Amid NC Power Struggle, Former Justice Orr Says Governor's Office Should Be Stronger

Judge Bob Orr is a former state supreme court justice and Republican candidate for governor, and he doesn't always see eye-to-eye with his party. Just this year, he left the Republican National Convention early after saying he couldn't support Donald Trump for president.

WFDD's Paul Garber spoke with Orr about the Republican-run legislature's recent surprise session that featured bills limiting the power of incoming Gov. Roy Cooper.

Orr says the session was certainly hardball politics and raised some serious legal issues, but that it has to be understood in historical context.

Interview Highlights

On the push-and-pull between the branches of North Carolina government:

There's always been this power struggle between the governor and the legislature...no matter what the political dynamics were. I mean certainly Gov. McCrory has had his share of issues and in fact took the General Assembly to court over the balance of powers. This is just an ongoing constitutional struggle in North Carolina - and I'm sure other states - between a legislature that wants as much power as possible and an executive that wants as much power as possible.

On how much power he believes the governor should have:

Historically, the governor in North Carolina has been extraordinarily week. We were the last state in the union to give the governor the veto, there's no line-item veto. My personal view is, in the 21st century, the governor of a state with a population of 10 million-plus and growing, a 20-something billion dollar budget, there needs to be a greater emphasis on executive powers.

Gauging the success of legal challenges to the laws that have come from this session:

Well, one should never go predicting what the court is going to do. But I do think there are some very, very legitimate constitutional questions that are raised, in the context of separation of powers. So I think there's some questions the courts are going to have to answer with some clarity....That's how the system is supposed to work, the legislature makes the laws, the executive executes the laws and the courts interpret the laws and the constitution.

On the issues that suprised him in the special session:

I would have to say the merger of the ethics commission with the board of elections. I hadn't heard anybody talking about that, and was totally surprised that this sweeping re-organization took place in such a short period of time. There may be some very good reasons for doing it, but personally I would have preferred to see a more deliberate exploration than having it blown through in two days.

On the direction of the Republican party:

"I think there's a lot of people asking where the Republican party is heading. It's certainly not the traditional Republican party that I grew up with. Of course, I'm from the western part of the state originally, from that old, historic original mountain Republican out of the Civil War... I think these are challenging times for the political parties. And frankly, it surprises me there hasn't been a serious third party effort beginning at the national level to try to bring together moderate Republicans, moderate Democrats, moderate unaffiliated voters into a centrist party. And that may yet happen.”