Tuesday - March 19, 2024
Court Ruling Turns GA, Gov. Relationship Sour
Written by Michael Papich   
Wednesday, 25 March 2015 16:10

RALEIGH - The relationship between the Governor and the General Assembly may turn frosty as three-judge panel ruled in favor of Gov. Pat McCrory over the state legislature.

McCrory's office said legislative appointments to bodies such as the Coal Ash Commission violated the North Carolina constitution. Michael Bitzer, professor of politics at Catawba College, says this case shows how complex the relationship between branches of government is in our political system.

"Power is divided and it's divided between the lawmakers and the law executioners and the folks that interpret the law," Bitzer says. "Generally, we refer to this as 'checks and balances' but really, it's much more about separate institutions and branches of government having to sometimes share power."

Although legislature officials such as Phil Berger said the decision changes a 100-year relationship between the General Assembly and the Governor's office, Bitzer says the court ruled the lawmakers violated the state constitution.

"What the legislature did, and certainly the courts in their interpretation said was a no-no, was that it was trying to share too much of the executive's power," Bitzer says. "And I think, very clearly, it's delineated within the state constitution that these powers are indeed separate."

House Speaker Tim Moore says the General Assembly will appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court and says he thinks the high court will throw out the ruling against them.

"Legislatures tend to think of themselves as the premiere branch of government but they're not omnipotent," Bitzer says. "They are not exclusively the ones that can only write the rules of the game in the game of politics."

But now, Senate Rules Chair Tom Apodaca says as a result of the decision, some of the governor's appointments may have their confirmations slowed down in the General Assembly, which Bitzer says shows the relationship between McCrory and the legislature is more complex than just their shared party.

"Even when you have unified party government -- the Republicans control both the legislature and the executive branch -- there's not often times a whole lot of unity within those two branches," he says. "And when you're talking about turf warfare, particularly of this kind, it is political."

 
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