Roy Cooper

Roy Asberry Cooper III (born June 13, 1957) is an American politician who is the 75th and current Governor of North Carolina, since January 2017. Cooper had served as the Attorney General of North Carolina from 2001 to 2017, and was previously a member of the North Carolina State Senate. Cooper is a member of the North Carolina Democratic Party, and ran for Governor of North Carolina in the 2016 election against Republican incumbent Pat McCrory. On December 5, McCrory conceded the election, making Cooper the first challenger to defeat a sitting governor in North Carolina since 1850. Cooper took office as the 75th governor of North Carolina on January 1, 2017. A ceremonial inauguration was scheduled for January 7, 2017 but was postponed due to winter weather.

Cooper was born in Nash County, North Carolina, the son of Beverly Thorne Batchelor, a school teacher, and Roy Asberry Cooper, Jr. He was raised in a rural community and worked in tobacco fields during the summer as a teenager. He received the Morehead Scholarship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, serving as the president of the university's Young Democrats, and then also earned a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from UNC.

After practicing law with his family's law firm for a number of years, Cooper was elected to the North Carolina House of Representatives in 1986 and named to the North Carolina Senate in 1991. In 1997, he was elected Democratic Majority Leader of the state Senate. He continued to practice law as the managing partner of the law firm Fields & Cooper in Rocky Mount and Nashville, North Carolina.

Elections

Cooper was elected North Carolina Attorney General in November 2000 and took office on January 6, 2001; he was re-elected for a second term in 2004. Cooper was mentioned as a possible Democratic candidate for North Carolina governor in 2008, but he decided to run for re-election as Attorney General instead. He was easily re-elected, garnering more votes than any other statewide candidate in the November 2008 elections. Both state and national Democrats attempted to recruit him to run against Republican Senator Richard Burr in 2010, but he declined. He was speculated as a possible candidate for Governor of North Carolina in 2012 after incumbent Governor Bev Perdue announced her retirement, but Cooper declined to run. His political consultant announced in 2011 that Cooper would seek a fourth term in 2012. He was unopposed in both the Democratic primary and the general election. In the November 2012 elections, Cooper received 2,828,941 votes.

Tenure

Roy Cooper in 2009

In January 2007, when Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong asked to be recused from dealing with the Duke lacrosse case, Attorney General Cooper's office assumed responsibility for the case. On April 11, 2007, Cooper dismissed the case against the Duke lacrosse team players, declaring them "innocent" and victims of a "tragic rush to accuse".

Following a decision by a three-judge panel to exonerate Gregor Taylor, who had served nearly seventeen years for the first-degree murder of Jaquetta Thomas, Roy Cooper ordered an audit after it was uncovered that officials at the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation forensic lab withheld information leading to his conviction. The audit found that it was common practice for a select group of officials within the State Bureau of Investigation to withhold information. The two investigators, Chris Swecker and Micheal Fox, cited almost two hundred and fifty separate cases that were mishandled.

Cooper argued his first case before the United States Supreme Court, J. D. B. v. North Carolina, in 2011. The Court ruled 5–4 against North Carolina.

Elections

2016

Roy Cooper for Governor logo

Cooper ran for Governor of North Carolina in the 2016 election against incumbent Republican Pat McCrory.

The election was extremely close. After an extended legal battle, McCrory conceded the election to Cooper on December 5.

Transition

Cooper's transition into the governorship was marked by tensions with the Republican-controlled North Carolina General Assembly. In what The New York Times described as a "surprise special session", Republican legislators moved to strip away Cooper's powers before he would assume the governorship on January 1, 2017. Throughout the month of December, Cooper oversaw an attempt at repealing the controversial Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act (commonly known as "House Bill 2", "HB2", or simply, the "bathroom bill"). The repeal attempt failed as a deal between state Republican and Democratic lawmakers and Charlotte officials fell apart.

Tenure

As of January 6, 2017, Cooper has requested federal approval for Medicaid coverage expansion in North Carolina. Effective January 15, however, a federal judge halted Cooper's request, an order set to expire on January 29.