Administrative Watch: Legislative Power Over State Boards Limited
Meanwhile, another judicial panel ruled that six state boards must be reconstituted because legislators had seized too much power to control the boards’ membership. Affected agencies include the Clean Water Management Trust Fund (CWMTF) and the Parks and Recreation Authority (PRA).
It’s another round in the current legislature’s never-ending effort to take executive power away from the governor and exercise it themselves. In the case decided last Friday, the special three-judge panel ruled that the General Assembly had once again violated the state constitution’s separation of powers requirements by attempting to control the membership of a board which properly falls within the executive branch. The legal case challenging the boards’ makeup was brought by Gov. Roy Cooper.
Under changes approved by the legislature, it selects a majority of each board’s members, which are contained within various executive agencies. The governor cannot overturn the boards’ decisions, which are treated as final executive branch decisions, despite the fact the governor is constitutionally the head of the state’s executive branch of government. Most of the boards had existed for decades with their members appointed primarily by the governor.
The CWMTF and PRA approve grant funding for projects intended to improve water quality and to expand state parks, respectively. As a result of the court panel’s order, power to appoint a majority of those and the other four boards is to be returned to the governor.
