- [Kelly] Governor Roy Cooper vetoes legislation that would shift Elections Board powers away from the Governor's Office and towards the State Auditor, and with House Republicans selecting a new House Speaker, how will that affect political dynamics in Raleigh?

This is "State Lines."

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[energetic music] ♪ - Welcome back to "State Lines."

I'm Kelly McCullen.

Thank you for joining us this week.

Joining all of us today around the table, public relations consultant, Pat Ryan, Donna King of the "Carolina Journal," and Cardinal & Pine's Michael McElroy.

Colin Campbell, WUNC Radio, takes up seat four.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

- [Panelists] Happy Thanksgiving.

- Just when I thought we were gonna have a fully generic topic show, the Governor goes and issues another veto, Pat.

Well, we're gonna start with Colin, but I'm sure you have an opinion on this.

Governor Cooper vetoed the bill that would establish new Hurricane Helene recovery funding, so say the Republicans, but also shifts core powers away from future governors, so says everyone.

Governor Cooper says this Republican bill basically only shifts money within state budgets and agencies.

It doesn't really authorize the spending of any new hurricane relief spending.

He says the legislation's only effective purpose is to give the State Auditor power over appointing members of the State Elections Board.

And we can't omit Jeff Jackson losing power as well, Colin.

Okay, last week, it was new Helene funding, and we talked about it as if it were cash coming in, and then its a future session will dictate how it's spent.

What's the deal?

- Yeah, so I think this was sort of their way to sort of cloak the power shift changes so they could talk more.

I mean, we listened to the floor debates in the House and Senate.

They talked all about the Helene provisions and some of it's, you know, regulatory flexibility.

A lot of it's not necessarily money related on that front.

And that allowed them not to spend so much talking about the rationale behind moving some of these powers around the appointment authority over the Elections Board, over the Utilities Commission, which, I mean, this is sort of the par for the course.

We see this whenever you have a good year for Democrats in statewide offices when the legislature's still Republican.

It dates all the way back to 1988 when Democrats in the legislature did this to incoming Republican Lieutenant Governor Jim Gardner, who lost all the powers that the Lieutenant Governor had back then.

You know, this is kind of the state of play in politics in Raleigh, is if you have the power to take someone else's power away, you try to do it.

- Pat, that is- - Colin stole my context.

That is the exact right context in my opinion.

I mean, a through line through almost the entirety of North Carolina political history is this sparring and wrestling match between the executive and legislative branches over power.

North Carolina's legislative branch is among the most powerful in the country.

North Carolina's Governor is among the weakest in the country.

There was no veto power until 1996.

So I think the right context for this particular action is looking at it in the historical way that Colin just described.

- Mike, what's awesome about being on this show is you meet all the different people, eight different people every two weeks.

It does appear the term "Because We Can" is a legitimate strategy in North Carolina politics per the state constitution.

Do you believe that?

I mean, you may not like what's happening, but is it legal?

- Well, a lot of it has been deemed not to be legal.

- [Kelly] Or constitutional, not illegal.

- Well, constitutional, it hasn't been deemed not to be constitutional, but I think "Because I Can" is just a fantastic way to go through life.

Whether you're teaching your kids that if you're bigger than someone else, "Just do it.

It's gonna be fine no matter what you do."

So I don't know if I buy as a rationale that "Because We Can" absolves the decision makers of the decisions they make.

I will say that, I mean, North Carolina Democrats had a pretty good night.

Oddly enough on election night.

And this takes kind of substantial powers and it takes appointment powers from the Governor, which the legislature has been trying to do for a long time.

But I think the biggest thing to show here with this bill is that you've got one bill that's been passed, it's already in front of the court, that says that the Republican legislature is now going to be able to decide who makes up the Board of Elections.

That has been stalled, it's a matter of court.

So now you have this other bill that says something completely different and you could run the risk of having what if the courts rule in Republicans' favor on the other one and then you have contradictory laws that say who the heck is supposed to build it?

The chaos inherent in that, I think, is one of the biggest reasons of how this is wild.

- Donna, because RECAN's not written anywhere, it's not in the State Constitution, but Senator Benton Sawrey of Johnston County was here last week.

He says, well, there's a little phrase in all of this as prescribed by a law.

This is just changing the rules ahead of 2025.

Do you find the communication clear in what the Republicans have done?

- Sure, I mean, I think in this case they are gonna be a vote short in January of the super majority, and right now they've got it.

So we'll see 'em come back in December, I think likely override the veto.

But I think that the bigger thing about, particularly on this element, this Board of Elections issue, they've been trying for many years to make the State Board of Elections bipartisan and that has alluded them through court cases.

Right now, the Governor has that appointment power.

In this case, Governor Roy Cooper has been appointing members of the Board of Elections for quite a while, making it a Democrat-leaning one.

Lawmakers in Republican-led legislature have made it so that the two major parties and the law they passed would vote, give some unaffiliated voters some representation on that board, which is important, it's our largest voting block, and then have the Governor appoint the Chair.

Well, that failed in Cooper v. Berger, which says that it has to be in the executive branch, which is how this state auditor authority came up.

And that's an appointment power.

It's not gonna have management authority.

- Yeah, this is all gonna wind up in court, I think.

- It is absolutely.

- Y'know, this is their new legal argument for these appointments, rather than switching it to the legislative branch, which has been a separation of power issue.

The argument is that the State Auditor, by being a statewide elected official, is just as much executive branch as the Governor is.

And I think the courts will decide whether that's right or not.

- But it doesn't resolve, I'm sorry.

- No, no, go ahead.

- It doesn't resolve the bipartisan thing, which is why I think that it will probably end up back.

- So this is the net result of six years of wrangling over this.

I've yet to find somebody who can give me a compelling answer to why it's healthy and improves trust in the electoral process to have one political party in charge of counting the votes and the other political party having really very little say because they're outvoted.

To me, that's a deeply unhealthy dynamic.

Even New York City has an evenly split bipartisan Board of Elections.

For six years, legislators have tried to remedy that situation.

They've offered Democrats equal say in political parties appointing, they've offered Democrats the minority and majority leaders of both chambers, the legislature appointing the Board of Elections.

At each turn they've been rejected, sued, the bill has been vetoed, and so finally at the end of that, to me, it's just, well, you all wouldn't accept any of these compromise offers over six years and so now we're just going to move it to the State Auditor and that's going to be the end of it.

- Donna, Mr. Sterling on the team of the John Locke team have replied back to Benton Sawrey, Senator Sawrey, and myself on Twitter to say Senator Sawrey said Dave Bullock will still adhere to the bipartisan or nonpartisan nature of this board, but the law seems to let him pick whomever he wants, which you'll presume will be five Republicans.

- Well, I mean, I can't presume what he would do.

And they say he would, I mean, they say he would, but it still has the appointment power resting with one person.

So if that's a Republican, you would think it could be more Republicans, but then it could also be a Democrat at some point down the road and it would be that.

So it doesn't get to the core issue of what Republicans wanted, which was a bipartisan board with some representation for unaffiliated voters.

- What happens?

- Well, I don't...

I think that the bill does say that it has to be a three, still three-two, but it lets him pick the three.

- Yeah.

- So it would still be that.

But I don't know that it's true that this has become a partisan issue.

I mean the Board of Elections just voted five-zero.

A lot of the boards, a lot of the state board votes are unanimous.

And because they try to do that.

So, I don't know that these decisions have become a partisan thing.

The Board of Elections has done a fantastic job in a lot of ways, and a lot of these votes have been unanimous.

So, and even in county boards when certifying and things like that.

So I don't know that just because it's a three-two means that it's a partisan body.

- So here's what I look at on that.

I believe three or maybe four chairs of the board have resigned in the last six or eight years, in part because of overt partisan behavior.

The Executive Director of the Board of Elections was recommended by Governor Roy Cooper's political consultant team, which to me is also a pretty unhealthy look.

And the Green Party, I think, had to sue the Board of Elections to win ballot access.

And of course, the Green Party is perceived as siphoning votes away from Democratic candidates.

So I think you add all those things up and it's just not a great picture.

- Colin, why have we not heard from Dave Boliek, the Auditor Elect yet?

This is a fundamental change in a lot of power.

I mean, he's got appointment power and budgetary power over the State Board of Elections, and they say the board still operates the way the board does, just Auditor Boliek can oversee it all.

- Yeah, you know, he's been fairly quiet on this.

I think he did issue a statement basically saying, you know, he'll do whatever the law says his office should do.

There's some question as to whether he had any sense that this was coming as he was running his campaign.

I haven't seen confirmation about that one way or the other.

He did say during his campaign that one of the agencies he was interested in auditing was the State Board of Elections.

So that creates this sort of challenge of, if he oversees it, can he still also be the entity that audits them when they have some problems?

That sort of remains to be seen here.

- Donna, in this debate, the State Board of Elections went public to say that the Republican leadership never consulted with them about what they thought.

Do legislators owe the, I don't know if it's an agency or these boards, that sort of consultation?

But in past issues, there has been consultation between legislative leaders and the Board of Elections.

- Sure, oh, it's been going on, as Pat said, for six years.

So this is an ongoing conversation they've had repeatedly.

So I don't think it should have come as that big a surprise that they would take some legislative action if they could.

But you know, I also wanna get back to this idea that the money for the hurricane has not been allocated.

It's not been, you know, authorized to spend that.

It's going from the Rainy Day Fund to the Hurricane Relief Fund.

We're also in the middle of chaos at the Department of Resiliency and Recovery for the hurricane.

They've got $300 million in the hole.

They've shown widespread mismanagement.

And I think that's why you're seeing that this money is going into a hurricane recovery fund because there's a track record, a negative track record about this office handling Hurricanes Florence and Matthew.

- Michael, do you see the other, looking into that Office of Recovery and Resilience as these hearings come in?

Or do the legislative committee, will they get to the bottom of whatever it is they're hoping to find that they supposedly didn't know until this month?

- Well, I mean, that is a question that's an important question and an urgent question.

And there's no doubt that you can't separate the relief efforts from issues there.

But what I'll say is that the folks in Western North Carolina, [chuckling] they need help now.

- For sure.

- They need it now.

And an urgent bill in the last couple of sessions before the body changes to rush to pass this bill that it won't spend any money.

At least not the bulk of it until next session.

And they lost, I mean, it was mostly Democrats, but it was all Democrats I guess, but it was hurricane victims, I hate to use that word.

Came to the legislature and reminded folks that not, it wasn't just the hurricane damage to their property, it was the complete wipe out of October, which is a huge thing for businesses, across, not just in Asheville, but we're talking about Republican and Democrats who are suffering in this thing and they need money now.

And so whatever the argument for not spending the bulk of that money now, the fact is money is not being spent now and money is needed now because it's money to feed them.

It's money to make up for the loss of the money that has completely been wiped out by this storm.

- Yeah, and to Michael's point, there's another sort of tussle over power in this bill that hasn't gotten much attention over unemployment benefits.

Governor Cooper did an executive order last month to increase the maximum weekly unemployment benefits to about $600, the current max is 350.

The bill that the governor vetoed, basically says the governor doesn't have the power to do that, only the legislature can do that.

So depending on the fate of this bill that could impact some of these people who are in the tourism, hospitality industry in the Western North Carolina area who are on unemployment right now while their employers sort of pick up the pieces, and how much money can they get through this?

I mean, that's a key issue that I think is kind of flown below the radar a little bit.

- Yeah, I think the larger picture on this is certainly fair and reasonable to debate and argue over, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars.

But with an estimated $53 billion price tag, anything state government does is going to be a drop in the bucket compared to the need.

And the only body that can really make a meaningful difference is Congress with a special disaster relief bill.

- [Donna] True.

- Donna, I'm in the state political bubble.

- Sure.

- Everyone that comes on here is, most people during disasters cry out for FEMA help, - Right.

- not state help.

- Right.

- Are we just in our bubble talking about how the state is or is not doing its job?

Is there a whole argument over FEMA's response to the mountains?

- Oh, for sure.

No question about it.

I mean, you know, well one, you see a ton going on, you know, people are expecting, you know, FEMA to be plucking them off roofs, and that's really not, FEMA may have set themselves up as that body, that entity, they're really not.

They are, you know, long-term, grant making organizations and things like that.

But the fact that there's no roofs over the heads of the folks there and they have access to shelter and trailers and all of those things that they could be, you know, getting down there, we're seeing our congressional delegation, North Carolina's congressional delegation demands some real answers from the Biden administration.

It's getting cold in Western North Carolina and people need to stay on their property, at farm animals and small businesses and elderly relatives, they need to be there.

So when they go on FEMA's website, and apply for help, and they get two nights of a hotel in Charlotte, that is not helpful.

And there's some real management problems within FEMA and it's created a mistrust with the folks who live in Western North Carolina.

- Michael, how does it get easier for Western North Carolina?

You're going from a Biden administration back to a Trump administration.

So, you know, the guy who got fired last time is back in business.

Joe Biden got kicked out.

How's this gonna be smooth for North Carolinians?

I don't, I mean, common sense says the administrative changes coming to DC and coming to Raleigh with the retirement of Roy Cooper as governor could slow things down.

I don't, government has to be really slick to pull this off.

- Yeah.

We talk a lot on this show about the politics and the metrics, and I think there is not a bigger group in the world who cares less about the politics or who's responsible than the people of Western North Carolina right now.

And absolutely it's true that FEMA has to do its thing and everything, but the drop in the bucket of this 54, we're not talking about $54 billion right now, we're talking about the amount of money to help folks get through this month.

And so where is that?

And if it's supposed to come from the federal or whatever, it could come from the state, and that money is not gonna be that much.

The amount of money to get folks through December is a drop in the bucket and it's a drop that the legislature is not providing.

- Yeah, so this is, we can talk for hours about this, I mean, the traditional role as it stands now of state government in disaster recovery is to provide a ten or five, or sometimes 0% match to federal funds.

FEMA has programs that are designed to provide roofs over heads.

In fact, FEMA discontinued one of those very programs just last year, even though they were ordered to continue it by Congress.

And so the whole disaster recovery framework is a complete disaster unto itself.

The federal government traditionally has a primary role in both short-term and long-term recovery.

State government, just very few state governments, have the resources to take on that role, which is why the feds do it.

But the whole thing is a complete disaster.

- Yeah, I'm interested in how the change is coming to state government.

Most people want change, vote for change, vote for change, and it seems like there's a bipartisan consensus on this panel.

Sometimes this change can be disruptive to getting people help.

One big change is house speaker Tim Moore, he's gonna leave Raleigh and the State House where he is been a leader for a decade, for Congress in January, well, he'll be essentially a rookie.

House Republicans have announced Representative Destin Hall as the incoming Speaker, Donna, beginning with the 2025 legislative session.

What's that?

Eight weeks away?

Republicans reelected Senator Phil Berger, that's Pat's guy, to lead that chamber.

Now, Phil Berger's one of the longest, if not the longest running Senate presidents in America right now, actively going up against, what?

A 37-year-old new House Speaker?

- Right.

- Well, thought out, works hard, and I think the Republican caucus hopes he'll get them outta here, you know, without sessions being 10, 11 months long.

- We always look for the 4th of July weekend as the close, never seems to happen.

But Destin Hall, certainly, Caldwell County, the youngest House Speaker, I believe, in North Carolina's history at 37 years old.

He is, of course, now the presumed, he's the nominee for the caucus.

That vote will actually happen in January.

But, there have certainly been, there's a history of upheaval and that kind of thing, I don't anticipate it this time around.

He has already come out and said, "Look, we're gonna be focused on "continuing the progress we've had "over the last 12 to 14 years."

Which is, you know, lowering taxes, they wanna renew a focus on public safety.

We've done some polling at "Carolina Journal," and the top five people wanna see is cutting taxes, they wanna see more change in education spending.

Public safety kind of fell down our list a little bit, but it is very interesting to see, you know, what people are interested in.

But what we notice most is that we saw a between 20 and 15% uptick, depending on different groups, in optimism about the direction that North Carolina Carolina's going in.

And that's just over October.

So people are feeling much better about where we're headed.

And I think the state legislature is gonna be plugged into that if they can stick with their core values, cutting taxes, building the economy, and education.

- What kind of education changes were your poll?

Those that were polled said they wanna see changes.

How in education, higher, or different?

- We actually, when we polled, we did it in several slices.

We did, do you wanna see increased spending?

Do you wanna see parental control?

Those kind of things.

We saw people did want more education spending, but they also wanted more parental control.

And that's across parties.

That is not a, that is a bipartisan sentiment, people want, you know, people are used to choice, particularly people who are of the age that they're parents, they're used to being able to order somethin', it shows up on their front door.

They want the same thing from their public education.

They want more control, more choice.

- Michael, is there an open mind from the other side, do you think, with Destin Hall coming in?

he is younger, probably 13, 15 years younger.

Is that considered a new generation of leadership?

- Oh, well, there's no question.

I mean, he's nine years younger than I am, which blows my mind.

But he's, yeah, but I'll say this of Destin Hall, this isn't a name that came out of nowhere.

I mean, everybody who's been paying attention to this knew that Destin Hall would be the leader.

And so he's gonna do it in a different way then Moore.

He probably won't be as effective as Moore, Moore is one of the most effective leaders of a legislative body as anyone can imagine.

But the biggest test, he's gonna have it right away, because maybe Moore, I guess, will help see if these three Republicans will switch their vote from against the hurricane relief bill.

But Destin Hall is gonna have a big test of whether he can get these three Republicans who voted against the hurricane relief bill to vote to uphold the veto, which would be a switch.

I mean, because I will say that the three Republicans, or at least one of them, was very vocal about why he voted against it.

So we'll see, but he should be effective.

It would be a huge surprise to me if the next two years are a huge divergent from the way they've been under Moore.

- When you're rules chair in the House and you elevate that one step.

Tim Moore did it, Hall's gonna do it, and you're going up against Phil Berger and that team, and he knows what he's doing.

How does it play out with the new House speaker, in your opinion?

It's been a while since we've seen someone, well, Tillis left and Moore come in, to go against Phil Berger.

It's not against Phil Berger, but sometimes it is.

- Yeah, I mean, we've seen this stalemate, particularly over budgets and other things, where we've dragged on for weeks or months between the House leadership and the Senate leadership, even though they're both Republicans, not getting along over the details.

I think we may see a continuation of that.

But I do think, also, this change in power dynamics really advantages Phil Berger in the Senate.

He's got a very disciplined caucus that pretty much always votes with him.

The House, as Michael mentioned, has more likelihood where some Republicans sort of jump ship.

They'll have to get at least one Democrat or you get some people to sit out on the Democratic side to pass veto overrides next year.

All of this sort of puts most of the power in the Senate for really driving the train until Destin Hall gets used to this leadership role.

- Pat, in that ecosystem of Republicans controlling everything, does Phil Berger have a civic obligation to help Destin Hall succeed?

Or is he just another person that gets negotiated with before we get to Josh Stein?

- A civic obligation to let Destin Hall succeed.

- I mean, you're on the same team.

It's all one big, happy family.

And then, and you know what?

June 30th comes and it's not a happy family.

Everybody goes home and drags this out for six months.

- So I think regardless of the names or personalities involved, the leader of any chamber, I think, has an obligation, if they're a good leader, to represent the interests of their caucus.

If their members who select that leader, prefer a particular policy path, then it's incumbent on that leader to advocate for that path.

Both Senator Berger and Speaker Moore and soon to be Speaker Hall, I think, abide by that sort of general philosophy.

And so I don't think it's necessarily a personalities butting heads all the time, though it can look like that, especially in media reports.

I think it's just different chambers having different priorities, and sometimes those priorities are in conflict.

I'm actually pretty excited about this duo, though.

I mean, you have Senator Berger, of course, we've discussed, one of the longest-serving leaders in the country.

Deep institutional knowledge.

And then you have Destin Hall, young, charismatic, dynamic, sort of new generation of leadership in the House.

And I actually think they'll both sort of present a good contrast to one another.

- Nice try, blaming the media for Moore and Berger not being able to reach a budget.

- It's a nice, attractive story.

- Check your phone after the show.

Incoming State Superintendent of Public Instruction Mo Green says he'll reorganize parts of the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.

The superintendent-elect says the, quote, soul of public education was on the ballot this fall.

What turned out to be, Michael, a 51-49% win.

So the soul, I guess, was saved, according to Superintendent-Elect Green.

Maria Pitre-Martin has been hired as the deputy superintendent, will oversee Mo Green's transition.

What do we mean by reorganization of the Department of Public Instruction?

It's one of the most static organizations and agencies in this state government.

- Well, I think that he's still gonna release some details about how he's gonna reorganized it, but he's working very closely, he has said and Katherine Truitt has said, on the transition.

But the battle of the soul was not about reorganizing an institution.

The battle of the soul was between these two candidates.

When he did the battle of soul was because of Michelle Morrow.

That was the battle of the soul of two different, completely different choices of candidates.

And I won't go into Morrow's version, but I will just say that I think that what we have now is the chance for, because the superintendent is the public advocate for public schools.

And so he's going to bring a lot of his experience in Guilford County and to advocating for public schools in a big way.

- Got two minutes, Colin.

Say what you will about the soul of public education.

49% of the people who voted in this state obviously did not want status quo.

Mo Green has admitted, I don't think he admits it, but if you look at the body of work, he's gonna be pro-public education the way it is with better funding and maybe some enhancements in bureaucratic organization.

- Yeah, and ultimately the Republicans will still be setting the big picture education policy in the state from the legislature.

That was gonna be the case regardless of who won this particular election.

I do think it's worth noting that Mo Green outspent Michelle Morrow significantly in this race.

She really didn't have a whole lot of financial backing, and for her to poll that well certainly is indicative of some level of discontent around the status quo in education.

And I think Mo Green's gonna have to kind of thread that needle of recognizing that that discontent is out there and how can he advocate for changes that will benefit the people who just don't wanna send their kids to public school for one reason or another.

- There's no question he's a qualified candidate.

He has a lot of experience in this area.

But I question, and this has been a problem in North Carolina for decades.

You have an independently elected superintendent, you have a gubernatorially appointed State Board of Education.

The two bodies are just set up to clash with one another.

There's no clear chain of command in education policy or education, or executing on that policy.

And the Democrats tried to change it in the eighties and it's just something that I think any superintendent, no matter how qualified, will have to try to wrestle with.

- You're foreshadowing, Mr. Ryan.

- I am not, I've been saying this for, I think a lot of people have been acknowledging for a long time.

It's a major problem.

- Got 30 seconds, Dawn, I'll give you the last word.

- I love the idea of re-imagining, reorganizing DPI.

I'm not sure Mo Green is ideologically where it really needs to go.

DPI has grown exponentially in its bureaucracy, in its administration, while schools are emptying, while people are pulling their kids outta school.

The way to reorganize is to push that control and that authority down to the local level and the school level.

- All right, that's the last word on this show.

Thank you, panel.

Happy Thanksgiving to you, safe travels if you're heading out of town, and don't gain too much weight.

I'm gonna try to hold it down myself.

- Appreciate it, Kelly.

- Thank you folks.

Happy Thanksgiving to you as well.

Thank you for watching us, as always.

We appreciate you and give thanks to you.

Email your thoughts and opinions to statelines@pbsnc.org.

We screen every email, we read all of them.

We'll write a few of you back.

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Thanks for watching, we'll see you next time.

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