Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson is routinely absent from some of the lieutenant governor’s primary job responsibilities, including presiding over sessions of the state Senate and serving on the State Board of Education and other boards.
Robinson’s attendance record prompted criticism from his Republican opponents in the primary campaign earlier this year. State Treasurer Dale Folwell, who serves on some of the same boards as the lieutenant governor, blasted Robinson in a Charlotte candidate forum last year.
“The lieutenant governor has been the most absent elected official in my 16 years in Raleigh,” Folwell said. “I’ve never seen him at the community college board meetings as we’ve had to hire and fire two presidents. I rarely see him at the State Board of Education meetings, and you can look at what his attendance rate is on presiding over the Senate.”
Robinson’s campaign for governor is facing a firestorm of criticism in the wake of last week’s CNN report that he’d made posts on a pornographic website in support of slavery, among other racist and misogynistic comments that he denies came from him. And while the governor’s race has been dominated this year by Robinson’s incendiary statements in speeches and in old social media posts, less attention has focused on how he’s handled the job of lieutenant governor.
The office of lieutenant governor has relatively few responsibilities in state law compared to other Council of State positions like treasurer or attorney general. The lieutenant governor presides over Senate sessions but casts votes only in the event of a tie, and the job comes with a voting seat on the State Board of Education and State Board of Community Colleges, and the position of chair on the Energy Policy Council.
And while Robinson and previous lieutenant governors have also used the position to travel the state, make speeches and advocate for their policy preferences, Robinson himself has listed the statutory responsibilities when asked to explain his job.
“My main duty is I'm president of the Senate, but when the Senate is not in session, I sit on the state school board, which has become a herculean task of dealing with education,” he told a radio host in a 2021 interview. “That's what we've dealt with most of the time we've been in office dealing with issues surrounding education. We sit on the Board of Community Colleges. We're also the head of the Energy Policy Council. We've done some work there as well. Other than that, we kind of make our own agenda and we help the legislature to push the issues that they're trying to push.”
Robinson’s 2023 calendar showed he had his “office time” on Mondays when he met with staff. Other common activities on his calendar included interviews with conservative media outlets like Newsmax and talk radio stations, tours of local businesses and manufacturing facilities, and speeches to business trade groups and other organizations. But at other times the calendar shows days-long stretches with no meetings or events listed.
Robinson has also had a habit of posting memes and jokes to his personal Facebook page during business hours. In October 2021, he made a series of posts counting the days until Halloween and spotlighting images of what he called “nasty Halloween candy.”
Robinson did not agree to an interview for this story, but spokesman John Waugh provided an emailed statement about how he handles the lieutenant governor’s responsibilities.
“The lieutenant governor is deeply committed to his duties, consistently staying informed on the activities of every board and commission our office serves on and is continuously in communication with lawmakers and legislative leadership,” Waugh said, noting that Robinson worked to secure funding for apprenticeship programs and eliminate the state income tax on veteran pensions.
Waugh added: “Unlike previous lieutenant governors who saw the role as largely ceremonial, Lt. Gov. Robinson views it as an active leadership opportunity. Through his executive, legislative, and board responsibilities, he has delivered impactful results for North Carolinians of all backgrounds.”
Here’s a look at how Robinson has handled each of the lieutenant governor’s primary responsibilities since taking office in 2021:
Senate President
Robinson was a frequent presence at the front of the state Senate chamber during his first year in office, but he hasn’t spent much time in the Legislative Building since.
He attended just five Senate sessions in 2022 and six sessions in 2023 — even as lawmakers spent much of that year in Raleigh for an unusually long “long session,” holding sessions on nearly 150 days.
This year, he’s presided over the Senate only once: A one-day session earlier this month when senators took up funding for private school vouchers and an immigration detainer mandate for sheriffs.
He apologized to senators that day for flubbing the order of agenda items. “I'm sorry, guys, I'm a little rusty,” he said. “I jumped the gun. Hold on just a second.”
A review of the lieutenant governor’s official calendar from 2023 — released to The News & Observer through a public records request — lists each daily Senate session, and it showed no scheduling conflicts on many of the days when Robinson did not attend the session. On some days, the Senate session was the only event on his calendar.
It’s unclear if Robinson’s campaign events conflicted with the sessions, as those aren’t listed on the official calendar. In 2020, then-Lt. Gov. Dan Forest presided over the Senate four times during his run for governor, and in 2012, then-Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton presided over dozens of sessions during his campaign, Senate records show.
Robinson's absences have meant that Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger has been the most frequent person to preside over the Senate during the past three years.
State Board of Education
Robinson has made education issues a focus of his time in office and his campaign, often criticizing curriculum related to diversity, equity and inclusion and critical race theory, as well as LGBTQ+-related books and lessons that he describes as “filth.”
But the lieutenant governor’s primary ability to shape K-12 education is through a voting seat on the State Board of Education. Meeting minutes show he’s missed nearly half of the board’s sessions, absent five of the 10 days the board met this year (the meetings typically occur over two back-to-back days, and Robinson often only attends one of the two days).
In April 2023, his official calendar shows he attended the “North Carolinians For Home Education Workshop” instead of the State Board of Education, although he did attend the second day of board meetings after the homeschooling event.
In May 2023, he didn’t attend the board meeting. The only other items on his calendar for the day of the meeting were an 8 a.m. radio interview and a reference to the Quail Hollow golf tournament in Charlotte. He missed board presentations on school performance grading and safety initiatives.
In his 2022 autobiography, Robinson wrote critically about his experience at State Board of Education meetings.
“I sit in North Carolina State Education Board meetings, listening to them yammer, yammer, yammer, and think every time, ‘What the hell does any of this mean?’” he wrote. “When I complain, they’ll say something that implies I don’t understand the nuances of educating children, so my opinion doesn’t matter. Let me tell you something: education is a simple proposition.”
State Board of Community Colleges
Robinson has attended the board’s meetings four times since taking office — twice in 2021 and twice earlier this year, after Folwell called out his absence.
He has designated his policy director, Jonathan Harris, to attend in his place, and Harris has attended most of the board meetings. Labor Commissioner Josh Dobson also sends a representative to the board in his place, and Folwell is the only elected official on the board who routinely attends himself.
Other boards
- Neither Robinson nor anyone from his office has ever attended the quarterly meetings of the Military Affairs Commission. On several dates in 2023, his calendar does not show any other meetings during the days of a commission meeting. The absences were first reported by The Atlantic, and Robinson’s spokesperson told the magazine that because the commission seat “is a non-voting, ex-officio role … he found ways to make a substantive impact on veterans.”
- While Robinson is technically the chair of the Energy Policy Council, he has only attended four of its quarterly meetings. Other meetings are chaired by Robinson’s chief of staff, Brian LiVecchi.
- Robinson’s strongest attendance record is for the brief monthly meeting of the Council of State, the group of statewide elected officials. He’s attended about three-quarters of the meetings, missing six of them.
- Robinson has designated members of his staff to serve in his place on the Charter Schools Advisory Board and the Domestic Violence Commission. State law also gives the lieutenant governor a seat on the Capital Planning Commission, but a spokesperson for the N.C. Department of Administration says that board hasn’t met in over a decade.
