It was only a matter of when, not if.
The state Senate announced shortly before 8 p.m. on Monday that it voted 33-15 along party lines to override Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of Senate Bill 68 to create the North Carolina Bipartisan State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement.
The veto override is now on the House calendar for action on Tuesday. It will require 72 votes to meet a three-fifths majority required to override a veto.
Cooper vetoed the bill on Friday, saying it was “the same unconstitutional legislation in another package, and it’s an attempt to make it harder for people to register and vote.”
Legislation passed in December created a bipartisan board merging the State Board of Elections, State Ethics Commission, and some lobbying oversight functions by the Secretary of State’s Office. It was struck down in court over separation-of-powers issues. Republicans say they addressed the court’s concerns in the new law.
Yet in his veto message, Cooper said the revised version was “a scheme to ensure that Republicans control state and county boards of elections in presidential election years when the most races are on the ballot.”
S.B. 68 originally passed the House on April 6 despite vigorous dissent from Democrats, and sent to the governor on April 11.
The bill creates a bipartisan ethics and elections enforcement board with eight appointments, all made by the governor, and evenly split between the two major political parties in the state. Its GOP supporters say equal representation will eliminate partisanship that delays elections decisions and makes them more caustic.
“It is ironic that Gov. Cooper lectured the legislature about pursuing ‘partisan power grabs’ when he vetoed a bill creating a bipartisan board to ensure our ethics and elections laws are enforced fairly – and for no other reason than to strengthen his own political advantage,” said Senate Rules Chairman Bill Rabon, R-Brunswick.
“I am confident this change, which actually answers the court’s call to let the governor make all appointments to that board, is a step in the right direction for North Carolina,” Rabon said.
To address concerns raised by a three-judge panel regarding the division of appointments between the legislature and the governor in an earlier version of the law, S.B. 68 follows the current State Board of Elections model.
All board appointments will be made by the governor from a list of nominees submitted by the chairmen of the Democratic and Republican parties. In addition, the revised legislation requires only a simple majority vote of five members — down from a supermajority of six — to make decisions regarding elections and ethics issues.