Law Limiting Power of Incoming North Carolina Gov. Put on Hold

A judge in North Carolina has temporarily blocked a law signed by Gov. Pat McCrory that would strip the incoming Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, of control over state and local elections boards.

Cooper filed a lawsuit Friday that stated the law passed by the Republican-controlled state legislature and signed by McCrory is unconstitutional because it violates separation of powers, giving legislators too much control over administering election law, the Associated Press reported.

According to the AP report, the judge on Friday ruled that the risk to free and fair elections justified blocking the law and a review of the legislation is planned for Thursday.

The law creates a state board of elections and separate county election boards that would comprise of members equally split between the two parties. That would deny the incoming Democratic administration control over the boards because as the law stands currently, the administration is allowed to appoint three out of five members on the state board and two out of three members on each county board. The new law makes it so there are eight members on the state board of elections and four on the local county boards.

For the state board, the governor would be able to appoint four of the members, two of whom must be from the opposing party while the other four members are appointed by state legislators.

Another component of the law is that it merges the elections board with the State Ethics Commission. The legislation was part of a series of measures intended to limit Cooper's power.

Michael Curtis, a professor in constitutional and public law at Wake Forest University, told Patch last week that he didn't understand the decision to merge the ethics commission with the elections board since the latter has been functioning well and functioned well during the highly contested gubernatorial election.

Cooper narrowly beat out McCrory in the election and the incumbent governor did not concede the election till almost a month after ballots were cast.

The law was set to take effect on Sunday, the same day Cooper goes into power.

Image Credit: @RoyCooperNC