Cooper, Stein sue GOP lawmakers over legislation stripping power from governor

North Carolina's Democratic governor and governor-elect filed a lawsuit Thursday challenging as unconstitutional a new law that the Republican-led state legislature passed Wednesday over a gubernatorial veto.

The wide-ranging law strips a number of powers and duties from the office soon to be held by Gov.-elect Josh Stein, as well as from other state offices that Democrats won election to in this year's elections. Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed it, but Republicans in the state legislature overrode his veto in party-line votes.

Thursday's lawsuit, filed in Wake County Superior Court, challenges a small part of the law that makes the state Highway Patrol an independent agency — allowing the state legislature to vote down Stein's picks to lead the agency, and effectively forcing him to pick a Highway Patrol leader who would actually answer to Republican lawmakers, not the governor.

In their lawsuit, Stein and Cooper, who served as attorney general before Stein, say that's unconstitutional. The state constitution gives the governor ultimate control over public safety, they say, and also prevents the legislative branch from meddling in the affairs of the executive branch.

“Today, Governor Cooper and I have taken legal action to stop the legislature’s unconstitutional and dangerous power grab," Stein, the state's sitting attorney general, wrote in announcing the lawsuit. "This law threatens public safety, fractures the chain of command during a crisis, and thwarts the will of voters. Our people deserve better than a power-hungry legislature that puts political games ahead of public safety.”

Spokespeople for House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, and Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, who were named as defendants in the suit, didn't immediately respond to requests for comment late Thursday.

Similar lawsuits are expected in the coming days over a number of other provisions in the bill, which also takes away the governor's power over the State Board of Elections and the Utilities Commission, as well as the governor's ability to fill certain judicial vacancies. It also targets incoming Attorney General Jeff Jackson, incoming Lt. Gov. Rachel Hunt and incoming Superintendent of Public Instruction Mo Green, who are also Democrats.

Cooper's office indicated more lawsuits over other pieces of the law are soon to come. "The language in that bill was introduced just days after the 2024 elections and included a variety of provisions that undermine the results of the election by stripping powers from the newly elected governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, and state superintendent of public instruction. The bill also contains a variety of provisions that violate the separation of powers and unconstitutionally reduce executive power."

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The lawsuit over the Highway Patrol says that, beyond being an undemocratic rejection of the will of the voters, the changes also threaten public safety.

"In situations like emergency response, where effective executive authority is critical to public safety, separation of powers ensures a clear and unified chain of command with the governor at the apex," Cooper and Stein said in their lawsuit. "That clarity helps keep people safe. The constitutional separation of powers ensures that, just as the executive and judicial branches cannot interfere with core legislative functions, the legislative branch cannot directly exercise or interfere with the exercise of core executive functions — including essential law enforcement functions — by the people’s elected governor, even when the legislative majority’s preferred candidate fails at the ballot box."

Stein beat Republican challenger Mark Robinson by 15 percentage points in this year's election, the most lopsided race for governor since 1980.

The lawsuit also notes that even if the leader of the Highway Patrol were to later go rogue — perhaps committing crimes himself, or refusing to carry out orders — there would be no way for the governor to replace him, or to hire a replacement, without the legislature deciding to vote on it.

Their lawsuit says that's simply unacceptable due to the high-stakes, fast-moving nature of emergency situations.

"A clear chain of command ultimately leading to state’s elected chief executive is vital to protect public safety," the lawsuit says. "Breaking that chain profoundly weakens the State’s ability to respond effectively and efficiently to emergencies in a clear and coordinated fashion, whether the crisis at issue is civil unrest, a mass shooting event, an ice storm, a hurricane, or some other regional or statewide emergency."