Legislature Overrides Cooper’s Veto of Voter ID, Leftists File ANOTHER Lawsuit

RALEIGH – The N.C. House put the finishing touches on a veto override Wednesday, voting to enact legislation implementing Voter ID ‘notwithstanding the objections of the governor.’ And those objections from Gov. Roy Cooper can only be explained by bitter partisan motivations and appeasing the social justice warriors that he always seems to bow to. After all, Voter ID was literally added to N.C. Constitution by voters in November; the legislation to implement this constitutional mandate was fully responsive to Democrats’ calls for more forms of ID; and, some Democrats even sponsored the final bill, with more voting for it.

Rep. David Lewis (R-Harnett) has been a leader on election issues in the House, and said that Cooper’s veto was a message to the citizens of North Carolina that he doesn’t give one hoot about how they wish to be governed.

“My district is full of good, hard-working, well-intentioned people – there is nothing sinister or cynical about them,” said Lewis. “The governor does not have a problem with this legislature, he has a problem with his citizens. This bill does exactly what the people of this state wanted us to do.”

N.C. House Majority Leader Rep. John Bell (R-Wayne) told me he was surprised the governor would not only veto such a broadly supported bill, but that he’d insult the voters in the process.

“It’s truly a shame that the governor would call this legislation, and the will of the overwhelming majority of voters, a ‘cynical plot to suppress votes’,” Bell said. “There has never been a more debated issue – from floor debates, to newspaper op-eds, interest groups, and on, and on – in North Carolina than the photo ID issue.”

Bell thinks, rightly, that Cooper has made a political mistake in opposing an issue supported by voters and which incorporated input from every side of the aisle.

However, the Radical Left will do anything to make sure the citizens cannot get the common sense elections security they voted for. The Southern Coalition for Social Justice filed a lawsuit against the law almost immediately after the override.

The move is consistent with the Left’s strategy to legislate via litigation, hoping to find empathetic judges willing to support the social justice agenda, regardless of what voters or say. The strategy has worked in many instances over these last few years, starting with their successful blocking of the original voter ID legislation back in 2013. Now they are trying again, but this time the requirement comes in the form of a Constitutional Amendment passed by voters, implemented with bipartisan support, and adjusted to incorporate many of the Left’s ‘concerns.’

Rep. Joyce Krawiec (R-Forsyth) accurately described the frustrations of Republicans in light of the Left’s continued appeal to the courts to stop popular legislation.

“This is crazy,” said Krawiec. “After suing to stop voters from even having the chance to amend the constitution to require voter ID, liberal activists are suing again saying the new constitutional amendment is unconstitutional. It’s clear nothing will ever appease them: not the will of voters, not the fact that a Democrat sponsored the bill, and not the broad additions based on Democratic feedback. We’ve seen this sue ’til blue tactic before, only this time they’re up against a clear mandate from 55 percent of voters who want common-sense protections against voter fraud.”

She’s right; nothing short of turning the whole of the Old North State into a social justice sanctuary, will satisfy them. Even when they lose votes by a healthy margin, they turn to questioning the legitimacy of the margin of victory, as if only 100 percent support constitutes the ‘will of the people.’ It’s truly absurd.

The Left, in their activism and in their new lawsuit, are still crying ‘Racists!’ despite the clear evidence that this law is nothing of the sort. The NAACP of NC is telling anyone who will listen about how racist this law supported by black Democrats in the legislature is.

Rev. Anthony Spearman, the groups leader sounded off, saying, “[…] this last ditch effort to enshrine an anti-democracy, racist photo voter identification restriction on the right to vote by this General Assembly and we will battle for justice in the courts and the court of public opinion.”

NEWSFLASH to the NAACP: You’ve been roundly defeated in the court of public opinion on this issue. For more than five years your group has been labeling the ID requirements as racist plots to reintroduce ‘Jim Crow,’ and the citizens of this state have collectively rolled their eyes each time you argue the point.

So the courts is all the Left has to try and keep their narrative alive, in direct contravention to the will of voters. Hopefully, the judges that review the latest lawsuit can see through the radical fiction these social justice warriors deal in.