NC judges rule against Gov. Josh Stein on power to fill vacancies on top courts
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Court of Appeals upheld parts of SB 382, restricting Gov. Stein's appointment power
- Panel ruled party committees may nominate three candidates for appellate vacancies
- Dissent warned SB 382 reduces governor choice to selecting pre-screened partisan picks
In a split decision, a panel of judges on the North Carolina Court of Appeals on Wednesday upheld parts of a major power-shift bill that stripped Democratic Gov. Josh Stein of some of his authority to make appointments just weeks after he was elected in 2024.
In a 2-1 ruling, the panel’s Republican judges sided with legislative leaders, who sought to restrict Stein’s power to fill vacancies on the state’s top courts by limiting him to only nominees selected by the political party of the departing judge.
Stein’s office said he would appeal the ruling.
Judges in North Carolina run for election, but the governor is able to fill vacancies on appellate courts whenever a judge leaves office before their term ends.
Writing for the majority, Judge John Tyson said that Stein was “patently incorrect” in his assertion that the legislature was prohibited from limiting that appointment power.
“The governor’s argument is overruled,” he wrote.
The majority’s ruling also upheld legislative changes to the Utilities Commission and Building Code Council in Senate Bill 382 that stripped Stein of some of his appointment authority.
Wednesday’s decision overturns a ruling from a lower court, which sided with Stein last summer.
Judge Allegra Collins, a Democrat, dissented from the majority.
She argued that SB 382, which gives political parties the power to submit three nominees to fill any vacancies on the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court, rendered the governor’s ultimate choice meaningless.
“The governor may conclude that each of the three is unqualified; he nonetheless must appoint one of them, so long as they satisfy the minimal constitutional prerequisites of age and bar membership,” she wrote. “His ‘choice’ is reduced to selecting the least objectionable of three individuals pre-screened by partisan actors.”
During oral arguments in October, lawyers for legislative leaders argued that the constitution requires only that the governor be given a choice.
“There is no language there that suggests how the governor is to choose among his nominees to make the appointee,” Martin Warf, an attorney for the legislature, said. “... Unless there is an explicit limitation on an act of the General Assembly, then the General Assembly’s act would be constitutional.”
Daniel Smith, an attorney for Stein, warned that the bill would result in judges being chosen by “partisan insiders.”
“And that’s not something that the people want,” he said.
“The North Carolina Constitution gives the responsibility to fill appellate vacancies to the Governor, not unelected political operatives,” a spokesperson for Stein said in an email Wednesday. “We will appeal this decision to protect the Governor’s authority to make these critical judicial appointments and stop the injection of extreme partisanship in the courts.”
This story was originally published January 7, 2026 at 9:55 AM.
