Shift in appointments is Republicans moving power 'to their friends,' NC Gov. Josh Stein says

Dawn Baumgartner Vaughan, The News & Observer (Raleigh) on Aug 4, 2026

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RALEIGH, N.C. — A budget bill is likely to soon be on its way to the governor’s desk, with a variety of funding changes and power shifts. It’s much smaller than the comprehensive, long-delayed $34 billion budget bill Democratic Gov. Josh Stein signed into law in July.

But what is known as a budget technical corrections bill has more than what the name implies — it adds millions of dollars more in spending, reduces some cuts from the big budget bill and shifts even more power away from the governor and his administration.

Stein said the additional power shifts by Republicans involve moving power “to their friends.”

The News & Observer asked Stein about the legislation on Tuesday ahead of an expected House vote. The Senate already passed a compromise version of the measure last week, before it adjourned with no voting sessions planned until November. The House is back for just a few days and is expected to approve the bill.

Budget adjustments take more power away from Democrats

Stein hasn’t decided if he’ll sign or veto House Bill 268 when it reaches his desk, he said Tuesday as he talked to reporters after a Council of State meeting.

The pending budget legislation would shift some power on the Council of State itself, which is the 10-member board of statewide elected officials including Stein, Lt. Gov. Rachel Hunt, Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, Attorney General Jeff Jackson and Superintendent of Public Instruction Mo Green — all Democrats — as well as State Auditor Dave Boliek, Labor Commissioner Luke Farley, State Treasurer Brad Briner and Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey, who are all Republicans.

As with previous power shifts in Republican-written budgets, lawmakers continue to take away the governor’s power to make appointments to various boards and commissions and give it to legislative leaders and other Republican elected officials.

HB 268 would also shift some power away from a Cabinet agency that deals with state property, moving it to agencies led by Republicans.

In the budget that is now law, some state agencies led by Republicans are allowed to bypass the procurement process if they “elect to be exempted from oversight by the Department of Administration on the matters of purchasing, contracts, acquisition and maintenance of real property, leasing of office space, and disposition of surplus property.”

The Department of Administration is an agency in Stein’s administration. The budget adjustment legislation would add the State Bureau of Investigation and State Highway Patrol to the list of agencies that can bypass DOA.

The proposal also removes Marshall from the Local Government Commission, replacing her with a Republican appointee.

“This is all about trying to, on a partisan basis, take power away from Democrats, and it’s wrong,” Stein said Tuesday. He said the partisan shifting is “just not good government. It should go to where it makes sense.”

Marshall told WRAL-TV last week that her “almost 30 years of valuable input and institutional knowledge was superseded by a purely political power grab.”

Stein referenced a significant power shift that happened just before he took office in January 2025.

In December 2024, the Republican-controlled General Assembly shifted control over the State Board of Elections from the governor to the auditor, overturning then-Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto. Boliek had just been elected.

Extended controversy has followed.

“There’s no state in the country where the auditor oversees elections,” Stein said. “Elections have been administered by the governor forever, and the governors have treated it as a nonpartisan professional elections administration entity.”

“And the auditor here hired the former executive director of the Republican Party to be staff to direct the local boards of elections, we’ve come to learn, on when to have early voting and where to have early voting. That is incredibly damaging to the public confidence,” Stein said, referring to Dallas Woodhouse, who was hired by Boliek as an election liaison to work with local elections boards. After controversial text messages about Sunday voting cuts became public, Woodhouse was reassigned and then resigned, The N&O reported in July.

“What I want is for government to work for people. Government should be about serving people. What (Republicans) are trying to do is just move power to where it goes to their friends — whether it makes sense for that authority to be with that position or not. It’s wrong,” he said.

Stein won’t yet say what he’ll do with the bill. If he doesn’t sign or veto it, he can also let it become law without his signature after the 10-day deadline passes.

“There are provisions in the technical corrections bill that are good. There are some that are bad, and what I’m in the process of doing is evaluating what they send me, and then I’ll figure out whether I sign it or veto it,” he said.

Senate leader Phil Berger, an Eden Republican, told reporters last week that the chamber’s next voting session is expected to be after the election, in November.

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