RALEIGH, N.C. (WGHP) – Just a few days removed from his first veto override because three Democrats didn’t show up to vote in the North Carolina House, Gov. Roy Cooper isn’t taking chances on a second.

He allowed House Bill 11, which changes the oversight for the North Carolina Schools for the Deaf and Blind, to become law without his signature.

Cooper had vetoed a similar bill last year, and he clearly does not like this bill, which removes oversight of the Governor Morehead School for the Blind in Raleigh, the Eastern North Carolina School for the Deaf in Wilson and the North Carolina School for the Deaf in Morgantown from the NC Board of Education and creates new boards for each school.

The state school board, largely Democratic because of Cooper’s appointees, approves admission criteria and sets various policies. The law creates 5-member boards for each school that include two Senate appointees, two House appointees and one appointee by the state board.

State Superintendent Catherine Truitt, a Republican, has backed the change, suggesting the schools would run better.

“This bill unconstitutionally attacks the State Board of Education by putting partisan political appointees of the legislature in charge of our NC schools for the deaf and blind, and I will not sign it,” Cooper said in a release on Monday afternoon.

“In addition, Republican legislators have put forth other proposals that encourage politics to interfere with public school curriculums, and I urge them to stop these efforts that lead to controversial book bans, rewriting history, erasing science and other obstacles to student learning.”

Cooper did not elaborate on those bills, but there have been various measures introduced to address educational policy in the wake of the national political campaign against some elements of public education.

Last week the House, in which Democrats have a one-vote margin in being able to override a veto, failed to do so Wednesday in Senate Bill 41, which ended some permit requirements for pistol purchases.

Rep. Cecil Brockman (D-High Point) was one of three Democrats who missed the vote. Brockman’s legislative aide said in response to an email from WGHP that Brockman was at a medical facility and has “no comment on the veto override.”

He, Rep. Tricia Ann Cotham (D-Mecklenburg) and Rep. Michael Wray (D-Halifax) all had voted yes on a controversial bill requiring county sheriffs to work with ICE and then they missed the override vote.

Cooper did announce he had signed two other minor bills: House Bill 2, the 2022 Budget Technical Corrections bill, and Senate Bill 174, to revise Laws Tech., Clarifying, & Admin. Changes.