Grabier than “Gollum reaching for the One Ring” Filing for the 2024 elections in North Carolina opens in four weeks: at noon on Monday, Dec. 4. Democrats are already in court fighting the usual tricksy maneuvers from the Republican legislature. State Republicans roll their eyes and complain bitterly that Democrats filing lawsuits is more of the same tiresome resistance to their gerrymandered majorities. Naturally, Democrats would not be expending campaign resources on court so often if the GOP was not so routinely engaged in voter disenfranchisement and power grabs. Their latest is a doozy. After Democrat Roy Cooper defeated incumbent Pat McCrory (of HB2 “bathroom bill” fame) in the 2016 election for governor, Republicans called a lame-duck session ostensibly to address hurricane relief. What they really had in mind was changing the composition of election boards and stripping the incoming governor of appointment powers before he could take office. The New York Times Editorial Board called it a brazen power grab: … Republican lawmakers introduced bills to, among other things, require State Senate confirmation of cabinet appointments; slash the number of employees who report to the governor to 300 from 1,500; and give Republicans greater clout on the Board of Elections, the body that sets the rules for North Carolina’s notoriously burdensome balloting. The graboids are back, bigger and badder than ever now that they have supermajorities in both chambers thanks to Rep. Tricia Cotham. This time they hope to change the rules ahead of the 2024 election with bills the…