NC endorsements: Our choices for Lt. Gov, Auditor, Insurance and Secretary of State

Council of State officials oversee critical areas in state government. Today we offer recommendations in four races: lieutenant governor, state auditor, commissioner of insurance and secretary of state. We also have made endorsements for state attorney general. superintendent of public instruction, and state treasurer and commissioners of agriculture and labor.

Lt. Governor

North Carolina’s lieutenant governor has a seat on the State Board of Education and a tie-breaking vote in the NC Senate, but there’s little else to the job other than the pulpit it provides. The job is especially impotent when the lieutenant governor belongs to a different party than the governor. That should change.

Democratic state senator and attorney Rachel Hunt would be a strong complement to Josh Stein, who has a substantial polling lead in the governor’s race. Hunt is a fierce supporter for public education and a vocal defender of reproductive rights and voting rights.

Republican Hal Weatherman is a longtime political consultant who wants to further restrict abortion in North Carolina, and he’s proposed a troubling election integrity unit that would monitor the North Carolina State Board of Elections from the lieutenant governor’s office.

We recommend Rachel Hunt for Lt. Governor.

Insurance commissioner

Republican Mike Causey’s term as insurance commissioner has been troubling. He fired, then reinstated, top fire safety officials in a political fight against Republicans in the legislature that resulted in him losing his role as state fire marshal. Also, a News & Observer investigation revealed a pattern of hires with political and personal ties under Causey’s leadership, including paying a longtime friend more than $80,000 in salary to drive him around the state.

Causey told the editorial board earlier this year that the friend, Roger Blackwell, also advises on policy. That’s not comforting.

Voters have a strong alternative in state senator Natasha Marcus. Marcus, who has served on the Senate’s commerce & insurance committees, brings a precise and thorough approach to everything she does. She believes there needs to be more transparency in the commissioner’s office, particularly surrounding negotiations with insurance companies over rate hikes. She also wants to close the “consent to rate” loophole that allows insurance companies to charge policyholders well more than the maximum rate allowed.

We recommend Natasha Marcus for insurance commissioner.

NC auditor

Democrat Jessica Holmes was appointed auditor in 2023 by Gov. Roy Cooper after then-auditor Beth Wood resigned for improper use of a state vehicle. Holmes, who now is running for a full term, has had a problematic tryout. Among her issues: output of audits have been down, according to WRAL, and Holmes has changed the approach of her office, telling WRAL and this editorial board that she is focused more on collaborating with agencies and their internal auditors on the front end — “as opposed to the back end, which makes for less of an opportunity for a news story, but is in the best interest of North Carolinians,” as she said to WRAL.

We disagree. Such an approach runs counter to typical auditing practices, and it raises significant questions about independence, favoritism and transparency. Those front-end conversations aren’t necessarily part of the public record, as audits are. That means North Carolinians may be unaware about who is getting front-end consultation, and they don’t get the benefit of fully knowing issues raised in completed audits.

Like Holmes, Republican nominee Dave Boliek doesn’t have accounting experience. Boliek does, however, have experience running a business, and as chairman of the UNC Board of Trustees, he created UNC’s first audit committee and helped eliminate the university’s office operating deficit.

Libertarian Bob Drach, a certified management accountant, also is running. He displayed an incomplete knowledge about the auditor’s office in an editorial board interview.

We have reservations about Boliek. We’re troubled by the partisan campaign he’s run, including his boasts about ending “woke” DEI programs and policies at UNC. Boliek says he will approach the auditor’s job with conservative fiscal values, not partisan politics. We hope so. If he wins, his bosses will be the voters, not N.C. Republican leaders. They, and we, expect independence.

We recommend Dave Boliek for NC auditor.

Secretary of State

When Elaine Marshall was first elected as secretary of state in 1996, she became the first woman elected to statewide office in North Carolina. A lot has changed and grown in North Carolina since, but Marshall continues to ably lead and evolve this essential office for business registration and record keeping.

Marshall is running against Chad Brown, a former chair of the Gaston County Board of Commissioners. Brown touts his conservative credentials and said he would “protect our elections” despite the Secretary of State having no direct authority of elections in North Carolina.

We strongly recommend Elaine Marshall for Secretary of State.

This story was originally published October 27, 2024 at 5:00 AM.