Lawmakers nibble, nibble, nibble at governor's powers

Published April 27, 2023

By Higher Ed Works

Since colonial days, North Carolina has always had weak governors – call it lingering distrust of the King’s colonial toadies.

And my, has it lingered – in fact, North Carolina was the last state in the union to give its governor veto power, in 1996.1

But repeated moves by the Republican NC General Assembly since Democrat Roy Cooper was elected in 2016 have shifted power back to the legislature in a series of seemingly insatiable power grabs:

  • Even before Cooper took office, legislators removed the governor’s power to appoint members of the Board of Trustees at each of the UNC System’s 17 campuses.2
  • As part of the compromise over the budget last year, in the aftermath of the Covid pandemic, they also limited the length of time for which the governor could declare a state of emergency – unless, of course, legislators give their consent.3

The push is relentless, nibble by nibble. And legislation has continued to move in recent days – most of it emanating from the state Senate – to further curtail the governor’s appointment powers and shift control to the General Assembly:

  • One bill that’s cleared the Senate (HB 149) would give the General Assembly final say on selection of a President for the NC Community College System.

    “It’s yet another power grab of the General Assembly over education matters that’s pretty disturbing to me,” said Sen. Natasha Marcus, D-Mecklenburg, when the measure was introduced as an amendment in a Senate committee.4
  • Another Senate bill, SB 692, would take away the governor’s 10 appointments to the State Board of Community Colleges, for a total of 18 members – all of them chosen by the General Assembly. It would also move 8 appointments on each of the 58 college Boards of Trustees to the General Assembly. It would remove the Lieutenant Governor, State Treasurer and Labor Commissioner from the state board. It would remove student members from both boards. And it would give the system president power to fire campus presidents.5

    The bill, which cleared a Senate committee Wednesday,6 comes as the State Board of Community Colleges searches for a new system president after Thomas Stith resigned as president last July.
  • Another bill, SB 512, has cleared the Senate and would shift appointments from the governor to the General Assembly on nine state boards, including the NC Board of Transportation, the NC Utilities Commission that oversees gas and electric rates, and the UNC Health board. 

    On the UNC Health board, eight members would be appointed by the General Assembly, and 12 would be appointed by the UNC Board of Governors, whose members are appointed entirely by the legislature.7

THE MOVES PROMPTED a bipartisan group of the state’s five living former governors – Jim Hunt, Jim Martin, Mike Easley, Bev Perdue and Pat McCrory – to issue a letter denouncing the shifts, saying they would cause “real chaos and harm.”

“A dramatic shift in who chooses the people who carry out the laws threatens progress, and people’s livelihood,” the former governors said.8 

A spokesperson for Cooper noted that community colleges have been critical to the state’s recent successes in economic recruitment.

“Community college workforce training is a critical part of coordinated job recruitment and it makes no sense to destroy a system that is working well simply to gain political power,” spokesman Sam Chan told reporters.9

McCrory’s former counsel, Robert Stephens, also authored an op-ed piece noting that the moves echo those made by the General Assembly in 2014 – and that the NC Supreme Court struck down as overreach in a case known as McCrory v. Berger.

“In McCrory, our state Supreme Court found that ‘…the legislative branch has exerted too much control over commissions that have final executive authority. By doing so, it has prevented the Governor from performing his express constitutional duty to take care that the laws are faithfully executed,’” Stephens wrote.

“The current attempt to change the appointment powers violates our state’s constitution for the same reasons — one branch shall not ‘…prevent another branch from performing its constitutional duties.’ The phrasing of our constitution is explicit and clear: ‘forever separate and distinct.’”10

1 https://www.ncdcr.gov/blog/2016/01/01/gubernatorial-veto-instituted-1996. 
2 https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/12/19/faculty-object-legislators-take-trustee-appointments-away-north-carolina-governor. 
3 https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article270289222.html. 
4 https://www.wral.com/story/nc-senate-republicans-want-lawmakers-to-approve-community-college-system-president/20796379/. 
5 https://www.wral.com/story/nc-lawmakers-seek-more-power-over-community-college-system/20807973/. 
6 https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article274414590.html. 
7 https://www.wral.com/story/bill-to-shift-appointments-power-from-governor-to-legislature-on-a-fast-track/20796289/.                                8 https://www.wral.com/story/former-nc-governors-denounce-proposed-gop-power-shifts/20819168/. 
9 https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article274414590.html.
10 https://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/article274482461.html.

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