A power grab by Republicans in North Carolina becomes a referendum on democracy in the states

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Democrats in North Carolina were celebrating big wins in the swing state after the November election, including victories in races for governor and other top statewide offices. But the political high didn’t last long.

Republican lawmakers are stripping away some core powers of the newly elected officials through a series of wide-ranging changes, anticipating that the result of a yet-to-be-called state legislative race will cost them their veto-proof majority next year. Critics say the moves, which were rushed through without any chance for public comment or analysis, undermine the voters and are simply undemocratic, but they have few options for undoing them.

“Let us speak plainly: This bill is nothing more than a desperate power grab,” said Courtney Patterson, vice president of the NAACP's North Carolina chapter.

Among the changes, which were included in a bill that also addressed Hurricane Helene relief, are stripping the incoming governor of the authority to appoint members to the state elections board and instead giving that responsibility to the state auditor — a job won by a Republican last month. The measure also weakens the ability of the governor to fill vacancies on the state court of appeals and the state supreme court. It prohibits the attorney general from taking legal positions contrary to the legislature’s and weakens the powers of the state school superintendent and lieutenant governor.

Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and Attorney General Josh Stein, who will succeed Cooper next month, have already filed a lawsuit against Republican lawmakers, saying many portions of Senate Bill 382 violate the state constitution. The Republicans' actions in North Carolina are the latest example of how majority parties in some states have tried to undermine representative democracy in recent years, using extreme gerrymandering to expand their hold on power or trying to undercut officeholders of the opposing party or ballot initiatives that passed in statewide elections.

“This is not how healthy democracies work," said Steven Greene, a political science professor at North Carolina State University. “You don’t lose and decide you’re going to change the rules because you don’t like that you lost. It’s corrosive of the basic principles of democracy.”

Greene said he was disappointed but not surprised by the effort he describes as part of a familiar playbook. In 2016, hundreds of people protested and more than two dozen were arrested after Republicans passed a bill that stripped powers from Cooper's incoming administration during a special session.

Republicans point out that Democrats acted to weaken executive branch positions after voters elected the state's first GOP governor in the 20th century, in 1972, and the century's only GOP lieutenant governor in 1988. North Carolina Senate leader Phil Berger blamed Democrats’ “blatant partisanship” for necessitating the changes, which came just weeks after voters chose Democrats for the top statewide positions.

“The new measures in Senate Bill 382 actually balance our three branches of state government so that North Carolina remains on a positive trajectory, free from Democratic Party and liberal activist obstruction,” he said in a statement earlier this month.

While Democrats have won many top statewide offices for several election cycles, Republicans maintain a tight grip on the other two branches of government in North Carolina. Republicans have control of the legislature and hold at least a 5-2 majority on the state Supreme Court, where any dispute over the power-stripping legislation could ultimately land.

Since winning control of North Carolina’s legislature in the 2010 elections, Republican lawmakers have repeatedly drawn voting districts to their favor, just as Democrats had done when they were in charge. That has helped Republicans retain a firm hold on power in the legislature while also triggering protracted court battles over redistricting.

The current legislative districts are advantageous to Republicans. The GOP won about nine more state House seats this year than would have been expected based on their average share of the district votes, according to an Associated Press analysis using a mathematical formula designed to detect gerrymandering.

“North Carolina is very much a purple state,” said Melissa Price Kromm, executive director of North Carolina for the People Action. “... But our legislature has been gerrymandered to allow for a Republican supermajority that makes these nefarious attacks on our democracy possible. It’s baked into the system.”

Meanwhile, an extremely tight race for a state Supreme Court seat has sparked a legal battle over the potential removal of tens of thousands of ballots. With the incumbent Democratic justice clinging to a narrow lead, the Republican candidate's challenge includes objecting to ballots from voters whose registration lacks driver’s license or Social Security numbers. His attorneys argue that makes them incomplete.

“North Carolina voters see that the same folks who are trying to overturn the results of the state supreme court race are the same people who are trying to change the way our elections are handled, the way powers and government functions are handled,” said Julia Hawes, communications director at the statewide advocacy group Democracy North Carolina. “A lot of us have been watching these power grabs and attempts to overturn the will of the people for over a decade.”

In several other states, lawmakers also have made attempts to nullify some results of the November election. In Missouri, Republicans are taking initial steps to curtail voter-approved abortion protections by introducing a new constitutional amendment to restrict abortion access. Massachusetts Democrats are exploring options to alter the auditing process after voters overwhelmingly approved giving the state auditor the authority to watchdog the Legislature.

During last week's veto override in the North Carolina House, over 100 demonstrators chanted “Shame” and “People power” as they were escorted out of the chamber's gallery. Two days before, hundreds marched to the Legislative Building to deliver documents opposing the bill.

Rep. Cynthia Ball, a Democrat and member of the election law committee, criticized Republicans for not making the bill public earlier, not offering a public comment period and tucking such a significant power shift into legislation that included storm relief.

"Our democracy is threatened more and more when things are done behind closed doors,” she said.

Della Hann, 64, traveled the 2 1/2 hours to Raleigh from her home in Southport to demonstrate when the Senate agreed to override Cooper’s veto of what she called “a horrible bill.”

The legislation, she said, is “not for the people of the state. It’s for the people sitting in that room to keep their power.”

Kromm, of North Carolina for the People Action, said watching crowds gather in protest offered hope and said her group would be focused on educating voters so they can hold lawmakers accountable.

“The sheer number of people who turned up showed that people in North Carolina care about what’s happening in our legislature, and they don’t give up without a fight," she said. "They know authoritarianism thrives on complacency and that we must stand together and refuse to let this assault on democracy go unanswered.”

Fernando reported from Chicago. Associated Press writers Makiya Seminera in Raleigh, North Carolina, and David A. Lieb in Jefferson City, Missouri, contributed to this report.

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FILE - North Carolina's Democratic gubernatorial candidate Josh Stein, right, is introduced by North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper at a primary election night party in Raleigh, N.C., March 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Karl B DeBlaker, File)

A demonstrator is placed under arrest after the Republican-dominated North Carolina House convened completed the override of Gov. Cooper's veto, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024, in Raleigh, N.C. (AP Photo/Matt Kelley)

A protester reacts as the Republican-dominated North Carolina House convened to complete the override of Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper's veto of a bill that aims to weaken the powers of Cooper's soon-to-be successor and other Democratic statewide winners in the Nov. 5 elections, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024, in Raleigh, N.C. (AP Photo/Matt Kelley)

A general assembly police officer escorts protestors after the Republican-dominated North Carolina House convened and completed the override of Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper's veto of a bill that aims to weaken the powers of Cooper's soon-to-be successor and other Democratic statewide winners in the Nov. 5 elections, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024, in Raleigh, N.C. (AP Photo/Matt Kelley)

A protestor holds a sign as the Republican-dominated North Carolina House convened to complete the override of Gov. Cooper's veto, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024, in Raleigh, N.C. (AP Photo/Matt Kelley)

A protestor holds a sign as the Republican-dominated North Carolina House convened to complete the override of Gov. Cooper's veto, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024, in Raleigh, N.C. (AP Photo/Matt Kelley)

A protester holds a sign as the Republican-dominated North Carolina House convened to complete the override of Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper's veto of a bill that aims to weaken the powers of Cooper's soon-to-be successor and other Democratic statewide winners in the Nov. 5 elections, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024, in Raleigh, N.C. (AP Photo/Matt Kelley)

An Israeli airstrike hit a house in the central Gaza Strip, killing five people including a boy and two women and injuring seven others early Thursday morning.

Those killed and injured at the Maghazi refugee camp were transferred to Aqsa Hospital, where officials confirmed the number of fatalities. An Associated Press journalist counted the bodies.

Some gathered at the strike site to pull out those trapped under the rubble of a partially collapsed building, with one person only using a shovel.

"No place is safe. Neither the tents nor the houses nor any place in the Gaza Strip is safe. It is all targeted. When we go out, we do not expect that we will return,” said Um Abed Darweesh, a Maghazi resident.

The deaths on Thursday added to a reported death toll of more than 45,000 Palestinians who have now been killed in the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas militants since October 2023. The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but has said more than half of the fatalities are women and children.

Early on Thursday Israel launched heavy airstrikes on rebel sites in Yemen, killing at least nine people, officials said, shortly after a Houthi missile targeted central Israel and badly damaged a school building.

“I suggest the leaders of the Houthi organization to see, to understand and remember, whoever raises a hand against the state of Israel, his hand will be cut off. Whoever harms us will be harmed sevenfold,” said Israel Katz, the defense minister.

The Iran-backed Houthis have staged attacks throughout the war on ships in the Red Sea corridor and launched missiles at Israel. The rebels have so far avoided the same level of intense military strikes that have targeted Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Here’s the latest:

DAMASCUS, Syria -- The main U.S.-backed force in Syria has called on residents of a northern town to carry weapons and fight Turkish troops and fighters they back, saying “resistance is the only way to victory.”

The statement by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces came a day after intense fighting between their fighters and Turkey-backed gunmen in the country’s northern province of Aleppo, mainly near the border town of Kobani and the Tishrin dam on the Euphrates river.

The SDF said despite U.S. efforts to reduce tension in the area, Turkish troops and fighters they back launched a wide offensive on the area on Wednesday on the area of the dam. It said SDF fighters repelled the attack.

Earlier this week, the SDF said U.S.-led mediation efforts have failed to reach a permanent truce in Syria’s north between the force’s fighters and Turkish-backed gunmen.

On Tuesday, the SDF suggested the demilitarizing of Kobani and placing the redistribution of security forces under U.S. supervision.

Kobani featured in international headlines a decade ago when it came under a monthslong siege by members of the Islamic State group. SDF fighters broke the siege in early 2015.

Israel police said Thursday that it detained four Israeli citizens who crossed into Lebanon illegally. The civilians were detained after police received a report from the Israeli army that it had apprehended them inside Lebanese territory.

The police said in a statement that the suspects were being interrogated, and officials will decide on the next steps depending on the findings.

On Wednesday, the Israeli army acknowledged that a group of Israeli settlers had briefly crossed the border into Lebanon earlier in the week before being removed by troops. The civilians involved in that border breach came from the Uri Tzafon movement, a group calling for Israeli settlement of southern Lebanon. The army called it a “serious incident” and said it was investigating.

JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel was acting “for the entire international community” by attacking the Houthi rebels in Yemen, following deadly Israeli strikes carried out on Yemen overnight.

“They are not only attacking us — they are attacking the entire world, attacking the international shipping and trade routes. Thus, when Israel acts against the Houthis, it acts for the entire international community,” said Netanyahu.

Early Thursday, Israel carried out two waves of airstrikes on ports and power plants in Yemen it said were being used by the Houthi rebels, who have fired over 200 drones and missiles at Israel since the start of the war Oct. 7, 2023.

The airstrikes killed at least nine people, according to the Houthi-controlled satellite channel al-Masirah, and came after a missile fired by the Houthis collapsed a school building in central Israel.

Netanyahu suggested that more Israeli strikes on the Iranian-backed militant group could be coming.

“After Hamas, Hezbollah and the Assad regime in Syria, the Houthis are almost the last remaining arm of Iran’s axis of evil,” he said. “They are learning and they will learn the hard way, that whoever harms Israel pays a very heavy price for it.”

JERUSALEM — Israel’s defense minister said Thursday he has ordered the military to finish its investigation into what went wrong on Oct. 7, 2023 by January.

In a statement, defense minister Israel Katz said he would halt appointments for new generals until the military finishes its investigation into the failings of that day. Katz said he wanted to read the investigation and understand its findings before choosing new generals.

Hamas militants carried out the deadliest-ever attack on Israeli soil on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and dragging roughly 250 hostages to Gaza. The attack sparked an Israeli retaliation on Gaza that has killed over 45,000 Palestinians and laid waste to the majority of the territory.

The military has not yet released the full results of its internal investigation. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu -- who appointed Katz -- has cast off calls for a wider investigation, to much public outcry.

Baghdad — Iraqi authorities will begin Thursday to return thousands of former Syrian army soldiers who fled their country, officials said.

Brig. Gen. Muqdad Miri, spokesperson for the Iraqi Interior Ministry and the Security Media Cell, said the soldiers would be returned to Syria via the Al-Qaim border crossing after coordination with Syrian authorities.

A local militia official in western Iraq told the Associated Press earlier that more than 4,000 former Syrian army soldiers had crossed into Iraq after rebel forces in Syria reached Damascus and overthrew the government of Bashar Assad.

The official with the Anbar Tribal Mobilization Forces said the soldiers had turned over their weapons, ammunition and armored vehicles and would be housed in a camp.

The Iraqi government has close ties with Iran, which was formerly one of the primary backers of Assad’s government, but Baghdad has now sought to build ties with the new Syrian government.

The new authorities in Syria have set up “reconciliation centers” around the country where former soldiers come to register their names, hand over their weapons if they had not already discarded them, and receive a “reconciliation ID” allowing them the right to move freely and safely in Syria for three months.

JERUSALEM -- Israeli fire in the occupied West Bank killed six Palestinians Thursday, Palestinian health officials said, in the latest violence to strike the territory.

An airstrike in the Tulkarem refugee camp, a bastion of Palestinian militancy in the northern West Bank, killed four people and injured three others, the health officials said. Israel’s military claimed responsibility for the strike but did not say what it was targeting.

Earlier in the day, Israeli fire killed two people in Balata refugee camp, near the city of Nablus. One was an 80 year old woman shot in the chest and leg, said health officials.

Both Hamas and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, an armed offshoot of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party, claimed the second person killed, Qusai Sarouji, as a fighter. Israel’s military did not immediately comment on the deaths.

Over 800 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the Hamas attack Oct. 7, 2023 that kicked off the war in Gaza. Israel has carried out near-daily military raids in the West Bank that it says are aimed at preventing attacks on Israelis, which have also been on the rise.

Israel captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want all three territories for an independent state.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — An Israeli airstrike hit a house in the central Gaza Strip, killing five people including a boy and two women and injuring seven others early Thursday.

Those killed and injured at the Maghazi refugee camp were transferred to Aqsa Hospital, where officials confirmed the number of fatalities. An Associated Press journalist counted the bodies.

AP footage showed medics treating a malnourished girl on a hospital bed who was bleeding from the face and severely shaking. The boy who died was transferred from an ambulance to Aqsa hospital’s morgue, where people gathered to bid farewell to dead family members.

Outside the hospital, dozens gathered to perform funeral rites for those killed, who were wrapped in white shrouds before they were moved for burial.

Some gathered at the strike site to pull out those trapped under the rubble of a partially collapsed building, with one person only using a shovel.

“No place is safe. Neither the tents nor the houses nor any place in the Gaza Strip is safe. It is all targeted. When we go out, we do not expect that we will return,” said Um Abed Darweesh, a Maghazi resident.

Israel’s defense minister said Thursday the country would “not allow the continuation” of shooting from Yemen’s Houthi rebels, hours after Israel launched heavy airstrikes on rebel sites.

“I suggest the leaders of the Houthi organization to see, to understand and remember, whoever raises a hand against the state of Israel, his hand will be cut off. Whoever harms us will be harmed sevenfold,” said Israel Katz, the defense minister.

Israel would “strike with force,” Katz said, and “not allow the continuation of this situation of shooting and threats against the state of Israel.”

The statement followed a series of intense Israeli airstrikes that shook Yemen’s rebel-held capital and a port city early Thursday and killed at least nine people, officials said, shortly after a Houthi missile targeted central Israel and badly damaged a school building.

The Iran-backed Houthis have staged attacks throughout the war on ships in the Red Sea corridor and launched missiles at Israel. The rebels have so far avoided the same level of intense military strikes that have targeted Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Israeli airstrikes hit Yemen’s rebel-held capital and a port city early Thursday and killed at least nine people, officials said, after a Houthi missile targeted central Israel.

Israel said it conducted two waves of strikes in a preplanned operation involving 14 fighter jets and targeting infrastructure at Red Sea ports and in Yemen’s rebel-held capital.

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military spokesman, said the strikes hit targets the Iranian-backed Houthis “have been using in ways that effectively contributed to their military action.”

The strikes risk escalating conflict with the Iranian-backed Houthis, whose attacks on the Red Sea corridor have impacted global shipping. The rebels have so far avoided the same level of intense military strikes that have targeted the Palestinian Hamas militant group and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

The Houthi-controlled satellite channel al-Masirah said some of the strikes targeted power stations in the capital, as well as the Ras Isa oil terminal on the Red Sea. The channel, citing its correspondent in the port city of Hodeida, said at least seven people were killed at the nearby port of Salif, while another two were killed at Ras Isa.

dressed as Santa Claus, walks along a wall next to the Old City of Jerusalem, ahead of the Christmas holiday, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024.(AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT - A Palestinian medic holds the body of a child killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip in the morgue at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

A Palestinian, holds the body of a child killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

An Israeli soldier stands guard on the Palestinian side of the Kerem Shalom aid crossing as reporters tour the area where aid awaits pickup in the Gaza Strip, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

Israeli soldiers stand guard on the Palestinian side of the Kerem Shalom crossing as reporters tour the area where aid is awaiting pickup in the Gaza Strip, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

Palestinians pray next to the bodies of their relatives killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

A Palestinian child wounded during the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip receives treatment at the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Houthi fighters march during a rally of support for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and against the U.S. strikes on Yemen outside Sanaa on Monday, Jan. 22, 2024. (AP Photo)