Cooper Names Circosta Ninth Member of Elections/Ethics Board | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: The author of this post is Rick Henderson, who is editor-in-chief for the Carolina Journal, John Hood Publisher.

    Gov. Roy Cooper chose Damon Circosta, executive director of the A.J. Fletcher Foundation - which provides grants for charitable causes and is a major funder of the left-leaning N.C. Justice Center - as the ninth and final member of the Bipartisan State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement.

    The board, which met for the first time Wednesday morning, announced Circosta's selection on its Twitter feed.

    After a contentious morning meeting featuring several deadlocked votes, the board's four Republicans and four Democrats forwarded to Cooper the nominations of Circosta and former N.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Burley Mitchell. By law, the ninth member must not be registered with the Republican or Democratic parties and the nominees must be sent to the governor by unanimous vote.

    Republicans on the board had attempted to push back the vote for a week to allow more time to vet candidates and to allow other members of the public to offer themselves for consideration.

    Democrat Joshua Malcolm, a former member of the State Board of Elections, was having none of it. Malcolm said he understood the desire to have more time, but the board needed to get to work immediately.

    Former legislative counsel Gerry Cohen, who worked in the General Assembly for more than three decades, was odd man out. Cohen, who registered as a Democrat in 1971, said several people asked him to seek the open board slot. He re-registered as an unaffiliated voter earlier this week.

    Democrats initially recommended Circosta and Cohen. Republicans voted against the joint ticket, saying they didn't have enough time to consider both candidates, though they would support Cohen. Republicans then nominated Mitchell, a longtime Democrat who's currently unaffiliated.

    Board chairman Andy Penry refused to allow a vote on only one candidate, but when board attorney Josh Lawson said the law was silent about voting on one candidate at a time, the board split 4-4 again, with Democrats opposing Mitchell.

    After a break, the board returned and jointly approved Circosta and Mitchell.

    On Twitter, Cohen said he was pleased to receive the support of all eight board members, just not at the same time. He also said he was "deeply deeply disheartened" not to be a finalist.

    "It's clear to me I was NOT the choice of Governor Cooper," he said, suggesting Cooper would have picked Circosta under any scenario.

    The board still may not survive very long. Cooper last week filed a lawsuit trying to invalidate the law creating the board. Meantime, in a press release N.C. Republican Party Executive Director Dallas Woodhouse hinted that the General Assembly may place a constitutional amendment on this year's ballot restoring an eight-member board split evenly among members nominated by Republicans and Democrats.