Complete Story
07/20/2017
NC governor vetoes public notice bill; says it was effort to attack press
Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed a hotly contested bill Monday that aims to take the business of publishing required, legal notices away from newspapers.
Cooper spoke out forcefully against the measure that would make Guilford County the guinea pig in a test case for letting local governments post such ads on their own websites instead of printing them in privately-owned publications that circulate in their jurisdictions.
Cooper decried the bill as one of many examples in which the current, Republican-led General Assembly "has used the levers of big government to attack important institutions in our state who may disagree with them from time to time."
"Unfortunately, this legislation is another example of that misguided philosophy meant to specifically threaten and harm the media," the Democratic governor said in a Monday evening news release. "Legislation that enacts retribution on the media threatens a free and open press, which is fundamental to our democracy."
