NC House overrides veto on magistrate protection bill

Timothy Kincaid

June 11th, 2015

In May the North Carolina legislature passed Senate Bill 2, a bill designed to allow individual Magistrates to give up conducting marriages and to allow assistant Registrars to give up issuing marriage licenses. Republican Governor Pat McCrory vetoed the bill, saying that public officials who swear to perform the duties of their office should not be exempt from doing so.

On June 2nd, the state Senate voted to override the Governor’s veto and today the House did the same. So the bill becomes law.

Here’s what it does:

  • The Register of Deeds in a county cannot refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. That is an integral part of their duties and they have to fulfill their obligations.
  • Assistant Registers of Deeds can, however, give up issuing marriage licenses altogether as part of their tasks. But they cannot pick and choose; It’s either all legal marriage licenses or none.
  • Magistrates can give up conducting marriage licenses altogether. But they cannot pick and choose; It’s either all legal marriage ceremonies or none.
  • If all magistrates in a jurisdiction refuse to conduct civil marriages, a magistrate will be assigned by the Administrative Office of the Courts. Until that magistrate is assigned, the Chief District Court Judge (or his assignee) will be deemed a magistrate to conduct civil marriages. There is no down time.
  • Marriages before a magistrate must be available a minimum of ten hours per week and over at least three days per week. This appears to be a new requirement.

While this is seen as an affront to our community, it is not clear that it will have much real impact on same-sex couples seeking marriage. The provisions require that licenses be issued and marriages be conducted and it probably matters little whether any specific Magistrates or Assistant Register of Deeds individually participate.

And it should be noted that the state has been issuing marriage licenses and conducting marriages since October 2014, and things appear to be going smoothly. I suspect that the offices of the various Registers of Deeds and Magistrates have by now pretty much identified ways to comply with the law without any serious loss of religious freedom or significant inconvenience to marrying parties. I doubt much will change.

MattNYC

June 11th, 2015

Window dressing. Doesn’t really do anything but they can be on record as not sitting idly by while equality reigned.

Nathaniel

June 11th, 2015

http://news.nhcgov.com/news-releases/2015/06/statement-from-nhc-register-of-deeds-tammy-beasley-regarding-todays-nc-house-override-of-the-governors-veto-of-sb2/

Mark F.

June 11th, 2015

It’s stupid and wrong, but as you note, it really doesn’t actually do much. Of course, that won’t stop various people from the sort of absurd overreaction we normally get from the anti-gay side. “Why, next thing you know, North Carolina will be feeding gays to the lions!” “Move out od the state while you can!'” etc.

CPT_Doom

June 11th, 2015

I just want the magistrates who choose this option to be “named and shamed.” They have to live in these communities and should be treated with the disrespect they practice.

etseq

June 12th, 2015

This isn’t just about same sex marriage – bill allows for basically ANY religious objection so inter-racial, interfaith, divorced people, etc. Also, since the state isn’t allowed to question the sincerity of the objection, basically any magistrate or judge can opt-out for any reason so the state has basically incentivized public employees to opt for reduced job responsibilities with no down side. As for the suggestion that this will all be handled behind the scenes with no disruption, maybe in the few major counties with large offices but in rural areas, these offices are usually staffed with 1-2 people max so in these counties it will be a logistical nightmare. Even though the statute says the state has to provide a floater magistrate to cover counties where employees have opted out, the bill did not appropriate any funds for these mystery magistrates and because NC has become a libertarian paradise under the radical republicans these last few years, state budgets and taxes have been slashed so even basic state government services are increasingly difficult to sustain. Finally, this bill will most likely never go into effect because the Democratic House Leader has already indicated that his caucus will seek a preliminary injunction based solely on the machinations the Republican speaker of the house used to manipulate the votes required to override the veto. The trick the Speaker used has apparently been tried in the past and the NC Supreme Court has ruled it unconstitutional due to certain quorum procedures in the state constitution. Also, the ACLU has indicated they will probably bring a suit in federal court.

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