Voters will choose whether to permanently establish a Bipartisan State Board of Ethics and Elections Enforcement in the North Carolina constitution after the North Carolina Senate voted to put the constitutional amendment on the November 2018 ballot. The state House of Representatives has already approved the measure.

 

House Bill 913 would establish an eight-member, bipartisan board to administer North Carolina’s ethics and elections laws, free from the influence from the legislative, executive, or judicial branches of state government.

 

Members of the bipartisan board would serve four-year terms and would be appointed by House and Senate leaders based on recommendations from leaders of both the majority and minority parties. The proposal makes clear that no more than four members of the board could be registered with the same political party, and that the balance of the board’s membership would not be directly impacted if control of the legislature switched from one party to another – ensuring that ethics and elections enforcement is not encumbered by partisan politics. Unaffiliated citizens would also be eligible for any position on the board.