Cooper called on 4 Republicans to uphold his veto. Here’s why they voted to defy him.

As part of a statewide campaign following passage of the GOP’s 12-week abortion bill, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper isolated four Republicans whose records, he said, indicated they should disagree with new abortion restrictions.

In the weeklong run-up to Cooper’s unusually public veto ceremony, he emphasized that only one Republican had to break from their party for the abortion bill to fail. He pressed for one of the four to make that stand.

“If just one Republican in either the House or the Senate keeps a campaign promise to protect women’s reproductive health, we can stop this ban,” he said Saturday at the veto event.

All four legislators — Rep. Ted Davis, of Wilmington; Rep. John Bradford, of Cornelius; Rep. Tricia Cotham, of Charlotte; and Sen. Michael Lee, of Wrightsville Beach — voted to override Cooper’s veto Tuesday.

The 12-week abortion bill thus survived its final round of legislative vetting. The new law, effective July 1, represents this year’s biggest victory for North Carolina Republicans. It marks a massive blow to the Democratic Party’s goals.

Here’s why Davis, Cotham, Bradford and Lee say they repudiated Cooper’s pressure campaign.

Davis picked his party

In the days before Tuesday’s veto override vote, chatter across the legislative complex suggested that if any Republican might defy his party it would be Ted Davis.

The Wilmington lawmaker represents one of North Carolina’s most politically purple districts. In November’s election, Davis won reelection by just 847 votes out of about 37,000. On hot-button issues like abortion, Davis’ constituents represent many beliefs.

When Republicans voted to pass the abortion bill two weeks ago, Davis was absent from the floor. Some speculated that he “took a walk” — legislative-speak for intentionally missing a vote.

Davis told reporters Tuesday that was true.

“The reason I took a walk and did not vote on the bill when it came before this chamber was twofold,” he said. “Number one, by not voting against that bill, I did what I said I would do and I supported what the present law was. And by not voting against the bill at that time, I did not turn my back on my fellow Republicans, all of which voted for the bill.”

When asked about his stance on abortion last fall, Davis had said he supported “what the law is in North Carolina right now,” according to the Associated Press. The law then permitted abortion through 20 weeks of pregnancy.

When Cooper vetoed this year’s bill, Davis was uncertain what he would do, he said. But ultimately, his conscience, constituents and caucus compelled him to defy the veto.

“Our caucus overwhelmingly supported overriding this veto,” Davis said, “and I was not going to turn my back on my caucus.”

Cotham says bill struck ‘a reasonable balance’

Tricia Cotham’s defection from the Democratic Party in April shifted the state’s political landscape. In joining the GOP, Cotham handed House Republicans a narrow supermajority — the power to overturn Cooper’s vetoes without any Democratic support.

Despite her party switch, Democrats hoped Cotham would maintain her former opposition to abortion restrictions. Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn constitutional abortion rights in 2022, Cotham had called on North Carolina lawmakers to codify Roe v. Wade.

On Tuesday, she voted to override Cooper’s veto and pass the 12-week abortion bill into law.

“Some call me a hypocrite since I voted for this bill,” Cotham said in a statement. “They presume to know my story.”

Critics have cited Cotham’s past openness about having had an abortion, accusing her of supporting a double standard.

“As I said at the time, I had an ectopic pregnancy that sadly ended in miscarriage, not an elective abortion,” Cotham said in her statement. “In fact, Senate Bill 20 affirms the life-saving care I received in that dire situation. It was very important to me that this legislation protects all women going through a miscarriage or other complications — and it most certainly does.”

Cotham added that a 12-week ban with exceptions “strikes a reasonable balance on the abortion issue and represents a middle ground...”

“I understand that there are extremists on both sides of the abortion issue,” she said. “Some of the absolutists believe abortion is unacceptable in any circumstance and some of the absolutists believe aborting a perfectly healthy child in the 40th week of pregnancy is morally acceptable. I cannot support either of these extreme positions.”

Lee, Bradford accuse Cooper of misrepresentation

Michael Lee, the only senator Cooper targeted, said his position on abortion has never wavered.

In floor debate Tuesday, Lee accused Cooper of misrepresenting him and lying to voters as part of a political ploy. Before last year’s election, Lee wrote an op-ed in the Wilmington Star News outlining his stance.

“Even though this bill does exactly what I put in my op-ed,” Lee said in the Senate, “the governor and people in this chamber are saying that I am somehow doing something inconsistent with what I said during the election cycle.”

Lee’s op-ed explored Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s written opinion on the withdrawal of constitutional abortion rights. Alito referenced a “third group” of Americans whose feelings about abortion fall between the two most polar opinions. Lee belonged to that group, he said.

“I am against bans in the first trimester but believe second- and third-trimester abortions — when the baby can feel pain, has a beating heart, ten fingers, and ten toes — are abhorrent and should be restricted,” Lee wrote in his column. “It also means I support exceptions for rape, incest, and to save the mother’s life — as do the majority of Americans.”

Bradford, the last legislator Cooper named, told Axios in October that “I have no intentions (of) trying to make the 20 weeks more restrictive.”

In a text message to the Charlotte Observer, Bradford echoed Lee’s criticism of Cooper’s public aggression.

“Governor Cooper has made a career out of attacking Republicans,” he wrote. “His actions play to the radical left that favors full-term and partial birth abortions, a position not supported by mainstream voters.”

He did not respond to The News & Observer’s requests for comment on his decision to support a 12-week abortion bill and to overturn the governor’s veto.

Is this the end of abortion talks?

North Carolina’s new abortion law has looser restrictions than some in surrounding states. But its opponents fear SB 20 was just the first of incremental steps toward a total abortion ban.

Republican leaders in the General Assembly told reporters Tuesday their caucus has no plans to introduce more abortion restrictions in the near future.

“There’s no other bill,” Senate leader Phil Berger, an Eden Republican, said after his chamber overrode Cooper’s veto. “I think we ended up in a place that represents a good compromise. I think we’ve ended up at a place that is supported by the vast majority of folks.”

But Berger suggested future legislative bodies might modify this year’s law.

“Who knows who’s going to be in the General Assembly after the next election?” Berger said. “There may be members that want to push it further on the restrictive side. There may be members who want to increase the window for the elective (procedure).”

House Speaker Tim Moore, a Kings Mountain Republican, echoed Berger’s comments and offered the same hedge.

“This represents the legislation that I believe that this General Assembly will pass,” he told reporters. “I can’t say what’ll happen two years, four years, 10 years from now. I can’t say what that’ll be.”

Democrats are skeptical and wary. They suspect this year’s restrictions are just the first of more to follow.

“Incrementalism is happening,” Sen. Natasha Marcus, of Davidson, told reporters. “So I don’t believe Sen. Berger when he says he’s currently not planning to go farther than this ban. I think they are on a plan to further and further restrict. And that is terrifying.”