North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein vetoed a bill on Monday that would give vast new powers to the state’s top legal official, after telling WRAL that the proposal is a threat to the idea of judicial independence.
House Bill 377 would let Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Newby suspend any trial court judge without pay. North Carolina would be the only state in the country to give a single person such sweeping power over the judiciary if the bill were to become law, Stein said.
He also plans to take action Monday on House Bill 958, which would make a number of changes to state election laws. Stein previously said he would veto the bill.
Stein said the bill empowering Newby, “would have a chilling effect on judicial independence by giving the chief justice authority to suspend trial judges without pay, a power no other chief justice in the country has,” Stein told WRAL in a written statement ahead of his veto. “North Carolina voters elect the vast majority of our judges in our state, and removing judges from their posts should first and foremost be determined by the people.”
House Speaker Destin Hall, R-Caldwell, wrote on social media after the veto that he planned to have the House override it, in hopes of passing the changes into law. Hall has previously said he wants Newby to use the new powers to go after judges whose rulings Republicans disagree with, such as on who should be given bail.
“[Stein] just vetoed the bill that puts a check on reckless judges,” Hall wrote Monday. “It’s very clear that his administration doesn’t care about public safety.”
Echoing the arguments made by his fellow Democrats in the state legislature who all voted against House Bill 377 when it passed earlier this month, Stein warned that the power could be easily abused to punish judges for their political views, or to pressure them to only rule certain ways — no matter what ruling the law or the facts of the case point to.
Stein said the bill was just the latest in a long line of decisions by GOP lawmakers to give themselves, or their party in general, more control over the judiciary.
A spokesperson for Newby hasn’t responded to multiple requests for comment on the bill in recent weeks. Hall said in written statements after the bill passed the House, and again after Stein vetoed it Monday, that “North Carolinians deserve judges who exercise sound judgment and uphold the highest standards of conduct.”
Stein said the bill is he latest in a long line of GOP efforts to politicize state courts and give the legislature more influence over them. Recent laws have made judicial races partisan rather than nonpartisan and restricted the governor’s ability to appoint replacement judges in vacant seats. The legislature has also recently begun creating new types of judges that its leaders personally appoint, who aren’t subject to elections like other judges, and who can rule on challenges against laws the legislature passed. And the state commission in charge of investigating complaints against judges has been remodeled to answer to GOP political appointees.
“For thirteen years, the General Assembly has repeatedly played politics with the judiciary, including taking all four of the nonpartisan State Bar’s appointments to the Judicial Standards Commission for itself,” Stein said. “It needs to stop politicizing our courts. An independent judiciary is critical to protecting the rule of law and the rights of all North Carolinians.”
Hall has said explicitly he wants to see Newby use the new power to go after judges over decisions Hall views as being insufficiently tough on crime. He wrote in a social media post earlier this month that when judges allow anyone accused of committing a violent crime to be released on bail, Newby should consider using his new powers to force them off the bench — if the bill becomes law.
“Actions have consequences,” Hall said, “and we’ll be holding these irresponsible judges accountable.”
The bill allows Newby to act only against a judge who faces an ethics investigation by a state agency called the Judicial Standards Commission, to suspend them while the investigation is ongoing. But the commission is packed with Republican political appointees, and nearly all details about its work — including which judges are facing investigations, what they’re being investigated for, and who lodged the complaint against them — are kept secret. Stein said he’s concerned it’ll help empower politically motivated targeting of judges.
“The small role the bill reserves for the Judicial Standards Commission is cold comfort, given that the Chief Justice and legislative leadership control nearly all of its appointments,” he wrote in his veto message.
Given Hall’s suggestion that Newby use the power to act against judges for decisions they issued from the bench — and not for ethical violations, like the Judicial Standards Commission is supposed to investigate — critics of the bill have said the proposal is clearly aimed at ramping up political or personal retribution against judges.
“I’m afraid this is going to be used to retaliate,” Democratic Rep. Marcia Morey, a former Durham County judge, said during legislative debate over the bill earlier this month.
During debate over the bill in the legislature, Democrats said Newby would use the new powers to go after judges he personally dislikes, or who ruled against a wealthy or well-connected person in a case before them, or simply for being Democrats. And since investigations can easily last over a year, they said, giving Newby the power to suspend them without pay during an investigation would essentially force them to resign so they wouldn’t go bankrupt.
No Republican lawmakers responded to those accusations during debates in the House or Senate. Nor has the state courts system, which Newby controls and which GOP lawmakers said requested the bill.