Gov Cooper vetoes primary date change in North Carolina

[brooklynite]

Ballotpedia

Gov. Roy Cooper (D) vetoed a bill to postpone the state's primaries from May 17 to June 7. We wrote about the bill the General Assembly passed two weeks ago.

The state supreme court postponed the primaries from March 8 to May 17 due to lawsuits challenging the new congressional and state legislative maps. The court heard arguments on Feb. 2.

Cooper said, "This bill is an additional attempt by Republican legislators to control the election timeline and undermine the voting process. … The constitutionality of congressional and legislative districts is now in the hands of the North Carolina Supreme Court and the Court should have the opportunity to decide how much time is needed to ensure that our elections are constitutional."

WRAL's Bryan Anderson wrote, "Cooper’s veto likely improves Democrats’ chances of seeing an independent expert appointed to handle a potential redraw process because Republicans may not be able to meet a narrow Feb. 18 deadline if the Supreme Court strikes down the new voting maps, takes a while to issue its ruling and doesn’t delay the primaries."

[wendyb-NC]

1. Very good.

Thank you, Governor Cooper.

[gratuitous]

2. Short-circuiting the usual Republican flummery

They submit a terribly gerrymandered map, go back and forth on its approval until it's too late to make any changes, so the gerrymandered map is used by default because there isn't time for anything else. Don't worry; we'll fix it next time around. The problem, naturally, is that the same gerrymandered map the resulted in a lop-sided legislature heavily favoring Republicans will be used to draw the next map. Which will heavily favor Republicans. But by the time the new map is ruled unconstitutional, well, you know, that's all we've got. So let's go ahead with another election, and we'll fix it next time around.

See how this works? Gov. Cooper does, and good for him.