The bill in North Carolina would give the Republican Legislature more power to watch over Gov. Roy Cooper, who is a Democrat.
The 58 schools that make up North Carolina’s community college system will be overseen by the lawmakers instead of the governor and local school boards. This is thanks to a bill that the state Senate passed on Wednesday.
Republican senators say they are pushing for the bill because the system and its schools need to be held more accountable to make sure they are teaching workers who can fill jobs at new or growing businesses. They also point to a part of the state law that says the assembly is in charge of picking people to serve on boards for higher education.
Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper thinks the measure is a political power play that will make it harder for him to get companies to build in North Carolina. Future governors won’t be able to fill a lot of state board and city trustee board positions. The bill is the latest attempt by Republican lawmakers to limit the governor’s ability to select people to important state boards and commissions.
The bill, which passed with 31 yes votes and 19 no votes, is now headed to the House. In 2027, the State Board of Community Colleges would have 18 voting members instead of 21. The vice governor, the labor commissioner, and the state controller would lose their voting rights. The House and Senate would each choose nine people to serve for four years. At the moment, Cooper chooses 10 members and the General Assembly chooses 8 members.
With a few exceptions, the governor gets to choose four members of local trustee boards. Most of the other members are chosen by county officials and local school boards. The bill would get rid of the governor and school boards and give most of the decisions to the leaders of the legislature.
Attempts by Democratic senators to keep the current appointment structures in full or in part failed because Republicans used parliamentary tricks to stop Democratic changes from going anywhere.
Sen. Jay Chaudhuri, a Democrat from Wake County, says that local community schools are worried that the changes to government will make them less able to meet the needs of business and industry.
“This bill, put simply, would take the word “community” out of community colleges,” said Chaudhuri, who was against the bill. “Because the executive branch and the legislative branch worked together, our state has had a record number of job postings in the last few years.”
Sen. Mary Wills Bode of Granville County was the only Democrat to vote for the bill. She did so along with all the Republicans.
In an earlier form of the bill, the head of the state’s community college system would have had a lot more power than the state board. But Republicans got rid of the changes right after the board last month chose Jeff Cox, head of Wilkes Community College, to be the next system president. The bill still says that the president must get approval from the General Assembly, but this would only apply to future picks.
The Senate passed the bill before the “crossover” deadline this week. If a proposal doesn’t pass one congressional body by Thursday and it’s not about taxes or spending or a few other things, it’s not likely to be looked at again during the rest of the two-year session.