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December 16, 2016 01:15 PM UTC

At Least It's Not Your State Legislature

  • 12 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: A clarifier on Colorado law as it pertains to special sessions. According to the Colorado Constitution, Section 7 Article V, either the governor or a two-thirds majority of the House and Senate can call a special session. That means the kind of shenanigans on display in North Carolina would be difficult, but not impossible, to replicate here–the first challenge being for either party to gain a two-thirds majority in both chambers of the Colorado General Assembly.

—–

Defeated Gov. Pat McCrory (R-NC).

As the dust settles on the 2016 elections, which were generally a great triumph for Republicans nationwide, there are some serious sour grapes on display from the GOP-dominated North Carolina legislature after that state’s Republican Gov. Pat McCrory was narrowly defeated by Democratic Attorney General Roy Cooper. Reuters via NBC News:

North Carolina’s Republican-dominated legislature is moving to strip powers from the state’s governor three weeks before Democrat Roy Cooper is set to succeed a member of their party in the executive mansion…

Cooper, scheduled to be sworn in on Jan. 7 after defeating incumbent Republican Pat McCrory by 10,000 votes last month, said the proposals were aimed at holding him back.

“Most people might think that this is a partisan power grab, but it is really more ominous,” Cooper said at a news conference in Raleigh on Thursday. “This is about thwarting the governor’s ability to move us forward on education and health care and clean air and water.”

As the Washington Post reports, outgoing Gov. McCrory is signing these new limits on his office’s power as fast as the legislature can send them over:

North Carolina Republican Gov. Pat McCrory has quickly signed into law a GOP-backed bill that would strip the incoming Democratic governor of some of his powers…

The law merges the State Board of Elections and State Ethics Commission into one board comprised equally of Democrats and Republicans. The previous state elections board law would have allowed Cooper to put a majority of Democrats on the panel.

The law would also make elections for appellate court judgeships officially partisan again.

Another bill nearing final legislative approval would force Cooper’s Cabinet choices to be subject to Senate confirmation.

Obviously, this kind of “scorched earth” power transfer from one party to the other is a very bad precedent to set in any state. Although Democrats will control the governor’s office in the Tar Heel State, the GOP supermajority in the legislature is more than capable of asserting itself without slapping a bunch of punitive sanctions on the incoming governor before he even takes office.

If this is the new status quo for partisan statehouse battles, things are going to get ugly in a hurry.

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12 thoughts on “At Least It’s Not Your State Legislature”

    2. Three things:

      1. Mod, you are an idiot.

      2. If these are appropriate checks on executive power, they would have been appropriately implemented any time in the last 4 years (in a normal session, with normal deliberation) when there was a Republican executive. I guess only Democratic governors need their authority held "in check."

      3. The corrosive aspect of this is that the "cure" this type of outrageous legislative behavior is not the courts, but the ballot box – vote these guys out. But, the actions that they are taking are expressly intended (they are not even pretending to do anything else) to suppress and disenfranchise the voters that would vote them out. Shame is not a common emotion for politicians of any stripe, but these guys ought to be ashamed. 

    4. Meanwhile Trump is losing the popular vote by a bigger margin than any other president in history. Or to quote Kellyanne: Historic. Blowout. Landslide. 

      Can you image the scene today had Trump won the national election by 2.85 million votes and lost the Electoral College by 80,000 votes?  They'd (literally) be burning everything in sight and would have shut the country down.  At least we're containing the institutional damage (so far) to places like North Carolina.

      Fluffy and his ilk aren't Patriots, they're Hatriots. 

    5. Should be interesting to find out the "legality" of these actions in a special session called to address disaster relief.

      Even if legal, the wisdom of making substantial changes like this in a hurry up manner is that potential consequences generally emerge only in longer debate. My guess is the flurry of bills reducing the Governor's powers, making some things MORE partisan and some less, and other transparent moves showing a Republican agenda will create backlash in unexpected ways.

  3. I can't figure out why the N.C. legislature wants to begin its new session in court, for surely they will be sued over these new laws. It reminds me of the "Midnight Gerrymander", and we all remember how well that worked out. It didn't help to toss McCrory out and leave the legislators that crafted HB 2 in office. It's going to be a loonng session for them, and poor Gov. Cooper.

    1. But the good people already won this election, chb, and thebad people are now stealing the results.  What makes you think they will allow a free vote in 2018?  

  5. Pols wrote: "Things are going to get ugly in a hurry."

    Yes. Yes, they did. About 35  protesters were arrested, for trying to get in to the public gallery overlooking the legislative chamber. A young mother, elderly people, members of the press, and "Santa" were among those arrested.  Ned Barnett, writing for the North Carolina News & Observer,  reports:

    In the NC legislature, an assault on the democratic process

    And the Observer shot live video:

    https://www.facebook.com/newsandobserver/videos/1444351518911116/

    This is democracy in action.

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