North Carolina Legislature Passes Needed Election Reforms Over the Howls of the Far Left

On December 11, the North Carolina House of Representatives overrode Gov. Roy Cooper’s (D) veto to pass much-needed reforms to protect voter integrity and the balance of power before Governor-elect Josh Stein (D) takes office. This was their last time to protect the balance of power over the next four years, as Republicans lose their veto-proof majority in January.

The Senate passed a bold SB 382, a hurricane relief/election integrity reform bill in November. Key features of the bill include:

• creating a State Board of Elections (BOE) that Represents All North Carolinians,
• forcing the Attorney General to be the people’s attorney,
• reforming the Utilities Commission and Providing Support to Biogas Producers and Farmers,
• protecting School Choice and School Safety, and
• providing Judicial Reform.

Cooper vetoed the bill, slamming it as a “sham” and accusing it of violating the state’s constitution. Senate Republicans overrode his veto on Dec. 2.

The Poor People’s Campaign (PPC) put out a call to action before the Senate override vote, urging its followers to pack the gallery and demonstrate. The PPC is a pro-welfare organization that encourages its followers to get arrested while advocating for leftist causes. Policies it supports include single-payer healthcare, free college education, universal basic income, increased immigration, a $23-hour minimum wage, and spending $4.5 trillion over 10 years to transition to an environmentalist-approved energy grid.

Activists answered the call during both vetoes and—in typical leftist fashion—threw temper tantrums. Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson had to clear the gallery during the Senate veto, and during the House veto, police had to remove around 100 protesters,  arresting one.

(Related: How the Federal Government Can Clean Up States’ Voter Rolls)

Naturally the media portrayed Republicans as sore losers trying to solidify their power before the incoming Democrats take office in the executive branch. But Republicans only lost their House supermajority by one member and maintained their senate supermajority, showing many North Carolinians prefer divided government.

Senate leader Phil Berger (R) said the bill is meant to restore the balance of power between the executive and legislature:

Democrats have resisted every single attempt we've made to create a truly bipartisan Board of Elections with an equal number of Democratic and Republican members. Their blatant partisanship is exactly why we need these reforms. The new measures in Senate Bill 382 actually balance our three branches of state government so that North Carolina remains on a positive trajectory, free from Democratic party and liberal activist obstruction.

Three house Republicans from the western part of the state, Majority Whip Karl Gillespie (R-Macon), Rep. Mike Clampitt (R-Swain), and Rep. Mark Pless (R-Haywood), initially voted against the bill, saying it didn’t do enough for disaster victims.

The bill brings the state’s total funding of Hurricane Helene disaster relief to over $1 billion. During passage, Republicans cautioned against allocating too much until it becomes clear how much aid the state will receive from the federal government, because only Washington has the ability provide close to the estimated $53 billion in damages the state suffered.

All three voted for the override on Dec. 11.

Creating a State BOE that Represents All North Carolinians

SB 382 proves its merit on voter integrity by upsetting the right people. David Becker, executive director and founder of the far-left Center for Election Innovation and Research (CEIR)—a major recipient of Zuck bucks during the 2020 election—called the bill “a category five hurricane.”

Current state law allows the governor to pick three members from his own party and two members from the opposing party for the state BOE—each nominated by the respective party chairs. SB 382 removes control of the BOE from the governor and places it with the state auditor. This allows voters in future auditor elections to elect someone they trust with handling voter integrity in a nonpartisan way.

Part of the problem in allowing the governor control over board member appointments is that the BOE is also responsible for appointing the heads of the counties’ boards of elections. As Restoration News reported in October, this led to a situation where Democrat-controlled county boards were refusing to provide adequate early voting sites to disaster-struck areas in western North Carolina. This would have continually placed Republican-heavy rural areas at a disadvantage if the Republicans General Assembly hadn’t intervened.

“We have tried on multiple occasions to put forward the idea that we need to have balance on the board that is responsible for counting votes and making decisions about elections, and the Democrats have said, ‘no, no, no, hell no,’” Berger told reporters last week.

A state auditor of either party is an elected partisan but a lot more likely to focus on unbiased competence over partisan loyalty in appointments than a governor.

Clay McCreary, North Carolina Director for Restoration of America, said part of the problem is the current State BOE hasn’t followed the law by filing absentee ballots on time.

Ballots must arrive by the closing of the polls, thanks to a new law passed for the 2024 election. Other than provisional ballots, there’s no reason to count ballots after Election Day. But continuous counting dragged on for weeks after this year’s election.

In a state Supreme Court race, Republican Jefferson Griffin led comfortably by 10,000 votes on Election Day. But after weeks of counting and curing absentee and provisional ballots, he now trails the Democrat by roughly 700 votes.

Griffin and the North Carolina GOP are challenging the results in court, arguing the BOE overlooked voter registration discrepancies and allowed the votes of disqualified felons and of people who voted absentee but died before Election Day to count.

One voter, whose vote the Republican Party is challenging for missing ballot information, said he couldn’t remember if he voted for Griffin—showing the need for strict adherence to the law if for no other reason to cull the herd of voters who just check names on ballots because someone told them it’s their duty to vote.

“There were so many names on that ballot it would make your head spin,” the voter told NC Newsline. “Most of those people I haven’t even heard of.”

Other electoral reforms of SB 382 include reducing the time state law allows officials to count provisional ballots from 10 days to three. It also reduces the time in which voters may cure their ballots from 6 days after the election to Friday, at noon, after Election Day. Most importantly, it requires continuous counting of absentee ballots, beginning at 5 pm on Election Day—a crucial reform that allowed other swing states to report their results efficiently and avoid the debacles of the 2020 election.

Forcing the Attorney General to be the people’s attorney

Another relief SB 382 offers North Carolinians is the assurance that future attorneys general won’t side against state law. It restricts the AG’s ability to participate in lawsuits where legislative actions are being challenged in court or publicly side against the position of the General Assembly.

As AG, liberal democrat Josh Stein repeatedly picked which laws to defend and even litigated against legislation duly passed by the General Assembly.

He justified shirking his duty on constitutional grounds. But it’s the U.S. Supreme Court’s job to interpret the Constitution, not a state AG’s. When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Stein arbitrarily refused to enforce the state’s existing 20-week ban on abortion because he didn’t agree with it. When Republicans passed a 12-week ban on abortion, rather than recuse himself, he flatly refused to defend it against Planned Parenthood in court, forcing Republican legislators to join the case as defendants.

He even joined a lawsuit against a Senate redistricting law and publicly opposed a previous measure that included election reforms similar to SB 382.

Stein’s refusal to side with state law sets an example for local liberal district attorneys. Over a dozen school boards have refused to comply with the state’s Parental Bill of Rights, prompting Stein to defer to these local DAs who he knows will refuse to bring charges against uncompliant school officials.

This law ensures future AGs will not continually side against the North Carolina and its people on ideological grounds. Having the AG repeatedly litigate against the legislature undermines a republican form of government.

Reforming the Utilities Commission and Providing Support to Biogas Producers and Farmers

SB 382 also reforms the Utilities Commission, which oversees Duke Energy’s rate hikes and energy investments. It balances control of the five-member commission between the executive and legislature and provides additional renewable energy credits to biogas producers, which help farmers in poor areas.

The law shifts one of the governor’s three commissioner appointments to the state treasurer. So, Stein will appoint two, the incoming Republican treasurer will appoint one, the House speaker will appoint one, and the Senate president pro tempore will appoint the fifth.

Another of SB 382’s reforms involves preventing the AG from intervening at will in commission decisions and receiving information from the commission upon demand. Stein repeatedly interfered, not only by challenging rate hikes, but by pushing the commission to invest in pet green energy sectors.

It also includes a one-time enhanced credit stimulus for creating new renewable energy facilities in economically distressed counties, using hog waste. In 2007, North Carolina passed a law requiring 12.5 percent of the state’s energy to come from renewables by 2021. The state has turned to biogas to fill part of its renewable energy requirement, as it’s the second largest pork producer in the country. The American Biogas Council ranks the state third for its biogas production potential, estimating if the state fully tapped into this source it could heat over a million homes with it.

In a state rich with hog farms, turning manure—which must be disposed of anyway—to meet a mandated renewable energy quota makes sense. The enhanced credit will benefit mostly nonwhite farmers in some of North Carolina’s poorest counties, while creating clean energy—a combination that should make the liberal side of the aisle happy. Some on the Left, however, don’t want that kind of clean energy.

The Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC)’s North Carolina Director Mary Maclean Asbill called the credit “horrible” in an interview with Raleigh’s WRAL. Her condescending tone was unmistakable. “It’s just adding insult to injury to these poor people who are already suffering environmental harm by giving the utility double credit for creating energy out of—you know—swine waste.”

But even the liberal Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) estimates using biogas eliminates up to 99 percent of manure pathogens and notes approvingly that “using stored biogas limits the amount of methane released into the atmosphere.”

This aspect of SB 383 shows a widening rift between liberals who want to win elections and the well-funded, leftist groups, filled with college-educated radicals, whom some in the Democratic Party have begun to view as a liability.

As part of its election post-mortem on how to stop bleeding rural votes, Politico interviewed former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack (D), who also served as Secretary of Agriculture under Barack Obama. Vilsack touts biogas as a great way for Democrats to bridge the gap between rural America and environmentalists afraid of climate change.

“The Biden-Harris administration comes along and says . . . so instead of 88 percent of American farm families having to work off the farm to keep the farm, we’re going to have the farm work harder,” he said. “We’re going to basically reward folks for the opportunity to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions or their carbon footprint by allowing them to participate fully in the carbon markets . . . We’re going to convert their agricultural waste into something more valuable.”

Many leftist groups, however, attack it on “environmental justice” grounds, claiming hog farms and biogas facilities disproportionately harm “communities of color.”

Jeff Anstead, a member of the state’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ)’s Environmental Justice and Equity Advisory Board, argues biogas production infringes on Indigenous practices because it stunk up a pow wow he attended.

SELC, on behalf of the NAACP and the earlier-mentioned Poor People’s Campaign, even filed a complaint with the EPA, claiming the DEQ had violated the Civil Rights Act by making nonwhites smell manure. If such frivolous complaints held up, smelly chicken plants and paper mills wouldn’t be able to create jobs within smelling distance of minorities.

Despite couching their rhetoric in concern for large farming conglomerates forming a cartel, environmental leftists oppose the practice because it will encourage farmers to increase their herds and strengthen pig farming in general by giving farmers a new revenue stream.

Protecting School Choice and School Safety

SB 382 removes the power of the Superintendent of Public Instruction to appeal decisions by the board overseeing charter schools regarding grants, renewals, revocations, and amendments. The new law goes further, removing the Superintendent’s authority over school resource officer allocation and funding and giving it to the executive director of the Center for Safer Schools (CSS). It transfers the CSS from the Department of Public Instruction to the State Bureau of Investigation, including the authority to appoint the CSS executive director.

This comes after the Equality NC PAC-endorsed Mo Green (D) won the Superintendent seat, narrowly defeating a little-known homeschool mom who upset the Republican Superintendent incumbent in the Republican primary. Reining in Green and pro-child grooming LGBTQ groups will likely become a focus of North Carolina conservatives.

Providing Judicial Reform

The new law requires “the governor to fill judicial vacancies from a list of recommendations provided by the political party of the departing judge, including N.C. Supreme Court and Court of Appeals.”

Here too, Democrats and their media allies accuse Republicans of trying to stack the deck in their party’s favor before time runs out on their House supermajority. But these judgeships are elected positions. If the voters want a judge from a different party, they can vote for the opposite party’s candidate in the following election. This reform reins in potential rogue governors who try to undermine the will of the voters by giving them judges from the party they voted against.

North Carolinians should be commended for holding the line against the relentless onslaught of biased media coverage and well-funded activist groups misrepresenting SB 382 to the public. The law limits much of the damage the incoming Stein administration could inflict on the state’s energy sector, elections, and system of checks and balances.

(Read more: In 7 States, You Can Register to Vote on Election Day Without ID. Are Non-Citizens Voting?)