North Carolina GOP senators did not confirm his nominee to lead the state’s public safety department, so Democratic Gov. Josh Stein has appointed that official to another role.

This comes as lawmakers in the GOP-led legislature have passed a bill making corrections and changes to the budget that became law in July. Among the new bill’s provisions is one requiring governors’ Cabinet appointees to stop serving if the Senate doesn’t confirm them before the official end of the legislative session.

That put the governor’s nominee for secretary of the Department of Public Safety, Jeff Smythe, at risk.

Lawmakers have wrapped up their work for this year and are not expected back until November, after the election. That means that, should that bill pass into law, Smythe could have been required to stop serving. Stein can sign the wide-ranging budget corrections bill, let it become law without his signature, or veto it.

Stein said in a news release on Monday that the Senate “failed to do” its job by not considering the nomination of Smythe for the DPS secretary role or holding a “single public hearing” on it.

“Politics should never get in the way of our work to create a safer, stronger North Carolina. I certainly won’t let it,” he said.

Senate Republicans have approved others of Stein’s nominations.

Stein announced his appointment to the secretary position last December, after Eddie Buffaloe left the leadership role to join the Raleigh Police Department.

But now, Stein said he is appointing Smythe to a role as his senior adviser for homeland security. In that new job, Smythe will advise Stein “on a myriad of emerging issues, including cybersecurity,” Stein spokesperson Onotse Omoyeni said in an email.

At DPS, Stein is appointing Chief of Staff Cassandra Hoekstra to serve as the agency’s interim secretary and said he will open up a new search. DPS houses the state’s National Guard, the alcohol law enforcement division, the state’s juvenile justice system and more.

“It has been the honor of a lifetime to serve as Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Public Safety,” Smythe said in a statement shared with The News & Observer. “I am incredibly proud of the dedicated men and women of this agency and everything they do each day to protect the people of our state. I have spent four decades in law enforcement, and serving the people of North Carolina has always been my highest priority. I appreciate Governor Stein’s confidence in me and look forward to continuing that mission as his Senior Advisor for Homeland Security.”

Smythe has worked in law enforcement for four decades, beginning his career in 1986 on patrol and undercover narcotics work with the Drug Enforcement Agency before serving on a DEA task force. He was also police chief of the Burlington Police Department in North Carolina from 2013 to 2021.

GOP concerns with his nomination

The N&O reached out to a Senate Republican spokesperson and to Senate Judiciary chairs Danny Britt, Warren Daniel and Buck Newton, as they were reported to have expressed reservations about Smythe’s nomination.

They did not respond on Monday, but news outlets reported that Britt, Daniel and Newton wrote in a statement Monday that “when law enforcement officers across the state raised serious concerns about the nomination of Jeff Smythe, we advised Gov. Stein his choice didn’t have the votes. He chose to withdraw the nomination. It is our hope that Gov. Stein nominates someone who puts the safety of all North Carolinians first.”

Reporting on the senators’ concerns first came from Carolina Journal, which said the judiciary chairs sent Smythe a letter in May announcing a review of “ethics compliance and conflicts of interest” tied to his dual role as acting DPS secretary and Burlington City Council member.

Smythe pushed back in a response to the lawmakers shared with The N&O by DPS, saying the State Ethics Commission knew of his council seat and found no conflict.

He said he’d noted this to his general counsel and no problem had surfaced, and he was prepared to resign from the council if one ever did.

The exchange came as Smythe’s nomination moved toward Senate review and police leaders across the state began sending letters of support citing his decades in law enforcement, including his tenure as Burlington police chief and his work on law enforcement standards at the Department of Justice, Carolina Journal reported.

The conservative Carolina Journal reported that Smythe’s record has raised questions about the department’s direction, noting he was photographed holding an “end police brutality” sign during the 2020 George Floyd protests and later served on former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s Task Force for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice, among other instances.

A spokeswoman for Senate Republicans told the outlet at the time that North Carolinians “deserve a Department of Public Safety Secretary who is laser-focused on protecting them and locking up violent criminals, not generating ‘feel good’ headlines or kowtowing to far-left activists.”

Jody Donaldson, a DPS spokesperson, pushed back on such criticism in an email to The N&O, saying that Smythe has actually “focused on reducing violent crime, dismantling drug trafficking organizations, supporting law enforcement officers and protecting the communities he served. His record includes undercover narcotics work, partnerships with the DEA and SBI to combat drug trafficking and gangs, the creation of Burlington’s Gunstoppers initiative, and leadership roles at both the North Carolina Department of Justice and the Department of Public Safety.”

“His record is one of professional law enforcement leadership and public service,” Donaldson wrote.

Governor’s powers

The bill making budget changes, and taking power away from Stein and future governors, is one of the six bills on Stein’s desk awaiting action.

While House Bill 268 would add a way for the Senate to thwart a Cabinet appointee, the Senate could also just vote against confirming the Cabinet secretary, which is what the chamber did in 2021 when they didn’t approve of a Department of Environment Quality secretary appointed by former Gov. Roy Cooper.

Cooper, in turn, created a new job for her in his administration after the Senate deep-sixed her Cabinet role, the first time senators did so after gaining the authority in 2016.

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