CHARLOTTE, N.C. — North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto stamp won’t be as heavy in the 2023 legislative session.
For the first two years of the North Carolina Democrat’s first term, Republicans had a veto-proof supermajority in the state legislature, and managed to override all but five of Cooper’s 28 vetoes.
Then Democrats knocked Republicans down to simple majorities in the 2018 elections, ensuring that the majority party needed help from some Democrats to override vetoes. That has never happened, and all of Cooper’s vetoes since 2019 have been upheld.
But the 2022 elections gave Republicans a supermajority in the Senate and left them one seat short of a supermajority in the House. Republican leaders have indicated they will bring back vetoed bills — or at least newer versions of them — in the next session. That includes the anti-Critical Race Theory bill from 2021, which was one of the 16 bills Cooper vetoed last year.
In 2022, he added six more bills to the veto count for the 2021-2022 legislative session, bringing the total to 22 over the past two years and 47 in all since Democrats broke the supermajority.
Cooper’s 2022 vetoes
In 2022, here’s what Cooper stopped with his stamp:
—House Bill 605: “2022 Primary Date.”
The bill would have moved the May 17 primary back three weeks, into June, to give more time because of redistricting. Cooper vetoed it on Jan. 28. Candidate filing began in February.
Cooper called the bill an “attempt by Republican legislators to control the election timeline and undermine the voting process. The constitutionality of congressional and legislative districts is now in the hands of the North Carolina Supreme Court and the Court should have the opportunity to decide how much time is needed to ensure that our elections are constitutional.”
The 2022 election changed the balance of the N.C. Supreme Court, which is now majority Republican, rather than Democrat.
—Senate Bill 173: “Free the Smiles Act.”
“Free the Smiles” was the last bill vetoed of several sponsored by Republicans that were aimed at easing coronavirus pandemic restrictions. Nearly all at the state level had been lifted in mid-2021, shifting the power to local governments for mask requirements in cities and school districts. With many school districts still requiring masks in February 2022, Republican lawmakers fast-tracked a bill about it.
But by the time General Assembly passed the bill giving parents and guardians discretion on whether their child wore a mask in school, most school districts had already lifted rules. When Cooper vetoed the bill on Feb. 24, he noted that school boards decide about masks, not the state, after previous legislation passed the year prior gave them the power. Nearly all had lifted mask requirements a week beforer, at the governor’s urging.
On March 9, a Senate attempt to override Cooper’s veto failed.
This year was the legislature’s short session, with work wrapping up July 1. Ten days later, just before the deadline to take action on bills sitting on his desk, Cooper vetoed four more bills:
—House Bill 49: “Concealed Carry Permit Lapse/Revise Law.”
When Cooper vetoed the bill, he criticized Republicans for wanting to remove a “commonsense gun safety measure.”
“Requiring sheriffs to waive firearm safety and training courses for those who let their concealed weapons permit lapse is yet another way Republicans are working to chip away at commonsense gun safety measures that exist in North Carolina,” Cooper said in July.
—House Bill 823: “Child Advocacy Centers/Share Information.”
Cooper vetoed the bill about information and record sharing, saying it was “hurried” at the end of session and that lawmakers should continue working with the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services and Child Advocacy Centers to fix some flaws in the legislation.
—Senate Bill 593: “Schools for the Deaf and Blind.”
With this bill, the legislature would have continued taking some control away from the governor when it comes to appointments overseeing education, as it had with previous legislation.
After vetoing the measure, Cooper said that it “removes administration of the important NC Schools for the Deaf and Blind from the State Board of Education to a newly created board with 80% of the trustees, who may or may not know how to run these schools, appointed by the legislature. The students at the schools deserve steady, knowledgeable leadership rather than becoming a part of the erosion of statewide education oversight.”
—Senate Bill 101: “Require Cooperation with ICE 2.0.”
This was the second time Cooper vetoed a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement bill, which passed along party lines in the Republican-majority legislature. SB 101 would have required sheriffs to cooperate with ICE by informing the federal agency if local officials couldn’t determine the legal status of someone charged with serious offenses, The N&O previously reported.
Cooper said the bill was about “scoring political points and using fear to divide North Carolinians.”
“As the state’s former top law enforcement officer, I know that current law already allows the state to incarcerate and prosecute dangerous criminals regardless of immigration status. This bill is unconstitutional and weakens law enforcement in North Carolina by mandating that sheriffs do the job of federal agents, using local resources that could hurt their ability to protect their counties,” he said.
Immigration bills are likely to resurface in the next session. In the House, unless enough Democrats are absent to give Republicans a three-fifths supermajority, Republicans will need at least one Democrat, plus all of the GOP caucus, to vote with them on veto overrides.
2023 legislative session
In January, members of a new General Assembly will be sworn in to their two-year terms. The session in an odd-numbered year is called the “long session” because it’s longer, generally lasting from late winter into the summer. It is also when the legislature passes the state budget’s two-year spending plan. In even years, it is known as the “short session.” While there are rules for the session’s start dates, they don’t require a specific end date.
In fact, though the General Assembly hasn’t taken any action since last summer, it has not yet officially adjourned. Instead the chambers have come back once a month for no-vote sessions. Similarly, no votes are expected at a brief session in December, although Senate leader Phil Berger or House Speaker Tim Moore could change that plan.
