Presented with a new state budget that, whatever its occasional virtues, is mainly about easing tax burdens on the well-off while grinding opponents of legislative Republicans into the dirt, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper had little choice but to wield his veto stamp. Those Republicans who crafted the budget tried to taunt Cooper into signing it, noting that it includes raises for teachers and some tax breaks for middle-income earners – priorities he favors. But the governor kept in mind the larger picture and refused to endorse a budget fundamentally shaped…
Steve Ford, Volunteer Program Associate
New Budget with Old Agenda Falls Short
By now the strategy is familiar – the strategy used by the N.C. General Assembly’s Republican chiefs to try to make a fundamentally flawed state budget appear, well, not that bad. Or at least tolerable. Or better than it could have been and perhaps even worth supporting. Here’s how it works: The Senate proposes a budget that, it almost should go without saying, carries on the Republican campaign to cut taxes. Economic growth allows for some slight spending increases, but on the whole spending is held tightly in check. Meanwhile,…
Gerrymander Remedy: Redraw, Now
The Republicans who took control of North Carolina’s General Assembly with the elections of 2010 were, it could be said, licking their chops. They knew that when they came to Raleigh in 2011, a big prize awaited. All they had to do was seize it. And seize it they did. Because of the timing of the most recent, once-a-decade U.S. census, conducted the previous year, 2011 would be the year in which congressional and legislative voting districts were adjusted to account for population changes. The districts are supposed to be…
UPDATE — High Court to NC: Draw Those Districts Fairly
UPDATE In separate, party-line votes on June 8, the state House and Senate rejected Gov. Cooper’s attempt to convene a special session for the purpose of redrawing legislative voting districts. Leaders of the Republican majority argued that Cooper’s proclamation failed to meet standards set forth in the state constitution by which special legislative sessions can be called by the governor. ____________________________________________________________________________________________ What a relief and cause for celebration it would be if North Carolina’s legislative chiefs collectively slapped their brows and exclaimed, “Oh, now we get it! We’re not allowed…
Lines of Influence: Justices Zap Voting Map
Following the elections of 2010 – tilted as they were by an intense right-wing pushback against President Barack Obama midway through his first term – Republicans in the N.C. General Assembly saw themselves as large and in charge. For the first time in the state’s modern history, they had won majorities in both the House and Senate. And the timing was beautiful. They would control the fateful process by which legislative and congressional voting district boundaries were adjusted to reflect population changes documented in the 2010 national census. They would…
Budget’s Big Picture: A Crumbling Core
So, the question as always comes down to one of vision. The elected chieftains who decide how much money North Carolina’s state government will spend, what it will be spent on and how it will be raised must decide not only which programs and services will thrive and which will dwindle. They must decide to what degree the people of this state are truly a community, with an obligation to provide for the common good in the best interests of all. These are the core issues as the General Assembly…
Retiring Judge Stands Tall
As Shakespeare’s King Lear famously put it, “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child.” Top Republicans in the N.C. General Assembly now might well be muttering, “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a Republican judge who stands on principle!” Sure, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper had blistered them in vetoing a bill to shrink the Court of Appeals. But Judge Douglas McCullough, who timed his retirement with precision so that Cooper could name his replacement, delivered a rebuke to his fellow…
Tax-Cut Fever Threatens Services
How many times do we have to say it? Well, it’s worth repeating – especially in the aftermath of recent income tax filing deadlines, when the subject becomes a sore point for many: None of us should have to pay more in taxes than our fair share in financing the necessary and desirable tasks of government. But what sounds like a clear-cut standard is of course complicated by a tangle of conflicting opinions and ideologies. What’s “fair,” “necessary” and “desirable”? Depends whom you ask. From the Council of Churches’ perspective,…
New Push for Broader Medicaid, Better Health
North Carolina’s failure under Republican leadership to improve low-income residents’ access to health care via the Medicaid program has been like a persistent, throbbing pain in the state’s civic and economic life. The pain can be literal, when people must do without the kinds of care and treatment that everyone recognizes as meeting basic standards of quality and cost-efficiency. It is figurative but no less real when those same people, because of unresolved medical issues, fall into underemployment or outright joblessness, or when their relatives are forced to become caregivers,…
Shock Waves from High Court ‘Nuke’
Our national politics are in an ugly place, driven by an accelerating cycle of suspicion, accusation, blame, recrimination and retaliation. The circumstances by which Neil Gorsuch takes office as a justice of the Supreme Court sadly fit the mold – to the U.S. Senate’s discredit and the court’s peril. President Trump, with his reckless disregard for long-established norms of presidential conduct, bears his own share of responsibility for the mess. Senate Democrats could rightly question why Trump’s choice for the court deserved the customary deference – what with investigations under…
Swallow Hard: H.B. 2’s Less-than-Ideal ‘Repeal’
Call it a head-on collision between politics and principle. Is anyone surprised that politics prevailed? Yet here’s the twist that perhaps makes the outcome somewhat understandable, if no less regrettable. Those of us committed to stamping out discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity wanted North Carolina’s infamous House Bill 2 to be repealed lock, stock and barrel. The General Assembly’s compromise, signed into law March 30 by Gov. Roy Cooper, achieves repeal in a technical sense, but keeps the door open for discrimination to continue. The…
GOP Mantra: Party Hearty!
They might not care for the image, but Republican members of the N.C. General Assembly act as though they were drunk with power. They have the votes not merely to set conservative policies on spending, taxes, education, health care, protection or misprotection of the environment — votes they’ve been only too happy to cast. They also have the votes to put their ideological stamp on North Carolina’s civic affairs in ways that could endure for many years and blight the state’s character – its self-proclaimed identity as a place where…
H.B. 2 ‘Compromise’ Must Protect Rights
The fight over North Carolina’s House Bill 2 – the law that notoriously stamps the state’s seal of approval on discrimination against lesbian, gay and transgender folks – has devolved into a form of trench warfare. Republican legislators and social conservatives who support the law remain dug in against an outright repeal. They can’t afford to admit they made a gross misjudgment when, a year ago, they rushed the bill through without heed to the economic and ethical consequences. Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and his allies among LGBT and civil…
N.C.’s Reckless ‘Party Time’
Politics, at least in a democracy, is competitive. The analogy to sports may be simplistic but it’s not too far off the mark. Participants seek to win, and to do so in accordance with rules constraining behavior that’s plainly unfair or dangerous. The rewards for winning athletes can include fame, wealth and pride in their accomplishments. The rewards for winning politicians can include fame, pride and perhaps a degree of enhanced earning potential should they go back to private pursuits. But the real prize for the successful politician is power….
Governor Fights Power Shortage
North Carolina’s governor gets to live in a mansion whose handsome property occupies a full city block in downtown Raleigh. He or she gets to meet with assorted dignitaries, here and elsewhere, to talk up the Old North State’s virtues. He or she gets to make congratulatory remarks at ceremonial ground-breakings, plant openings and the like. He or she gets to marshal the state’s emergency personnel in response to hurricanes, fires and floods, optionally attired in a spiffy official windbreaker. He or she gets to propose a state budget that…