As the new year approaches, keep a close eye on North Carolina. In that state, the Republican super-majority in its general assembly (legislature) is trying its best to make a political eunuch out of newly-elected Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.
What’s been happening in that sourly divisive state could well become the new dirty game plan for arrogant political behavior in other states, possibly even Minnesota.
In the Nov. 8 election, Democrat Cooper defeated Republican incumbent Gov. Pat McCrory by only about 10,000 votes. That slim win, naturally, soured the Republicans in the assembly. To exact revenge and to flex their power, they filched a playbook page from the U.S. Congressional Republicans who took a toxic vow years ago to frustrate and obstruct two-time winner President Barack Obama every step of the way.
Last week, the N.C. Republican-led assembly met in special session to consider hurricane relief for the state. That done, they immediately convened another special session and got down to a hurricane of their own – their lickety-split business of passing a whirlwind of bills to limit the powers of the new governor. These Republican legislators – opportunist hypocrites one and all – churned out these prohibitions that their own outgoing governor has enjoyed to the hilt:
- An end to the governor’s control over election boards. From now on, each North Carolina county election board will have two members from each political party (Republican/Democrat) rather than three members as before (with two of the three from the party of the governor who happens to be in power).
- The N.C. Board of Elections be restricted from majority control via the governor.
- Require the Republican-controlled state Senate to give approval to the governor’s cabinet picks.
- End the governor’s power to appoint trustees to the University of North Carolina.
- Cut the number of state employees who serve with the governor’s permission.
- Grant civil-service protections to managers in state agencies who have honored the priorities of outgoing Gov. McCrory.
- Another proposed bill would add all kinds of obfuscation and chicanery to the way state cases are decided, undermining the power of the state’s Supreme Court, which now has a 4-3 tilt toward Democrats after the Nov. 8 election.
These flip-flop law changes, cooked up through a shameful combination of spite and jealousy, were meant to do one thing only – hamstring the new Democratic governor.
Those devious machinations follow some of the sneakiest, most outrageous efforts at voter suppression since the poll tax and literacy tests of the Jim Crow South, which kept so many blacks from voting. Since 2013, North Carolina right-wing factions have become the biggest scoundrels in the renewal of racist voting tactics. That disgusting rationale, of course, has been used in many states based on the proven hysteric lie of “voting fraud” – millions of dead people and criminals voting! And so, sadly, in North Carolina laws were passed to require voter photo IDs, to eliminate same-day registration, to do away with out-of-precinct voting, to forbid advanced registration by high-school students. More than half of those voting options were used by blacks, students and financially-strapped people. Blacks in North Carolina tend always to vote for Democrats. That is what sparked those laws, not the phony concern about “voting fraud.”
Fortunately, earlier this year, a three-member Court of Appeals panel struck down the N.C. voting restrictions, claiming they were targeted at blacks “with almost surgical precision” and that it’s a “cure” for a “problem that doesn’t exist.”
Just one example of the law’s blatant lopsidedness is that it allows (as valid) photo IDs such as drivers’ licenses and passports, typically held mostly by whites: but it does not allow photo IDs issued to people by colleges or state-assistance programs, the kinds of IDs held by many students, blacks and poorer residents.
Combine that kind of voter suppression with election sabotage by Russians jerks, and – oops! – “Houston, we have a problem.”
The blatant political chicanery in North Carolina is a statewide fire ready to spread into a national conflagration. In the air these days is a growing disregard and disrespect for political civility. If you don’t get your way, then go ahead and bully, throw fits, rant with political incorrectness, cut corners, use smear tactics, lie, disseminate rumors, print slanders, make up “news” stories, pass laws even if they’ll be overturned. If overturned, pass some more. Use majority rule as a weapon to smash opponents; push it to the limits; be the bully on the block. Win, win, win.
What’s happening in North Carolina could well be coming to a legislature near you. Politics, as they say, tends to be a dirty business; it’s a lot dirtier these days in North Carolina; it’s downright filthy. Let’s stop it. Now is not the time to roll over and play dead.
