Cooper declined to say if he thought the session itself was unconstitutional – as some Democratic legislators had said – but he said lawyers are looking over every bill that was introduced. And he promised to challenge any law that appears unconstitutional.
“They will see me in court,” he said. “And they don’t have a very good track record there.”
Press Millen is a Raleigh lawyer who has studied the state Constitution and has used it to argue against some of the election law changes adopted by the General Assembly in 2013. He says opponents of the legislature’s moves could have a strong case in court.
“The state Constitution is a little-read and less understood document,” Millen said Thursday. “In my view, it contains a lot of landmines for a legislature that seems bent on reconfiguring 250 years of North Carolina governance kind of by personal pique.
“It’s going to have ramifications beyond what they’re considering. Typically, when you see laws being made, they’re deliberated more extensively, then tweaked and deliberated again.”