North Carolina General Assembly enacted HB268, ousting Secretary of State Marshall from oversight board and expanding Senate hold on Cabinet

On August 11, 2026, North Carolina Governor Josh Stein signed House Bill 268, the "2026 Budget Technical Corrections II," into law as Session Law 2026-61, enacting a Republican-authored provision that removes Democratic Secretary of State Elaine Marshall from her seat on the Local Government Commission -- the body that has overseen local government finances and debt since 1931 -- and replaces it with a member appointed by the General Assembly on the recommendation of the Senate president pro tempore, currently Republican Phil Berger of Rockingham County. The bill also bars any Stein Cabinet appointee from keeping their job, and from being renominated to any other high-level post, if the Senate has not confirmed them by the time the legislature adjourns its two-year session.

The Senate gave HB268 final passage July 29, 2026 in a 31-6 vote; the House adopted the conference report August 4 and it reached Stein's desk August 7. Berger told reporters he was not personally involved in drafting the provision removing Marshall. The change builds on a state budget Stein signed July 7 that had already cut the governor's own Local Government Commission appointments from three to one -- together shifting the nine-member commission from a Democratic-leaning body to a 7-2 Republican majority. During Senate debate, Sen. Lisa Grafstein (D-Wake) argued the Cabinet-confirmation provision violates separation of powers by letting the legislature force out a governor's own agency heads.

Marshall, continuously elected to statewide office since 1996, called her removal "a purely political power grab," saying "almost 30 years of valuable input and institutional knowledge was superseded." Stein signed the bill despite what he called its "petty provisions that undermine the executive branch," because it also carried disaster-relief funding, teacher- apprenticeship programs, and other measures he supported. HB268 is the latest in what NC Newsline and WRAL both describe as a decade-long pattern of the Republican-controlled General Assembly using must-pass budget vehicles to shift statutory authority away from Democratic statewide officeholders.