduce the governor’s power drastically. The two most prominent billsinvolve the elections system and the governor’s right to make appointments.

.. Pat McCrory, the outgoing GOP governor, quickly signed the electoral-reform bill into law. He has been presented with the bill reducing the governor’s appointments, but has not yet signed it. McCrory, who narrowly lost to Attorney General Roy Cooper in his quest for reelection, had not made any statement on the takeover bid, and he himself had tangled with the legislature over separation of powers, at one point successfully suing to recover appointment powers.On the appointments front, the legislature withdrew the governor’s ability to make appointments to the state board of education and the boards of trustees of University of North Carolina-system schools; subjected his cabinet appointees to senate approval; and reduced the number of appointments the governor can make for government jobs.

.. It is difficult and perhaps impossible to construe the changes as anything more than naked politics. Leading Republicans even admitted that they might not have pursued the changes if McCrory had won reelection. The timing of the changes was also controversial: Legislators returned to Raleigh for a special session billed as a chance to pass disaster-relief bills for victims of flooding and wildfires. Rumors flew that Republicans would attempt to pack the Supreme Court to restore a conservative majority. That didn’t happen; instead, as soon as the disaster-relief bill had been signed, Republican leaders gaveled the special session to a close, then promptly opened a new special session, with no declared agenda—surprising both the press and Democratic members. House Speaker Tim Moore said the decision to do so had only been made on Wednesday, a claim debunked when documents putting it into motion, dated Monday, were revealed.

.. It appeared that part of the reason for conducting the business in a special session was to avoid rallying of opposition. That was a tactic that Republicans used to pass HB2, the state’s controversial “bathroom bill,” in the spring, and it worked this week. Democrats warned that just like HB2, the new legislation might have unintended effects, and they accused Republicans of sidestepping public opinion. Certainly, it is true that the GOP will return in the new year retaining their current supermajorities, which means they likely could have forced changes through a Cooper veto. In this case, all parties had two days to review the legislation, nearly four times as much as they did to review HB2 before it was signed into law.