At his last post-Council of State press conference, outgoing Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper had plenty of criticism about the North Carolina Senate’s override of his veto of Senate Bill 382 yesterday.
The legislation, passed quickly by the North Carolina General Assembly in mid-November, allocates $227 million for disaster relief in western North Carolina. However, it also includes major changes to state government powers as Republicans prepare to lose their supermajority in 2025.
Key provisions include stripping the governor of direct control over the State Board of Elections (NCSBE) and transferring this authority to the state auditor, who will be Republican Dave Boliek come January.
Cooper said with Hurricane Helene being the deadliest and most devastating storm that North Carolina has ever seen, it was time for the legislature to step up, but they didn’t.
“In fact, they just moved money from one fund to another in Raleigh and took away the next governor’s authority to continue to enhance unemployment payments for people who lost their jobs because they actually took money out of western North Carolina and they used disaster relief as a fig leaf to engage in a large power grab that’s wrong for our state,” he told reporters. “I can see why Western legislators are upset. They should be, and they should be demanding that Republican leadership provide funding for small business grants to get them back on their feet again and provide funding to local governments to help them leverage more money, but they didn’t do it, and instead, they prioritized a power grab. That’s wrong. It’s shameful.”
Cooper continued, saying that it was “amazing” that the legislature passed legislation he says makes it harder for the attorney general to argue for lower electricity rates for consumers.
“I wonder who is behind that?” he asked, following up by saying that’s the kind of power grab that is in the legislation.
“I do believe a lot of it is clearly unconstitutional,” Cooper stated. “So, there will be court cases here. I don’t know how much of it will eventually go into law, but here you have a North Carolina that voted for Democrats for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, superintendent of schools, secretary of state, the Supreme Court race, the one swing congressional race that we had, plus voted to break a technologically diabolically partisan gerrymandered legislature, they broke the supermajority with that, and here the lame duck legislature votes to take power away from those people who were just elected overwhelmingly. That’s wrong.”
When asked why he thought there wasn’t more spending by the legislature after he asked for $3.9 billion in his Hurricane Helene relief proposal and they only set aside around $900 million, Cooper said the most likely answer from the General Assembly would be to wait and see what the federal government is going to do.
“The fact is that we know there are going to be a lot of holes in federal funding, and we know where they are, and small business grants is a big one,” he said. “They worked under COVID, under the pandemic. We had the North Carolina Department of Revenue distribute those small business grants. So, we’ve got the program in place. It only needs funding.”
Cooper said one of the things he heard the most while visiting western North Carolina was that small business grants are needed. He also heard that unemployment compensation also needs to be fixed.
“It was interesting to hear complaints from small business owners about how low unemployment payments are, which they are in North Carolina, to some of the lowest in the country,” he said. “What I did was use my emergency authority to provide greater funding for people who’ve lost their jobs because of the storms. These small businesses wanted that because they want their employees to stay there while they work to open back up. So not only does the legislature not fund the small business grants, they also take away the governor’s authority to extend the higher unemployment payments for those workers.”
A state audit recently found persistent delays in the state’s unemployment benefit system.
Cooper further chided the legislature by saying the disaster relief bill was a disaster itself.
He said Congress has about two weeks left before recessing for Christmas and the holidays to decide whether to respond to the state’s request for $25 billion in Helene relief. Part of the funding would go toward the $7 billion needed to rebuild the highway and bridge infrastructure in western North Carolina.
Cooper said the ongoing saga in the North Carolina state Supreme Court election race between Democrat Allison Riggs and Republican Jefferson Griffin needs to play out, but there is a positive in all of it.
“One thing that has been positive about North Carolina is that through Republican and Democratic governors, our system has resulted in fair and secure elections,” he said. “Both Republicans and Democrats have won. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court beat Cheri Beasley by 401 votes out of 5.7 million votes. This is yet another close race.”
Cooper said that although people should have a process for contesting votes, the problem with the Riggs-Griffin race is that it looks like they’re “flinging a lot against the wall and hoping something sticks.”
“In the middle of it, they’re challenging people who are citizens of North Carolina who have every right to vote, and it seemingly indiscriminately filing these challenges, which we’ll have to wait and see how all that works out, but I think it’s pretty clear where the results are.”
Carolina Journal asked Cooper about his thoughts on the mismanagement of funds at the North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency (NCORR), which he created, and about those still waiting for a home almost ten years after Hurricanes Matthew and Florence ravaged the eastern part of the state.
CJ pointed out that outgoing State Auditor Jessica Holmes, a native of eastern North Carolina, commented during the Council of State meeting about the people still waiting years later.
“As we talk about Hurricane Helene, it’s very important as someone from rural eastern North Carolina that I state on the record that we need to do better,” she said. “That said, in places like where I grew up in Maple Hill, North Carolina in Pender County, who were impacted by Hurricanes Matthew and Florence and yet they are still living in trailers, or they are living in homes that have mold. So, as we focus on hurricane relief, let us make sure that we remember all of North Carolina and that we also address the people that have yet to be served, who have been waiting for a very, very long time for help.”
Cooper said he would continue to discuss the need but pointed the finger back at the federal government for all the delays in completing housing.
“We have helped people recover from both Matthew and Florence with more than 13,000 homes repaired and rebuilt, with roads, bridges, and public buildings rebuilt,” he said. “NCORR has provided repair and rebuild for about 2900 homes. We want that part of it to go faster, but we know that money from HUD at the federal level is the very slowest part of all of it. In fact, it took North Carolina more than two years even to receive that money and then go through a pandemic.”
Cooper added that NCORR is completing 115 houses a month, and the legislation from the General Assembly should fund this to finish it.
“It is critical that we continue to help people who were suffering from storms,” he said. “Often, it is long-term recovery. We’re gonna see long-term recovery in western North Carolina We just gotta stick to it.”