North Carolina governor can't veto a redistricting map. Here's the unlikely person to blame

Kyle Ingram, The News & Observer on Oct 14, 2025

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RALEIGH, N.C. — As North Carolina Republicans plan to redraw the state’s congressional map once again to further favor their party, some may be hopeful that Democratic Gov. Josh Stein can put a stop to the effort with a swift veto.

However, as is often the case in North Carolina politics, the governor lacks the power to do so — setting him apart from nearly every other governor in the country.

North Carolina is the only state in the nation where the state legislature alone draws state and federal maps while explicitly prohibiting the governor from vetoing them, according to the Center on the American Governor at Rutgers University.

Other states prohibit the governor from vetoing maps, but have them drawn by commissions instead of the legislature. And in some states, the governor cannot veto state legislative maps, but can veto congressional maps drawn by the legislature.

The inability to veto maps is one of many limitations that make North Carolina’s governorship one of the weakest in the nation. Republican lawmakers have continued to strip powers from the governor in recent years, taking away many of his appointments to boards and commissions, including the State Board of Elections.

But the genesis of the governor’s scant veto power may be surprising to some.

How NC’s governor got a weak veto

North Carolina was the last state in the country to grant veto power to its governor, passing a bill in 1995 that put the issue on the ballot as a constitutional amendment, which voters overwhelmingly approved.

The legislation, however, severely restricted the scope of the new power by exempting constitutional amendments, local bills, joint resolutions and electoral maps from the governor’s veto pen. It also set a lower threshold for overriding a veto than most states, allowing three-fifths of the legislature to negate a veto rather than the traditional two-thirds.

The chief author of that bill? None other than Democrat Roy Cooper — then a state senator from Nash County who would go on to serve two terms as governor.

Ironically, Cooper’s tenure as governor was marked by a near-constant succession of redrawn maps he couldn’t veto and overrides of the vetoes he could issue. In total, Republicans in the General Assembly overrode 52 of Cooper’s 104 vetoes, according to the Assembly.

Since taking office in January, Stein has issued 15 vetoes — eight of which lawmakers have overridden, with the help of at least one Democrat.

But when the new map comes to a vote next week, all Republicans will need is a simple majority in both chambers (an easy feat, given their near supermajority) to enact a more favorable map for their party in the upcoming midterms.

What about the courts?

Though vetoing the map will not be a possibility, there is always the chance that a court could strike down the plan — though recent precedent has significantly narrowed the legal pathways available to do so.

Both the North Carolina Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court have ruled that partisan gerrymandering — drawing districts to benefit one party — is a political question that cannot be addressed by the courts.

“They can say the quiet part out loud,” said Chris Cooper, a political scientist at Western Carolina University. “They can say, ‘We’re doing this to gain partisan advantage’ and not run the risk of successful litigation.”

That leaves racial gerrymandering, a federal violation, as likely the only viable legal avenue to contest the maps.

North Carolina’s current congressional map, which resulted in 10 Republicans and four Democrats winning office, is already being challenged in federal court for allegedly diluting the votes of Black residents.

Because the new map would likely target the 1st Congressional District, which is located in the northeastern part of the state and includes a high proportion of Black voters, another racial gerrymandering lawsuit is likely.

However, in a separate case dealing only with North Carolina’s state Senate map, a federal judge recently rejected a racial gerrymandering challenge, writing that there was a lack of “contemporary evidence of intentional discrimination concerning the right to vote against Black voters.”

That ruling, though it is currently being appealed to the Fourth Circuit, could inform future judges’ decisions on challenges to North Carolina’s Republican-drawn maps.