A divisive, tumultuous year for N.C. politics

by Scott Mooneyham, Capitol Press Association, published in Greenville Daily Reflector, December 29, 2013.

The political world in North Carolina was filled with a lot of smiles as 2013 began.

They didn’t last very long.

Gov. Pat McCrory began his term in an inaugural ceremony that saw him wearing a big grin and speaking about making North Carolina government more responsive to Main Street. In short order, he was mostly responding to an unruly bunch on Raleigh’s Jones Street — either state lawmakers of his own Republican Party or protestors of the opposing Democratic Party — both showing little compunction to follow his lead.

The result was a tumultuous year in which political division and animosity seemed to grow by the day.

It was a year that saw dozens of people hauled out of the Legislative Building in handcuffs, the passage of partisan, reformist legislation on a number fronts that was no sooner signed into law than legal challenges were filed to stop it, and vetoes issued by McCrory that quickly turned into overrides by members of this own political party.

As the year ended, both political parties and their anointed combatants were gearing up for another election year where a U.S. Senate race would lead the ballot.

 Medicaid malady

For McCrory, it didn’t take long for him to find himself in the rough-and-tumble of Raleigh politics.

It came as state lawmakers considered legislation to block the expansion of Medicaid in the state as part of larger national health care reform.

The McCrory administration initially asked legislators to take a slow approach to the proposal to block expansion, so that all the implications could be sorted out. When they ignored the request, the governor jumped on board, justifying the decision not to expand coverage for the health insurance program for the poor by referring to the existing program as “broken.”

Doctors, hospitals and other health care providers were especially critical of the decision.

The expansion was a portion of larger changes that included some contraction within the Medicare program for the senior population. The Medicaid expansion, meanwhile, was to be picked up completely by the federal government within the first three years, with state government paying only 10 percent in the years after.

The decision to block Medicaid expansion, with the accompanying contraction of Medicare, would mean billions less for the state’s health care economy, supporters argued.

The decision came around the same time that legislators decided to approve measures revamping the state’s unemployment benefits, shortening the time that laid off workers would receive the payments and lessening those payments for better-paid workers.

Republican lawmakers touted the plan as a way to help employers pay off a huge debt to the federal government accumulated since the recession began in 2008. The decision, though, grabbed the attention of national critics, a trend that would continue as legislators pushed the state in policy directions that many would begin calling a sharp and even reactionary turn to the right.

McCrory struggled in the highly partisan environment.

Media outlets questioned hiring decisions that involved high pay for former campaign aides; some of his appointees, including Raleigh lawyer Kieran Shanahan hired as secretary of the Department of Public Safety, didn’t last long in their new jobs; one who did, Secretary of Health and Human Services Aldona Wos, made her own questionable hiring decisions and began taking heat for a decision to move forward with a new Medicaid claims system that health care providers called a nightmare.

Changes in state personnel laws, that allow the McCrory administration to replace more state workers with political appointments, led to more questions surrounding personnel decisions.

Meanwhile, McCrory stepped on a few landmines with simple words and gestures.

He caused consternation among university faculty after telling a national radio audience that universities had been taken over by an “educational elite” and questioning whether the state should continuing subsidizing some liberal arts degrees.

After signing a controversial bill that put more restrictions on abortion clinics and could lead to the closure of some, McCrory’s decision to deliver a plate full of cookies to protesters only led to ridicule.

By late spring, the criticism of the Republican-led legislature and McCrory had exploded into weekly protests led by state NAACP head the Rev. William Barber.

Barber dubbed the protests “Moral Mondays,” criticizing the decisions to cut unemployment and Medicaid as moral failings of those given advantages no longer looking out for the disadvantaged in society.

The protests grew from hundreds to thousands, with organizers goading police into a few dozen arrests each week to keep the public spotlight on the events. It worked, with national newspapers and cable TV outlets soon following the protests and spelling out for a national audience the decisions that prompted the complaints.

With the state Democratic Party pretty much in disarray, Barber became the de facto leader of the left in North Carolina.

GOP will not be moved

The protests didn’t deter Republican lawmakers.

They passed a sweeping overhaul of the state’s tax laws that, by cutting back corporate and personal income taxes, supporters promised would promote job growth and spark economic recovery. Critics called it a tax cut for the wealthy.

In a party-line vote, legislators also enacted broad election law changes that included a requirement that voters show a photo ID to vote. Supporters said the change was needed to prevent Election Day fraud and to improve public confidence in election results.

But the decision to throw in changes that included shortening the early voting period, eliminating same-day registration, and curbing local authority to extend polling hours prompted national figures like Hillary Clinton and Colin Powell to condemn the law as an attempt to limit minority voting.

The U.S. Department of Justice joined the NAACP and other groups in suing to stop the law.

Lawmakers also approved significant changes to the public schools, including allowing the parents of some students to receive vouchers to attend private schools and substituting employment contracts for teacher tenure. Like the elections law, lawsuits eventually followed to challenge the decisions.

McCrory ran afoul of the legislature by vetoing two bills, one dealing with employment checks of workers’ immigration status and the other drug testing of welfare recipients. His party affiliation did him no good, as the GOP-controlled legislature showed no hesitation to override the vetoes and show its strength, even if it served up a public loss to a governor of the same party.

The year closed with a crowded Republican field that includes state House Speaker Thom Tillis, Charlotte pastor Mark Harris and Cary doctor Greg Brannon seeking to challenge incumbent Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan in the 2014 elections.

Hagan looked to have a solid advantage in the race, but the problems that have beset Obamacare damaged the Democratic brand everywhere. The result is likely to be a heated race where tens of millions of dollars pour in from outside the state to decide the race at the top of the ticket.