Court Smacks Down Cooper Complaint, Says New Amendments

RALEIGH – At a follow up hearing for the legal challenge to several constitutional amendment proposals a panel of judges ruled against the stubborn arguments of Roy Cooper’s attorneys and decided the recently passed revisions to amendment language were good to go.

“A unanimous three-judge panel sided with Republican legislative leaders against the governor Friday, saying the ballot language for two proposed constitutional amendments is reasonable enough to go before voters.

This panel had previously told the General Assembly to rework the language, which it found too misleading. The legislature did that in a brief special session, which ended Monday.

Gov. Roy Cooper’s office promised an appeal to the state Supreme Court. An attorney for his side said they would likely file that later Friday. The schedule after that is unclear, but both sides have agreed to skip the Court of Appeals as the state approaches deadlines to finalize and print ballots so that absentee ballots can be mailed.”

Cooper’s lawyers argued that the language in the amendment questions was misleading, to which the panel agreed. When the legislature convened a special session to rewrite the questions to the court’s satisfaction instead of merely dropping them, Cooper cried that it was reckless session so close to elections.

Even after the amendments were revised, addressing all critiques cited in court, Cooper maintained that the ‘misleading’ line. And now he is litigating further because he doesn’t want the people to have a say in where the dividing lines between the executive and legislative branches are.

Instead of dragging out the issue, legislative leaders have urged Cooper to drop the frivolous suit. Somehow we don’t think that is likely.

“I appreciate this court’s unanimous affirmation that the voters of North Carolina deserve to decide how they are governed and urge Governor Cooper to immediately stop trying to use litigation to block the people from being heard on popular ballot referendums,” House Speaker Tim Moore said in a statement.”

Democrats present themselves as the champions of democracy, but despite their tired slogans they don’t seem to get that letting the people vote on such issues IS what democracy looks like.

Either way, ballots printing is still being held hostage by another federal court panel that deemed congressional maps unconstitutional for ‘partisan gerrymandering.’

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