A ‘coup’? A ‘power grab’? There’s some serious political drama in North Carolina right now.

By Amber Phillips

@byamberphillips

December 15 at 9:07 AM

This post has been updated with comments from Democratic Gov.-elect Roy Cooper.

North Carolina is a state divided. Its incoming governor and attorney general are Democrats, but its legislature is overwhelmingly Republican. And true to North Carolina headline-grabbing politics, there's a knockdown, drag-out fight about who gets to control the levers of power before anyone is even sworn in.

In the waning hours of Republicans' hold on government in North Carolina, they are proposing bills aimed at significantly curbing Gov.-elect Roy Cooper's (D) power. In a last-last-minute special session, Republicans introduced a series of bills late Wednesday that would:

—Require the governor's Cabinet appointments to be approved by the state Senate
— Limit the number of members the governor can appoint to powerful board of trustees at the University of North Carolina school system and the state Board of Education.
— Significantly cut the number of positions who work directly for the governor, from 1,500 (a number Republicans approved when they had a Republican governor) to 300.
— Divide members of the Board of Elections, typically appointed by the governor, between parties in a way that gives Republicans control during election years.

Two bills also want to change the state courts' partisan make up:

— Make North Carolina just the sixth state in the nation to have its state Supreme Court elections be partisan, as opposed to nonpartisan. (The last state

— Adding an extra layer to appeals cases so that all cases have to go through the full court of appeals, which is controlled by Republicans.

Obviously Cooper won't be there to veto all this; the man he defeated, Gov. Pat McCrory (R), is still governor for a few more weeks.