Outgoing North Carolina Gov. Pat
McCrory on Friday signed a bill that weakens his Democratic
successor's powers.
Governor-elect Roy Cooper narrowly won
last month's election by roughly 10,000 votes. McCrory and other
Republicans raised unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud in an
attempt to delay conceding.
GOP leaders extended a special session
on hurricane relief to consider a number of proposals aimed at
limiting Cooper's powers once in office.
According to NBC News, the bill McCrory
signed alters the composition of the State Board of Elections, which
sets the rules for the state's balloting, to include an equal number
of Democrats and Republicans, and merges the board with the State
Ethics Commission. Previous state law allowed McCrory to pack a
majority of Republicans on the board.
The bill also requires ballots to list
an appellate court judge's political party, making such elections
partisan.
Cooper, who takes office on January 1,
threatened Friday to sue the Legislature.
“Once more, the courts will have to
clean up the mess the Legislature made, but it won't stop us from
moving North Carolina forward,” Cooper said in a tweet.
At least 16 people were arrested Friday
protesting the move.
During an appearance on Meet the
Press, Cooper called the actions of Republicans “shenanigans.”
“What they are trying to do with
these process changes is to limit my ability to want to raise teacher
pay, to expand Medicaid,” he said. “This is why people are mad,
and this is why people don't like government, because of these kind
of shenanigans.”
McCrory's undoing might have been his
signing and vigorous defense of House Bill 2, a controversial law
that targets the LGBT community. A Public Policy Polling survey in
August showed only 30 percent of voters in the state supported the
law. Cooper has pledged to repeal HB 2, though Republicans hold
veto-proof majorities in the House and Senate.