'Authoritarian stuff': Reporter slams NC's GOP supermajority over 'corrupt power grab'

In a startling power grab, the Republican-led supermajority in North Carolina moved to override a veto by the current governor, Roy Cooper, that would limit the powers of the executive branch.

Slate courts reporter Mark Joseph Stern posted on Bluesky that it was "hugely corrupt power grab."

It means the Republicans seized "authority from the governor and the courts to prevent any meaningful check on legislative abuses. Authoritarian stuff. A very dark day for democracy in NC," Stern wrote.

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The News & Observer reported that the bill was written "in secret and fast-tracked" to a vote without any committee hearings, and the House began debate less than an hour after the bill became public.

The bill made some hurricane relief money available, but Gov. Cooper called it "a sham," saying it wasn't enough. The bill also takes election supervision away from the State Board of Elections and hands it over to the state auditor, who will be a Republican.

“This legislation was titled disaster relief but instead violates the constitution,” Cooper said.

Protesters filled the public gallery, shouting down at legislators as they began the vote. There was no debate in the Senate. Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson — the embattled Republican defeated in the 2024 gubernatorial race — then had the gallery cleared.

"One really galling detail," Stern later wrote. "Republican legislators are so mad that voters retained a Democratic NC Supreme Court justice that they’re taking over the election board, laying the groundwork for more voter suppression, and severely curtailing voters’ right to 'cure' defective ballots after an election."

Read the full report on the bill below.