(The Center Square) – Josh Stein won the governor’s race in North Carolina and Democrats broke under the magic number of 72 in the House of Representatives on Tuesday.
The veto pen is back in play – or is it? Yes is the correct answer, and that it always has been despite appearances, just as that is why it is not a given.
“In spite of the GOP’s best effort to draw the most aggressive gerrymander in the country, Democrats, independents, and Republicans came together to break the supermajority through competitive races like Lindsey Prather, Dante Pittman, Beth Helfrich, and Bryan Cohn to hand the veto pen to Governor-elect Stein,” Anderson Clayton, the chairwoman of the North Carolina Democratic Party, said in a release Wednesday afternoon.
Passage of a ballot referendum in 1995 enabled the governor to have veto power; North Carolina was the last state in the country to be granted ability to veto. The General Assembly can override with a three-fifths vote, meaning minimums of 30 in the Senate, 72 in the House.
In unofficial returns that will be canvassed by county boards of election on Friday of next week, and potentially certified by the State Board of Elections on Nov. 26, Republicans won 71 seats and Democrats the remaining 49. Republicans flipped a seat in the Senate and will begin the new session in January with a 31-19 advantage.
Among the seats Democrats won are District 106, where Rep. Carla Cunningham of Mecklenburg County ran unopposed; District 23, where Shelly Willingham of Edgecombe County defeated Republican challenger Brent Roberson 56.4%-43.6%; and District 27, where newcomer Rodney Pierce had already ousted Rep. Michael Wray of Northampton County in the Democrats’ primary.
Those three are worth noting because of legislation that would clear a waiting list for Opportunity Scholarships, and require sheriffs to cooperate with federal immigration law enforcement – two policies strongly tied to the state’s Democratic Party. When Gov. Roy Cooper issued his 103rd veto earlier this year, it was Cunningham, Willingham and Wray siding with 64 Republicans rather than 40 Democrats.
The bill is yet to be tried for override with this two-year cycle’s lawmakers. It is on the House calendar Nov. 19, as is legislation on court-filed documents with the register of deeds. The latter was infamously vetoed by Cooper despite passage of 44-0 in the Senate and 115-0 in the House.
Already, the Senate override was 27-17 on Sept. 9.
Other Democrats voting against Cooper vetoes in the 2023-24 session have included – but is not limited to – Cecil Brockman of Guilford County, Garland Pierce of Scotland County and Nasif Majeed of Mecklenburg County. Only Pierce (51.8%) was tested in Election Day wins by the trio; Brockman (63.1%) and Majeed (86.4%) cruised.
Rep. Tricia Cotham, reelected Tuesday, won election as a Democrat two years ago and famousl switched parties the following April – saying Democrats left her, not the other way around.
When lawmakers last summer overturned a Cooper veto protecting women’s sports from men playing in them, Pierce and Wray were with all 72 Republicans. The two also backed rules for medical professionals related to performing gender transition surgeries or prescribing puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones to minors that has become law.
Translated, the General Assembly often votes along party lines, but it is not 100%. According to analysis by The Center Square, 34 members including three Republicans of the House have changed their votes at least once on an override. In the upper chamber, Sen. DeAndrea Salvador of Mecklenburg County is the only one of 20 Democrats yet to change; Republicans have none.
Cooper’s 103 vetoes are a record and former Gov. Bev Perdue’s one term netted the second most at 20. During his two terms when Republicans have three-fifths majorities in each chamber and attempt to override, the score is 49-for-49 for lawmakers; when without three-fifths majorities and trying to override, as is the case for one chamber starting in January, the General Assembly is 0-for-13 against the governor.
In this session that began in January 2023, with Republicans right on the magic numbers of 30 in the Senate and 72 in the House, veto override tries have been successful all 26 times with one and potentially two pending.