A bill already vetoed by Cooper would erode his appointment powers to boards that set electricity rates, make environmental policies and build roads. Republicans contend the legislature should have more supervision of voting and other key regulatory functions. “They are only about keeping and gaining power for Republicans.” “I’ve spoken out against these moves that are not about election security,” Cooper told reporters this past week. There have been no widespread problems or concerns with voting in North Carolina under her watch. The legislation also could lead to the possible ouster of the state's respected elections director just months before the presidential election. It would strip the governor of the power to appoint members of the state election board and give that authority to the legislature.īill proponents say having leaders of both major parties picking equal numbers of board members would promote bipartisanship and consensus election policies.īut critics say having a board split evenly between the two parties would lead to gridlock, creating a situation where the stalemates would be settled by the Republican-controlled legislature or the Republican-dominated courts - a possibility that could include next year's presidential contest. The other is potentially more consequential. One bill would end the state's three-day grace period for mailed ballots arriving after Election Day and loosen poll-watching rules in a way that critics worry could lead to intimidation of voters. That's occurring as the legislature muscles through two election bills that are propelled partly by Republican voters' lingering beliefs of Trump's lies that voter fraud cost him the 2020 election. That could lock in their supermajority status for several more election cycles. Their plan was struck down by the Democratic majority on the state Supreme Court as an illegal gerrymander.īut Republicans are now in the majority on the court, which has signaled that the legislature is clear to draw the districts to more aggressively favor the party next year. The GOP-controlled North Carolina General Assembly had tried to tilt districts more aggressively, drawing maps that favored them even more. “It doesn't take much creativity to tilt districts one way or another,” he said. Michael Bitzer, a political science professor at North Carolina’s Catawba College, said less than 15% of the precincts were competitive statewide in 2022.
They achieved that status this year when a Democratic House member switched her party.
In North Carolina, even with the congressional delegation splitting evenly last year, Republicans won close to a supermajority of seats in the state legislature. That makes it more likely that even fairly drawn legislative districts covering urban areas will be overloaded with Democrats, leaving fewer of the party's voters to compete elsewhere and giving the GOP an edge in the remaining seats. Democrats are clustered in two metro areas of each state - Milwaukee and Madison in Wisconsin, and Charlotte and the Raleigh-Durham area in North Carolina. Republicans in Wisconsin and North Carolina are aided by their parties' geographic distribution during statehouse elections. In both states, he said, Republican politicians feel “they need to act because they could legitimately lose power.” “The fact that these are both purple states is ironically what leads to the brass knuckles politics we see in Wisconsin and North Carolina,” said Chris Cooper, a political scientist at Western Carolina University. The moves could give the GOP disproportionate influence over everything from partisan redistricting to the certification of next year's presidential election. While both parties engage in gerrymandering, the dynamics in North Carolina and Wisconsin go beyond mere redistricting fights and offer a vivid illustration of how Republicans are attempting to maintain power regardless of their level of support among voters. Wisconsin voters have elected Democrats to all but one of the statewide executive offices that are decided on a partisan basis. Her victory earlier this year gave the court a liberal majority that could strike down the Republican gerrymander that has given the party its outsized statehouse clout. Republican lawmakers there are trying to fire the state's nonpartisan elections director and are considering impeaching a newly elected justice on the state Supreme Court.
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Those major changes will come on the heels of similar power plays by the Republican legislative majority in Wisconsin, another battleground state where the GOP has lost a series of statewide races.
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