Executive Watch: Cooper Vetoes Another Bad Elections Bill
Governor Roy Cooper last week vetoed the General Assembly’s latest grab for complete control of the state’s elections process, calling it a repackaged version of a previous attempt “to make it harder for people to register and vote.”
NCLCV and other citizen conservation advocates have been forced in recent years to pay special attention to these election process bills. Many of them have been designed to make more difficult our job of holding legislators accountable for their environmental records. The public’s ability to hold their elected officials accountable depends on protecting citizens’ rights to register and vote in fair elections.
The vetoed legislation, Senate Bill 68, was portrayed by legislative majority leaders as a “bipartisan” system, but in fact was detailed in ways to guarantee their own (and their political party’s) control of the process. The key parts of the law were taken from legislation they passed in December to strip power from the incoming governor before he took office. That legislation was blocked by the state courts as an unconstitutional intrusion by the legislative branch into the executive branch’s powers to fairly administer state law and programs.
The new version, SB 68, would create boards of elections at the state and county levels with even numbers of Republicans and Democrats, all of whom must be selected from nominees submitted by those parties. Since none of the boards could act on anything without majority vote, this would create likely frequent partisan deadlocks on the boards. Under these circumstances, plans would presumably default to whatever minimum arrangements were provided for by state law (controlled by the legislature).
Under SB 68, the chief state administrative employee of the election system would remain through May 2019 the one appointed during the McCrory Administration, when Republican majorities controlled the state and county boards. SB 68 would mandate that the chair of the state board be a Republican during each presidential election year, when the most contests are on the ballot. It would also require that the chair of every county board be a Republican during all even-numbered years. Nearly all elections in North Carolina are held during even-numbered years. (While SB 68 does not include the words “Republican” or “Democrat,” it ensures these results with references to the number of registered voters affiliated with the parties.)
In his veto message on the bill, Gov. Cooper explains his view of the bill’s intent and effect: “It’s a scheme to ensure that Republicans control state and county boards of elections in Presidential election years when the most races are on the ballot. The North Carolina Republican Party has a track record of trying to influence Board of Elections members to make it harder for people to vote and have fair elections. Under this bill, that same party controls the pool of appointments of half the state and county elections boards.”
The vetoed legislation now returns to the General Assembly, where legislative leaders are expected to seek to override the veto. If that occurs, it’s expected that the fight will head back to the state courts for a decision on the new law’s constitutionality.
