NC judges say legislature cannot move elections control to Auditor (04-25-2025--Hour3)

What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron. Go to thepeteclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet, And again, thank you so much for your support. Let me do this. We have been following one of the state laws that was passed about moving control of the North Carolina Board of Elections out from underneath the GOVNA and over underneath the State Auditor's office. Okay, and there's a history here. I'm going to go through the history of it and how we got to where we are. But of course, after the law passed the legislature, Governor Josh Stein vetoed it, and the legislature overrode the veto. They sued and now it's in court. Okay, So that's where it is. And simply it just takes the control over the Board of Elections system from the governor, moves it to the state auditor. Okay. So we had a ruling that came down from a three judge panel in Waite County that blocked the law. They blocked it. They split in their decision two to one. Without court action, the state Auditor, Dave Bullock, would have had the authority to make new appointments to the state Board of Elections on May first. According to the Carolina Journal report on the matter, Stein would have lost his power to appoint members to the election's board. Stein is a Democrat. Bullock, the state Auditor, and the legislature the legislative leaders are Republicans. The panel of the three judges granted Stein's motion Governor Josh Stein's motion for summary judgment that means he wins the case without the need for a trial. The ruling arrived nine days after the judges heard arguments in the case, and of course it only leaves like a week to appeal before the May one deadline. Judges Edwin Wilson and Lorie Hamilton supported the decision. Judge Andrew Womble dissented. Wilson is a Democrat, Hamilton and Womble are Republicans, so Lourie Hamilton, a Republican, voted with Wilson to keep it under the governor's office. The panel first concludes that the State Board and the county boards exercise primarily executive functions. The opinion goes on to state that because the State Board and county boards exercise executive functions, the question becomes whether the governor has sufficient control over these entities. Again, the previous ruling in Cooper v. Berger or Cooper I. As it's called, that controls our Supreme Court has held that Article three, section five, sub section four of the North Carolina Constitution requires the governor to have enough control over commissions or boards that are primarily administrative or executive in character to perform his or her constitutional duty. The extent of the governor's control depends on his ability to appoint members, supervise their activities, and remove them from office. Senate Bill three eighty two, which is the law that was passed, interferes with the governor's conscostitutional duties. All appointment powers for the State Board have been removed from the governor and given to the State Auditor, and the governor has no power to fill vacancies or remove members of the State Board, whether for lack of attendance or for cause. Likewise, with respect to the county boards as well, he loses that appointment power and the power to remove the Constitution does not permit the auditor to be solely responsible for execution of the state's election laws. Constitutional text, history, and precedent confirm as much, they said. They went on to say that because the duty to faithfully execute the laws has been exclusively assigned to the governor, Senate Bill three eighty two cannot reassign that duty to the auditor without violating the constitution. So, in other words, the majority is citing the governor's supreme executive power. And they said, Council of State members aid them governor in executing the laws, but the governor alone wields the state's executive authority and bears the ultimate duty of faithful execution. Okay, So that's why the two judges, Democrat and Republican, ruled in favor of keeping the governor in charge of the Board of Elections. Now, some background, and this is provided by the Carolina Partnership for Reform, and they say, by way of background, one political party has control over administering elections and counting votes one political party. What party controls is determined by what party wins the governor's race for reasons that should be obvious. Putting control of the election in the hands of one political party is not a very good idea. That's how it works right now. And by the way, just as an aside, if you are wondering why the left is fighting so hard against the mass deportations, it's because it will determine the outcome of elections. And I'm not talking about illegal aliens voting. I'm talking about counting people in the census. Right. The more people that you move into areas, they count in the census, and that then apportions members of Congress to that state for that area. So if you have a state that has a million, well, let me do it this way. If you have a state that has eight hundred thousand illegal aliens, and so let's say you have eight hundred thousand illegal aliens in Los Angeles. Let's just say that. Okay, that's about the size of a congressional district. Because the way you draw the districts is you take the total population, you divide it by four hundred and thirty five members of the House, and that gives you a population for each district size. Every state like, well, what about states that don't have eight hundred thousand people, Well, they get a minimum of one seat, and then you apportion all the rest of the seats based on the eight hundred thousand figure. So if you have eight hundred thousand illegal aliens in Los Angeles, Los Angeles would get a congressional seat. And if they can't vote in the federal race because they were legal aliens, why that's even better, right, because you got the seat, but you don't have to have to actually represent them because they can't vote for you or against you. Right, And what the analysis from the last census showed, because remember Donald Trump when he was president for the twenty twenty census, which then got upended because of COVID, Remember that they tried to do a citizenship They tried to not count citizen or non citizens, right, They only wanted a count of the citizens, not the illegal aliens, And they got sued over that in all event, and they had to count them, so they end up counting all these seats. Had they not done that, had they only counted citizens, Republicans would have a twenty seven seat majority. It's estimated a twenty seven seat majority in the US House. That's why Democrats can't they can't let this go. They have to fight this. They have to fight the deportation regime because if they lose, they won't ever control the House. They need those people to be counted in the next census. Already losing seats, California lost a seat, New York State lost a seat. North Carolina picked one up. I forget who else. Florida I think picked one up. Texas has been picking up states or seats in the House. That's the fight. That's why when you when you're trying to figure out why is there all this pushback, why are they defending some Ms thirteen gang member? They're trying to slow it all down because they need the people in these districts, in these states to keep the census count high for them. It's about that control of the House, all right. So spring is here a time of renewal and celebrations. You've got graduations, weddings, anniversaries and the special days for mom and dad. Your family's making memories that are going to last a lifetime. But let me ask you, are all of those treasured moments from days gone by? Are they hidden away on old VCR tapes, eight millimeter films, photos slides. Are they preserved because over time, these precious memories can fade and deteriorate, losing the magic of yesterday. At Creative Video, they help you protect what matters most. 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For nearly a decade, the state legislature has been trying to make it so that no political party has full control of the elections machinery. They have offered all sorts of ways to accomplish this. I have covered them literally for a decade. The Republican Legislature has offered I have lost count how many different mechanisms with different boards made up of different appointments and sizes and whatever. They have tried, probably half a dozen, maybe like they did. I think they ran a constitutional amendment, They passed laws, then they get sued. They have been trying to wrest this control from one political party, but at every turn the governor sued and or vetoed so his party would keep power. The governor argued in court that elections administration is an inherently executive branch manner matter. And in the meantime, the State Board of Elections has been a partisan disaster. Four executive directors, who are apparently chosen by the governor's campaign team. Four have resigned, including for overt partisan behavior. The board was the subject of national media scrutiny for appearing to keep the Green Party off the ballot so as to protect Democrat candidates from vote siphoning. You'll recall the Green Party sued believe this was twenty twenty two. They sued and they won in twenty twenty when the board secretly settled a lawsuit that was brought by Democrats' allies, and the secret settlement changed voting laws in the middle of the election, which is a violation of the Percel rule, which is that you don't change election laws if you're the court, you're hearing a case or whatever, you don't. Courts are very hesitant to change any rules before an election, let alone while it is going on. Yet, with the secret settlement, the collusive agreement, that this deal that was cut between Democrats at the State Board of Elections and their political allies that had sued to try to get these the relaxation of voting rules during the pandemic that Democrats had tried to get done. The Democrats in the Board of Elections, the executive director, Karen Brinson Bell, she had been trying to get this stuff done. The legislature was like, no, we're going to do these other things. And she's like, oh, we're going to do this. No, you're not doing this. And then they had sued and then they enter into an agreement. Even though the legislature was party to the lawsuit. They did not tell the legislative defendants about the collusive agreement. They settled it on the side. Why would they do that because they knew that the legislature would not agree to it. It's scandalous behavior. So finally last year the legislature said, enough is enough. We are done trying to find a middle ground. Here. We are passing a law and giving elections administration to a different executive branch official, the State Auditor. You could have had an equal split, mister Governor, but you wouldn't take it, and the governor sued, of course, and now that brings us to the decision from these three judges in Wake County. There are three parts of the constitution that inform the outcome of this case. According to the Partnership for Reform, all of the parts are contained in Article three of our state Constitution. First part, the Governor shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed. Next, the General Assembly shall prescribe the function, powers, and duties of the administrative departments and agencies of the State, and may alter them from time to time. And finally, the third part that the State Auditor or any of the Council of State positions. Their duties shall be prescribed by law. So se PR says, these three passages sometimes come into conflict, and they apparently do in this case. On the one hand, the governor is supposed to faithfully execute the laws that the General Assembly passes, and on the other hand, the Constitution calls for other independently elected executive branch officials and charges the General Assembly with deciding on their duties. Right, So the General Assembly is supposed to say, hey, auditor, this is what you're supposed to do. We passed a law, it's signed by the governor or veto, we overwrote it. Whatever we did this law, you have to do this. That's the role of the legislative branch. The General Assembly argument here is that it is fully within its constitutional authority to decide which administrative department or agency should be in charge of elections administration. Right, this comes up every now and again, particularly when they're having a devil of a time counting all of the ballots before Christmas, you know, and it's like the Secretary of State is not in charge of the elections. Elaine Marshall keeps, you know, I always has to put out some statement because she gets inundated with media requests because you know they're failing to count the ballots quickly enough and they're making a bunch of mistakes or whatever, and Elaine Marshall always has to come out and put out a statement saying, I'm not in charge of the election system. The governor is Board of Elections Governor. It's not my purview because in most other states, the Secretary of State is in charge, but not here so does the legislature have the authority to move these responsibilities to a different executive office that is part of the Council of State. The Council of State ten seats all elected statewide, and the Auditor is one of those seats. Governor is one lieutenant governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, Agriculture Commissioner. These are the Council of State seats, and the legislature says we can do this because it's our job in the Constitution to prescribe the duties of these offices. The governor argues that only he can be in charge of elections administration because the constitution says he must take care that laws are faithfully executed. According to the Carolina Partnership for reform did not meaningfully wrestle with the other sections of the constitution that they just outlined there. And by the court's logic, the governor and only the governor can decide how to execute the state's laws. That position would render every other Council of State member subservient to the governor's ultimate decisions. Though, for example, the law requires the state auditor to do audits, which is kind of a giveaway because of his name and everything or the title, But that is to determine if state state agencies are operating efficiently. How can it be then that the state auditor can execute that law on his own. But it's somehow unconstitutional for him to execute another law, one that tells him to administer elections. Why would he have to Why would he have to do that law for the audits. The duty to execute the election's law is no different than the duty to execute the audit law. The legislature assigned both to the state auditor. Either there's a Council of State whose duties are prescribed by the legislature or there isn't. And here's the problem with this ruling. They don't address this issue, this conflict. Now, I don't know if they're going to appeal it. I suspect they will. I don't know if they're going to have time to beat the May one deadline. I suspect they won't, But we shall see. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina. Just a quick drive up the mountain and Cabins of Asheville is your connection. 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Call or text eight two eight three six seven seventy sixty eight or check out all there is to offer at Cabins Ofashville dot com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. Moving on, did you know that under North Carolina law, lottery winners here in this state have to reveal their identities unless they win under six hundred dollars. That's the cutoff. So if you just win five ninety nine, you know, then you don't have to You don't have to go public with your name because frankly, nobody cares, right, I mean nobody cares. They go, wow, you won five hundred dollars on the lottery. You're like, they're not putting it. They're not putting you in the newspaper for that, they're not putting you on TV commercials for that, right, But anything above six hundred dollars, well, now you're basically famous. You make six hundred two dollars. You win that on a lottery ticket. Now, everybody wants to know who you are. See, it's very logical actually when you think about it. But also unless you win less than six hundred or more than fifty million, okay, so there's this window. If you win more than fifty million, then you can be anonymous. If you win forty nine million, everybody knows you won forty nine million. You went over fifty million, now you can be anonymous. Okay, but I'm not sure you're aware of this. But when people win lots of money through a lottery, sometimes bad things happen to them. It's actually pretty common. They get targeted. And there is this interesting dynamic that occurs because like if I if I am a self made millionaire or a billionaire to quote Bernie, if I make the money myself, people come to me and ask me for my money and I say no, you know, they hit you up for charitable donations or family members are like, I don't want to work, give me some money, you know whatever, And I can say no because I worked for it, I earn this money. I'm a self made millionaire. Right. However, if I won the money, well, now I don't have that excuse because I just found it. Basically, Like, what am I supposed to say to that, Like they're asking me to just make it rain on them long loss cousin that I've never met, and I'm supposed to just give them a million dollars or okay, one hundred thousand dollars or something. Oh, come on, it's not like you earned it. You just want it. Why do you It's not that it wasn't even really yours, you know, come on, share the wealth. It'll be like I'm winning the lottery too. Whatever. It becomes difficult to say no. And a lot of people who win large sums of money in the lotteries, they they don't make good fiscal decisions. Okay, they're not good at financial management, and they get taken in by scam artists. They make bad investments because now they all owe this money and like, oh, we should invest in a restaurant together or something. Oh we should invest in this, Oh, buy a bunch of this whatever. They also get harassed, they get stalked. In some cases this is true, they've been kidnapped, held for ransom, and even murdered. So there is a bit of a downside to winning the lottery when you have to give your name out. And now with the rise of social media and the ability for people to target you when they know your name, the State Senate and the State House are now looking at two different bills to try to limit this. The Senate has a bill, Senate Bill four h two that what started off that it started off mandating anonymity for anybody who want a million dollars and above. So if you want a million or more, you're mandated anonymous. However, Senator Ralph Hyes, the bill sponsor, he raised that to five million, and he said the change was at the North Carolina Lottery Commission's request. The Lottery Commission requested this because they often use personalized stories of winners to advertise real life wins. Yeah, that's the problem, guys. This I don't understand this argument. This makes no sense, Like, hey, I don't want to be named because people are targeting me for harassment. Heyes comes along and says, okay, we'll go ahead and say anything above a million dollars. I say, thank you very much. That will help protect me if I win. And the Lottery Commission comes in, who WHOA WHOA whoa we advertise with this, we need Pete to advertise. Make it five million, Okay, I'll make it five million, right. The whole point is to keep you from using me to advertise the fact that I won over a million dollars. What are you doing? High said he was inspired to sponsor the bill originally after he had a conversation with a five million dollars scratch off winner. The winner told heys they had been harassed by salespeople showing up at their door with investment opportunities. Well, if you won five million dollars, I would recommend a very stout home security system, maybe with some mounted turrets. The North Carolina State House Bill, on the other hand, that that's the Senate bill. The House bill mandates that any lottery winner of any amount has the option to remain anonymous. I like that one. I like that one because if I were to win fifty thousand dollars, I don't want, you know, people finding out about that. I don't need my wife knowing I won that kind of money. That's not In twenty twenty four, four players won five million dollars or more. Seventy five players won a million or more. According to WRAL. All of them had to go public with that information. They had to include their full names, city of residents, and the game and date that they played and how much they won. And then I think they were handed a can of spray paint and they had to paint a huge target right on their chest and back. Anonymity is a hot button issue across the US. As the Internet makes it easier to find, scam and harass people, winners are clamoring for anonymity. The Virginia Legislature voted unanimously in March to lower the states anonymity allowance from ten million down to one million. Here's the problem. If you make it all anonymous, how do you know that real people actually won? Right? It could be like Running Man? Remember that movie, the documentary running Man, where people would quote win the contest, then you never saw them again. M h. I still think it should be voluntary. If you don't want to go public, you don't go public. I think that's a fair compromise. All right. If you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events, and I know you do too, and you've probably heard me say, get your news from multiple sources. Why. Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with ground News. It's an app, and it's a website, and it combines news from around the world in one place so you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check dot ground, dot news slash pete. I put the link in the podcast description too. I started using ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself. Check dot ground, dot news slash pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get fifteen percent off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature. Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. Do you know who Marcus Lamonas is? Marcus Lamonis. He is the CEO of Camping World aka the profit pro fit. He did a show on CNBC Christy and I used to watch it all the time he would go in and help small businesses build them up and such. He's done several in our region. And he then at some point he became the CEO of Camping World. And one of the things that he does at Camping World is he hoists a massive American flag and like all of his Camping World locations, and he even did it at one of the barbecue joints that he helped to rescue I think down in South Carolina. And now he's in trouble. The CEO of Camping World claims that he was forced to close down one of his North Carolina stores. This is out in Greenville, North Carolina, as he defied local politicians over the massive American flags flying over the locations. Marcus Lamonis made the shocking revelation that one of the national RV dealerships in Greenville was shuttered April eighteenth. He says he was forced to shut down operations at the smaller of the two locations after the city council sued him and his company for violating city ordinance with the larger than life flags. Larger than life, I mean, they're just big flags. They're not larger than life, and they've been nailing him with fines constantly. He said, we think the ordinance is wrong. I think it's all so wrong that council members have been working very actively to disparage my business Greenville. City of Greenville notes that the flag is almost the size of a basketball court. Oh no, a basketball court. Oh no, that's too big. Yeah, not a tennis court, a basketball court. It's thirty two hundred square feet. That's that's like almost twice the size of my house. But you got to be able to see it from the interstate. The poll that flies from is one hundred thirty feet tall, almost double the current allowance. Quote. This has never been about removing an American flag or the type of flag. It is about bringing the flag into compliance with city code. According to the Greenville Communications manager, brock Letchworth, again with these Deckenzian names. Anyway, we look forward to finding a resolution that will result in the continued display of the flag, but in a way that does not violate local laws. So, in other words, we want you to have a smaller flag. But lamonas fifty one year old CEO, says the city ordinances violate the state law. He did not specify what law that is. And when I went looking through the general statute codes, all I could find were law is about HOA restricting American flags. I couldn't find anything about city ordinances. Now, along with Greenville, North Carolina, Camping World is facing another lawsuit from the city of Ceverville, Tennessee, located thirty miles outside of Knoxville. They argue the flag in its city is so big, also the same size as this, as all of them. Really, they say it's a distraction to drivers. Quote let us be clear, the city of Ceverville is not and never will be again patriotism. Excessively tall structures can create visual distractions for motorists, pose potential safety hazards, and impact the scenic views that are a vital part of what makes Severville a destination for residents and visitors alike. So he's got two fights now, He took to the Twitter machine formerly known as x. He says, Dear any Town, USA, I have received countless calls, emails, texts, and mail regarding my refusal to take down the flag. These flags that I put up are not just at Camping World. They have gone up at one small business in South Carolina, Schuler's Barbecue, and in the town of Grafton, Illinois. These flags represent something personal to me. I came to this country from an orphanage in Beirut Lebanon, at the age of nine months old. I grew up in a middle class home where work ethic was everything, maybe the only thing. Our family was in the Chevrolet business and had the largest flag in Miami. As a child, I used to tell everybody that one day I would have a business of my own and that my flag would be even bigger, like any child would. I have put up two hundred and twenty flags across this country, totaling seven hundred four thousand square feet. My secret goal has always been to get to one million square feet. I thought it was a more impressive way to be a quote millionaire. Over the years on my journey, I have experienced life to the fullest. I've made my share of mistakes, experienced the highs of building something with great people around me, the lows of helping people and then being sued, married for true love, lied to because of pure greed, criticized for being too whatever the flavor of the day is, and seeing things people dream of. I may not be the American dream, but I I want to be and I know I have it in me. The flag is my love letter to a country that gave me a chance when I didn't have one. It gave me a free market to make money. It gave me freedom to be me, and gave me courage to try anything. While I receive the criticism saying that I don't respect laws because I have money, because I'm too self centered, too greedy, attention seeking publicity hound, bad advertiser. The list goes on, Well, I do have pride, and I have been blessed with success. I do have conviction, and I have my freedom. And then he says the flag is not coming down, no matter the consequences. I am an only child. My parents are both past I have no children. I have my faith, my businesses, my wife, and my principles. Unfortunately, I will see you too in court. And then he tags the city of Greenville. Well, in the city of Severville, Tennessee. This is not the first time this kind of thing has happened. Do you remember. I believe it was like twenty nineteen Gander RV. It was local and they had a huge flag right they were being told to take it down. Got in a big fight. See, here's the thing. The city may have some ordinance that says you can't fly an American flag that's this bigger, bigger whatever, or you can't have any kind of a flagpole that's this toll or a structure that's this toll whatever. You could have that on the books. And it seems like that this flagpole in both of these locations may be very well violating the laws of these towns. But here's the thing. Americans don't care about your law. They care about that flag. Choose wisely in this fight. Greenville, North Carolina City Council and Ceverville, Tennessee City Council. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepetecallanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.