NC’s labor commissioner sees ‘existential threat’ in dispute over state powers
One of North Carolina’s 10 statewide elected officials wants the others — all except Democratic Gov. Josh Stein — to join him in opposing the governor’s efforts to retain control over the State Board of Elections.
Last month, a panel of judges ruled against Republican lawmakers’ attempts to strip Stein of his appointments to the powerful board and transfer them to the newly elected state auditor, saying that it infringed on the governor’s constitutional duty to ensure that laws are faithfully executed.
That ruling was later reversed by the state’s appeals court, but that didn’t stop Republican Labor Commissioner Luke Farley from describing it as an “existential threat” to the Council of State on Tuesday, something Stein said later he “very much” disagrees with.
Farley asked eight other statewide elected officials on the council to join him in a legal brief opposing the decision and asserting their independence from the governor.
In November, Republicans in the General Assembly passed Senate Bill 382, a fast-tracked bill that took appointment power over the State Board of Elections away from the governor and gave it to the state auditor. The November election had just resulted in wins for Stein. a Democrat, and State Auditor Dave Boliek, a Republican. Republican lawmakers, who had a supermajority through the end of 2024, overturned a veto by then-Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and SB 382 became law.
Farley said the decision of the three-judge panel to invalidate the changes in SB 382 “presents an existential threat to the Council of State as it currently exists.”
“The recent decision is about appointment authority to the Board of Elections. But as far as the Council of State is concerned, it is about much more than just who appoints the Board of Elections. It’s about whether we’re going to have a meaningful Council of State, or whether the nine of us are just going to be a group of figureheads,” he said.
Last week, the Court of Appeals cleared the way for Boliek to take control of the Board of Elections on May 1 — which he did, appointing a 3-2 Republican majority and wresting control of the board from Democrats for the first time in nearly a decade.
Farley read from the state constitution about the General Assembly being able to establish duties of Council of State members that aren’t already designated in the constitution. Farley listed off the number of voters who chose each elected official, including his 2.9 million votes.
“We each independently run our own respective state agency and represent the people who elected us in doing so. And more to it, why are we even called here today to vote, if we don’t exercise independent executive authority? We are not sitting around this table as a panel of advisers, but as equals with each one vote,” Farley said.
After Farley’s comments, which he gave during the roundtable discussion at the end of the Council of State meeting, others spoke without mentioning what Farley said.
Farley said his legal filing will focus “on the role of the Council of State and our status as independent officers with the executive branch. That is a perspective the court needs to hear. My reading of the opinion is that the effect on the Council of State as a whole, I think, was not taken into account.”
After the meeting, Stein told reporters that he disagrees and has already appealed.
‘Simply a partisan move,’ Stein says
“I very much disagree with (Farley). The oversight of elections has been with the governor since its inception. There’s not a state in this country where the auditor is the one responsible for overseeing elections,” Stein said Tuesday.
“This was simply a partisan move by the General Assembly to take power from the democratically elected governor.”
“By the way, (Farley) said how many votes everyone earned in the last election? I think I got the most,” Stein said. “And people knew who I was, and they elected me to do the job of governor, and that’s why I disagree, and I will appeal, I have appealed to the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals’ wrong-headed decision.”
Stein received 3 million votes in the November election.
Republican Senate leader Phil Berger said that previous statements by Cooper and Stein are “at odds with the idea that our executive branch is a branch that is divided up amongst multiple statewide elected officials.”
“The current governor and former governor have taken the position that the governor is supervisory to all Council of State officers. I think that’s inconsistent with the wording of the constitution. It may be what the governor wants it to be, but I don’t think that’s what it is,” Berger told reporters on Tuesday after a Senate session.
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