Excerpt From: Fox News.
Six weeks into North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper’s term, the Democrat and Republican-controlled legislature are locked in a partisan power struggle, leaving a cloud of uncertainty over state government.
Cooper won the latest battle Wednesday as a three-judge panel temporarily blocked a new law that required Senate confirmation for the governor’s Cabinet members, using a process similar to what the U.S. Senate does for the president’s Cabinet choices.
The state law was passed in the waning days of GOP Gov. Pat McCrory’s administration and seen by Democrats as a way to undermine the new governor’s authority. Cooper sued over this and other laws that reduced his powers after he was sworn in Jan. 1.
The decision by the judges was released an hour before senators were scheduled to question Cooper’s pick to lead the department of military and veterans’ affairs, but he was absent. Committee co-chairman Sen. Wesley Meredith read a brief statement in which he said senators would still get answers about the qualifications of secretaries and the meeting abruptly ended.
Cooper appointed eight of his 10 Cabinet members before the legislature came into session in January and they were sworn in. Some legislators call them acting heads. Under the law passed in December, they can be dismissed if the Senate does not confirm them.
While the agency leaders wonder about their jobs, the standoff hasn’t halted state government operations. But this much remains certain: the court battle has kept the rancor between Cooper and the General Assembly front and center.
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