North Carolina voters have chosen Democrats in three straight elections for governor; the state’s Republican-led legislature has countered by siphoning off a number of the powers that historically got here with the job.
These energy grabs have had a profound impact on each democracy within the state and on the on a regular basis lives of North Carolina residents, Democrats argue.
The modifications are “weakening environmental protections, elevating vitality prices, and politicizing election administration,” Josh Stein, North Carolina’s governor, mentioned in a textual content message responding to questions from ProPublica.
Republican leaders within the Basic Meeting didn’t reply to requests for remark or emailed questions in regards to the energy shifts. Up to now, they’ve defended these actions as reflecting the desire of voters, with the senate president describing one key invoice as balancing “appointment energy between the legislative and govt branches.”
Former state Sen. Bob Rucho, a Republican picked to sit down on the state elections board after lawmakers shifted management from Stein to the Republican state auditor, mentioned the modifications would repair issues created by Democrats.
“Republicans are very happy with what’s been achieved,” Rucho mentioned. Shifting authority over the elections board, he argued, would “reestablish a stage of confidence within the electoral course of” that Democrats had misplaced.
ProPublica just lately chronicled the practically 10-year push to take over the board, which units guidelines and settles disputes in elections within the carefully divided swing state. Choices made by the board’s new management — notably on the areas and numbers of early voting websites — may have an effect on outcomes within the 2026 midterms.
Under, we study how different energy transfers pushed by North Carolina’s Republican legislature are reshaping all the pieces from the laws that defend residents’ ingesting water to the charges they pay for electrical energy to the tradition of their state college system.
How North Carolina’s Governor Received Weaker Over the Previous Decade
ProPublica tracked 29 govt powers and prerogatives historically held by North Carolina’s governor and different Democrats which have been focused by its Republican-majority legislature for the reason that finish of 2016. We discovered many have been stripped away, leaving the governor the nation’s weakest.
2016
1. Board of Transportation
2. Building Code Council
3. Coastal Resources Commission
4. Commission for Public Health
5. Economic Investment Committee
6. Environmental Management Commission
7. Industrial Commission
8. State Board of Community Colleges and community college trustee boards
9. Some aspects of K-12 education
10. Some special Superior Court seats
11. State Board of Elections
12. State Highway Patrol
13. UNC universities’ trustee boards
14. Utilities Commission
15. Wildlife Resources Commission
Democratic powers:
16. Power of the attorney general to oppose legislature
17. Power of the governor to appoint judicial vacancies
18. Power of the governor to direct federal block grants
19. Power of the governor to hire and fire over 1,000 political appointees
20. Power of the lieutenant governor to chair Committee on Energy Crisis Management
21. Power of Democratic officials to oversee charter schools
22. Power of the governor to choose his own Cabinet appointments without legislature’s approval
23. Power over residential building codes
1. Child Care Commission
2. Clean Water Management Trust Fund Board
3. Parks and Recreation Authority
4. Private Protective Services Board
5. Rural Infrastructure Authority
6. State Building Commission
2025
1. Board of Transportation
2. Child Care Commission
3. Clean Water Management Trust Fund Board
4. Commission for Public Health
5. Economic Investment Committee
6. Industrial Commission
7. Parks and Recreation Authority
8. Private Protective Services Board
9. Rural Infrastructure Authority
10. State Building Commission
Democratic powers:
11. Power of the governor to appoint judicial vacancies
12. Power of the governor to hire and fire over 1,000 political appointees
1. Building Code Council
2. Coastal Resources Commission
3. Environmental Management Commission
4. State Board of Community Colleges and community college trustee boards
5. Residential Code Council
6. Some aspects of K-12 education
7. Some special Superior Court seats
8. State Board of Elections
9. State Highway Patrol
10. UNC universities’ trustee boards
11. Utilities Commission
12. Wildlife Resources Commission
Republican powers:
13. Attorney general doesn’t have the power to oppose legislature
14. Power to direct federal block grants
15. Lieutenant governor doesn’t have the power to chair Committee on Energy Crisis Management
16. Democratic officials have decreased power to oversee charter schools
17. Legislature has veto power over governor’s Cabinet appointments
Chris Alcantara/ProPublica
Environmental Administration Fee
What it’s: The Environmental Administration Fee adopts guidelines that defend the state’s air and water, comparable to people who regulate industries discharging probably carcinogenic chemical compounds in rivers.
Energy switch: In October 2023, Republican legislators handed a legislation shifting the ability to nominate nearly all of the fee’s members from the governor to themselves and the state’s commissioner of agriculture, who’s a Republican.
What’s occurred since: The brand new Republican-led fee has stymied a number of efforts by the state’s Division of Environmental High quality to manage a probably dangerous chemical, 1,4-dioxane, in ingesting water.
Advocates for companies, together with the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce, had criticized some laws and urged the fee to intervene. “Clear water is value the associated fee, however regulators shouldn’t arbitrarily set up a stage that’s low for the sake of being low,” the chamber mentioned in a press launch.
The Southern Environmental Legislation Heart, which has pressed the state to manage the chemical, has mentioned the fee’s rulings are “crippling the state’s skill to guard its waterways, ingesting water sources, and communities from dangerous air pollution.”
Utilities Fee
What it’s: The North Carolina Utilities Fee regulates the charges and companies of the state’s public utilities, which embody suppliers of electrical energy, pure fuel, water and phone service. The fee additionally oversees movers, brokers, ferryboats and wastewater.
Energy switch: In June 2025, a trial courtroom sided with the Basic Meeting in permitting a legislation handed in 2024 to take impact, eradicating the governor’s energy to nominate a majority of the fee’s members and transferring that energy to legislative leaders and the state treasurer, who’s a Republican.
What’s occurred since: The state’s main utility, Duke Power, has backed off from some plans to rely extra on clear vitality and retire coal-fired energy crops. In November, the corporate mentioned it might search the fee’s approval to lift charges by 15%.
In response to a new useful resource plan the corporate filed in October, the manager director of NC WARN, a local weather and environmental justice nonprofit, mentioned in an announcement that Duke’s actions would trigger “energy payments to double or triple over time” and improve carbon emissions. The state’s governor and legal professional normal, each Democrats, have mentioned they oppose the speed hike.
Garrett Poorman, a spokesperson for Duke Power, mentioned that the corporate is “centered on protecting prices as little as doable whereas assembly rising vitality wants throughout our footprint” and that the corporate had just lately lowered its forecasted prices.
The fee will resolve whether or not to approve the proposed price hikes in 2026.
College of North Carolina System
What it’s: The College of North Carolina System encompasses 17 establishments and greater than 250,000 college students, together with on the College of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, thought of considered one of finest within the nation.
Energy switch: Although the legislature has historically appointed nearly all of the trustees for particular person faculties, the governor additionally made a share of those appointments.
In 2016, the legislature handed a legislation that eradicated the governor’s skill to make college trustee appointments.
In 2023, modifications inserted into the state funds invoice gave the legislature energy to nominate the entire members of the state board that oversees neighborhood faculties and most of these faculties’ trustees. The governor had beforehand chosen some board members and trustees.
What’s occurred since: The system has created a middle for conservative thought, repealed racial fairness initiatives, suspended a left-leaning professor, gutted a civil rights heart led by a professor lengthy crucial of Republican lawmakers and appointed politically linked Republicans to the boards.
Republicans say the strikes are reversing the system’s long-term leftward drift.
“Finally, the board stays in for some time, and you modify directors, after which begin to reasonable the tradition of the UNC faculties,” mentioned David Lewis, a former Republican Home member who helped drive the modifications to the college system.
Democrats, together with former Gov. Roy Cooper, have criticized the board modifications as partisan meddling.
“These actions will finally damage our state’s financial system and repute,” Cooper mentioned in a 2023 press launch.
