Reece Gardner: A look at the recent override of Cooper's vetoes

This is an election year and a lot is happening that can affect our lives considerably.

On Saturday, the N.C. General Assembly met in Raleigh for the main purpose of overriding Gov. Roy Cooper's vetoes of House Bill 3 and Senate Bill 3. House Bill 3 requires that each of the proposed Constitutional amendments on which voters will decide this coming November be billed "Constitutional Amendments," removing any chance of confusion or bias.  

This bill was passed in response to concerns the commission tasked with writing the ballot captions, composed of one Republican and two Democrats, might attempt to politicize the process Gov. Cooper's veto of HB3 was overridden on Saturday.

SB3 puts all judiciary races in the same category as those from every other public office in the state, requiring judicial candidates who switched their party affiliation within 90 days of filing for office may not appear on the ballot as members of either their previous party or the party to which they switched their affiliation. This came in response to several judicial candidates across the state changing their party affiliation days or even hours before filing to run for office.  

These candidates can still run for office, but with no political listing by their name. Cooper's veto of SB3 was also overridden on Saturday.

Let's take a brief look at the current race for N.C. Supreme Court. The situation above seems to apply to one of these three candidates -- Chris Anglin -- who changed his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican a very short time before filing for this office. This move would have resulted in two candidates being listed as Republican and only one listed as Democrat.  

With the passage of SB3,  there will be no party affiliation for Anglin, with Republican Incumbent Justice Barbara Jackson and voting and Democratic civil rights attorney Anita Earls. I had the pleasure of having Justice Jackson on my television program recently and it was a pleasure talking with her.  Hopefully, I will also have Anglin and Earls on future shows, and I will discuss their candidacies more fully in a future column.

I will also be writing more in a future column about the six Constitutional amendments to be voted on in November.

Some closing thoughts: Good humor is a tonic for mind and body. It attracts and keeps friends and it lightens human burdens. It is the direct route to serenity and contentment and it is good to laugh.  

Did you hear about the man talking about his wife having her driver's test the other day? He said, "She got eight out of 10. The other 2 guys jumped clear just in time."

Have a truly wonderful day!