Another Day, Another Republican Law Ruled Unconstitutional

The Republican restructuring of the NC State Board of Elections got yet another black eye yesterday at 5 p.m. when the three-judge panel ruled the whole restructuring of the SBOE and the Ethics Enforcement board unconstitutional but said it could continue to function through this election.

Open question: Will Republican leaders in the General Assembly appeal the decision? Not if they get their constitutional amendment through, which will permanently lock in stalemate with a 4-4 board of equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats. If that amendment fails, then they'll appeal.

In the meantime, it's a decision without an effect. Which sucks.

Melissa Boughten coverage:

A three-judge panel ruled the evening before early voting that Republican lawmakers unconstitutionally restructured the State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement after Gov. Roy Cooper was elected.

Provisions of a state law restructuring the State Board (including its executive director and chairperson) and county boards of elections violates the separation of powers clause in the Constitution by diminishing the Governor’s control over the agency, according to the 2-1 opinion released after 5 p.m. Tuesday.

Judges Jesse Caldwell III, a Democrat who presides in Gaston County and Todd Burke, a Democrat who presides in Forsyth County signed the opinion. Judge Jeffery Foster, a Republican who presides in Pitt County, wrote a dissenting opinion noting that he believed the issues were political questions and therefore nonjusticiable.

The split decision enjoins the parts of the law ruled unconstitutional but suspends that injunction until after the November election is certified so the election process can continue without interruption.

Supplemented by Will Doran's coverage in the News and Observer:

Currently the board has nine members, including four each from the Republican and Democratic parties and one person not affiliated with either party, who can break ties on politically contentious issues that come before the board.

That’s a less partisan setup than before 2016, when whichever party controlled the governor’s office also was guaranteed control of the elections board. The amendment on the ballot this November would permanently remove the ninth member of the board, leaving it with just four Republicans and four Democrats. The amendment would also remove most of the governor’s power to decide who sits on the board, giving that power to the legislature instead.

BREAKING NEWS: Boards of Election Power-Grab by Republicans Put on Hold

This afternoon Wake Superior Court Chief Judge Donald Stephens put a temporary hold on the Republican rewrite of boards of elections which would give Republicans the advantage in running North Carolina elections, especially in even-numbered years. Judge Stephens intends to review the entire law for its constitutionality next Thursday. The law was due to go into effect this Sunday night at midnight.

“The General Assembly passed a bill that, among other things, radically changes the structure and composition of the executive agency responsible for administrating our state’s election laws,” the Cooper lawsuit says. “Those changes are unconstitutional because they violate the separation of powers provisions enshrined in the North Carolina Constitution by shifting control over that agency away from the governor to the General Assembly.”

Politics 101: Don't Pick a Fight With the Press

Stephen Kidd

Longish article in the Salisbury Post on current political campaigning in Rowan County (which is east of Eden), with the local Democratic Party energized and the local Republican Party throwing a snit-fit over press coverage in the Salisbury Post:

"Local Republicans ... refused to speak with the Salisbury Post about efforts to prepare for November’s election. Rowan Republican Chairman Stephen Kidd cited disagreements with past Salisbury Post stories. Other local Republicans didn’t return requests for comment or directed inquiries to Kidd."

BWA-ha-ha!

The Rowan County Republican Party has been riven by Tea Party v. Establishment bitterness, and the Salisbury Post has reported on that. Maybe that made Stephen Kidd sore. More likely, it was the Salisbury Post's coverage of the notorious (but blessedly short) tenure of one Mac Butner as Republican Chair of the Rowan County Board of Elections that got under Stephen Kidd's thin skin.

Stephen Kidd was responsible for getting Mac Butner appointed to the Rowan County Board of Elections in 2015. Within minutes, it seemed, Butner's history of flamboyantly racist posts on Facebook made national news, and in an unprecedented move, the Republican NC State Board of Elections removed Butner from office. The SBOE determined Butner's appointment had been "a clerical error." All of that made it into the Salisbury Post.

Mac Butner died suddenly last month, and the Salisbury Post published a lengthy profile of his political career and did not shy away from his controversial last years. That could not have pleased Stephen Kidd.

And so he's decided to feud, in a very Trumpian way, with the Salisbury Post and thus add to a growing impression that the Rowan Republican Party has much to be defensive about.

Ginny, Call Your Office

Part of a sample primary ballot produced and circulated by the Rowan County Board of Elections.

The Fate of Mac Butner

Josh Howard

The notoriously racist and otherwise just generally bigoted chair of the Rowan County Board of Elections will have his hearing before the State Board of Elections (SBOE) in about 30 minutes from now.

Wish we could be there to watch SBOE Chair Josh Howard -- he who found nothing either surprising or offensive in the revelation that Watauga County Commission attorney Stacey "Four" Eggers was actually running the Watauga County Board of Elections, despite Howard's previous observation that putting Four on the board would constitute a conflict of interest.

Howard also continues to rubber-stamp the public actions of Watauga BOE Republicans Bill Aceto and Luke Eggers, despite a judge's ruling that those actions are unconstitutional infringements on the rights of young voters.

Mr. Howard should find it fairly easy to relieve Mac Butner of his position this morning, but you never know how far Mr. Howard will go to justify the behavior of any Republican on any county BOE.

UPDATE
The SBOE just removed Mac Butner from his position on the Rowan County Board of Elections by a 2-3 vote, Chairman Josh Howard voting with the two Democrats to remove him.

Howard is quoted as saying, "I'm not leaving someone who says these things on a County Board of Elections - not on my watch."

Interesting. He's certainly allowed plenty of shit to remain in place RE Watauga County.

Rhonda Amoroso

FOOTNOTE
As remarkable as Josh Howard's siding with the Democrats today is the vote by Rhonda K. Amoroso and newly appointed member James Baker, both Republicans, to retain Mac Butner as chair of the Rowan County board.

They are purely partisan protectors of any status quo that any county Republican Party in North Carolina decides to install in the local "fair elections" office.

Meet the Most Notorious "Clerical Error" in North Carolina

Mac Butner is the newly installed chair of the Rowan County Board of Elections. He has made numerous inflammatory (i.e., racist) comments on Facebook, some of which are detailed here and here. Much of his junk has been taken down. MOST OF IT WAS/IS WRITTEN IN ALL CAPS, a form of internet abuse that belongs to another century.

Butner was chair of the Rowan County Housing Authority a year ago. He was also posting racist comments then to his Facebook page that were so foul that the Rowan County Commission called for his resignation and launched an investigation. Butner was defiant. He tried to get on the ballot in 2014 for County Commission via petition, but he failed.

Now he's Chair of the Rowan County Board of Elections, thanks to the recommendation of the Chair of the Rowan County Republican Party, which the Chair of the state GOP merely rubber-stamped and forwarded to the State Board of Elections, which duly appointed Butner last month.

Stephen Kidd, left, Chair of the Rowan GOP who
recommended Butner

Now the state GOP has discovered it has a poisonous racist running elections in Rowan County and is trying to distance itself. Although Butner's offensive Facebook posts in 2014 made national news, North Carolina GOP Press Secretary Kara Carter said yesterday that party officials were "not aware" of the posts, which she termed "offensive."

And then Kara Carter said this: "His nomination was submitted to the State Board of Elections as result of a clerical error. We have absolutely asked him to resign."

Butner, as is his habit, is defiant. He's claiming he's the victim. Many in the new, reconstituted Republican Party of North Carolina will agree with him.

For its part, the North Carolina State Board of Elections doesn't need another scandal right now. It certainly doesn't need a character like Mac Butner in charge of voting in Rowan County, or in any county.