Cooper, Stein sue GOP state lawmakers for a second time over new 'power grab' law

The state's Democratic governor and governor-elect are suing Republican legislators over a recently passed law that will strip away the governor's power over elections administration in North Carolina and hand that power to the GOP instead.

For nearly a century, state law has given the governor control over elections administration. Currently the State Board of Elections and all 100 county-level election boards have five-member boards. Because the governor is currently a Democrat, that means the Democratic Party gets three of the seats on those boards and the Republican Party gets the other two seats.

Elections boards investigate complaints of voter fraud, campaign finance violations and other allegations related to elections. They can't write elections laws but can write and implement many rules, such as the hours and location of early voting sites, which types of voter IDs to accept, and similar decisions.

Taking away the governor's influence over the election boards has been a top priority of Republican state lawmakers ever since 2016, when Democrat Roy Cooper unseated Republican Pat McCrory in that year's race for governor. Multiple GOP-backed attempts since then, however, have been overturned as unconstitutional or rejected by voters at the ballot box.

Cooper and his successor, Democratic Gov.-elect Josh Stein, said in their lawsuit Monday that this newest effort should also be overturned as unconstitutional.

"In recent years, these legislative leaders have repeatedly tried and failed to seize control of the State Board of Elections for their own partisan gain," Stein said in announcing the lawsuit. "This latest move insults the voters who rejected their power grab, violates our constitution, and must not stand."

Spokespeople for GOP legislative leaders didn't immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.

After the previous rejections by courts and voters, the legislature tried stripping the governor's control over the elections board for a fourth time last year, ahead of the 2024 elections, passing a law in 2023's Senate Bill 749 to create an elections board that would be evenly split between Democratic and Republican members. That's also been held up in court, awaiting trial but blocked from going into effect into the meantime due to a judicial ruling that it's likely to be unconstitutional.

After Democrat Josh Stein won the 2024 election for governor, defeating Republican Mark Robinson, the legislature tried again with yet another strategy: Giving control over elections to the State Auditor starting in 2025, who will be incoming Republican Dave Boliek.

It remains to be seen whether that part of the law, Senate Bill 382, will be allowed to go into place early next year. Cooper and Stein are asking a Wake County judge to intervene and block the changes while the lawsuit plays out.

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Monday's election board challenge is Cooper and Stein's second lawsuit over SB 382. It likely is not the last.

Senate Bill 382 was formally called a Helene relief aid bill, but critics said it contained almost nothing for relief efforts. The main thrust of the bill was a wide slew of changes to state government unrelated to disaster relief, such as stripping the governor's power over elections and Highway Patrol, or taking away other powers and duties held by the attorney general, lieutenant governor and superintendent of schools — all offices won by Democrats in the 2024 elections.

Earlier this month Cooper and Stein sued over a different portion of the bill that would prevent Stein from hiring or firing the leader of the State Highway Patrol, giving that power to the legislature instead. Stein said it's an unconstitutional violation of the state's system of checks and balances, which puts the executive branch in charge of public safety. Republican legislative spokespeople did not respond to requests for comment about that lawsuit.