If these measures pass now, McCrory will still be in office to sign them into law, effectively crippling Cooper from exercising the powers of the office McCrory himself enjoyed.
This is part of a longer history of state Republicans trying to change the rules in their favor. In 2011, after Republicans took control of both the state House and Senate, they passed a redistricting plan that would ensure Republican control in the state’s representation, and attempted to pass sweeping voting restrictions that disproportionally affected Democratic voters — measures that have thus far been successfully challenged in court as discriminatory.
What’s happening in North Carolina is a microcosm of what Democrats fear nationwide. Trump lost the popular vote, but won sweeping control over government anyway. If voting rights, and even gubernatorial powers, are so easily stripped after victory, it could put Democrats even further behind.

It’s terrifying how many political norms are protected not by laws, but by the idea of you just shouldn’t do that. Now that it appears that the GOP is willing to defy those norms—what do you do?

Joe Stracci