After Democrat Roy Cooper ousted then-GOP Gov. Pat McCrory in 2016, North Carolina’s Republican legislature used their illegally gerrymandered majority to engage in a flagrantly undemocratic power grab in a lame-duck session right before McCrory left office. Among their many changes, they removed the governor’s authority to name all members on every state and county elections board to prevent Democrats from gaining control of them. Late on Friday, a state court panel ruled that this change violated the state constitution’s separation of powers, dealing a major victory for voting rights.
Under McCrory, Republicans had used their majorities on the state and county boards to ram through a slew of voter suppression efforts in tandem with a voting law so restrictive that a court said it targeted black voters “with almost surgical precision.” These boards cut early voting hours and limited the locations where it would be offered. They also redrew precinct boundaries and moved polling places away from locations such as college campuses and predominantly black communities. These changes were all part of an attempt to make it more difficult or time-consuming for Democratic-leaning demographics to cast a ballot.
The governor appoints all members of each board under the current law, while their party is limited to a one-seat majority. Republicans had attempted to create even-numbered boards where the legislature would pick half the members and the parties would be evenly divided. Their change also required a supermajority to take action, while they gave Republicans the chairmanships during state and federal election years. Doing so would have allowed Republicans to veto any of Gov. Cooper’s efforts to have the boards undo any of McCrory’s voter suppression efforts, but new Democratic majorities hopefully will now be able to do so soon.
Another major prong of the Republican attack on the rule of law was to dramatically reduce the number of executive branch appointees who serve at the pleasure of the governor, effectively preventing Cooper from firing hundreds of staffers McCrory had appointed to state agencies. The court once again deemed this unconstitutional, giving the governor more control over the executive branch.
The court’s ruling wasn’t a complete victory for Cooper, however. They upheld the legislature’s unprecedented switch to requiring state Senate approval for cabinet appointees. Although this provision had never been implemented before, this ruling was more to be expected, since the state constitution more explicitly indicated that the legislature had that authority. Finally, a separate lawsuit is still in progress against Republicans’ effort to remove the governor’s control over state Board of Education and University of North Carolina system appointments.
Thanks to gerrymanders that were ruled unconstitutional in 2016, Republicans narrowly won veto-proof legislative majorities last year, meaning they could attempt to pass a new law that would cut early voting via statute instead of relying on the state board of elections. However, that could run afoul of the federal Voting Rights Act, and Republicans are currently dealing with the fallout of trying to appeal 2016’s 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that struck down their sweeping 2013 voter suppression law.
Republican legislators will undoubtedly appeal Friday’s ruling all the way to the North Carolina state Supreme Court. However, after Democrats gained a 4 to 3 majority in a crucial 2016 judicial race, Cooper’s chance of success appears strong. Furthermore, the section of the lower court’s ruling dealing with the elections boards was itself unanimous and bipartisan, meaning there’s no guarantee that Supreme Court’s three Republican members will even side with the legislature.