GOP lawmakers brush off McCrory's demand

by Chris Fitzsimon, NC Policy Watch and NC SPIN panelist, January 9, 2015.

Don’t look now, but Republican legislative leaders don’t seem any more inclined to listen to Governor Pat McCrory this year than they did the first two years of his administration.

McCrory told a group of business leaders early this week that he needed action on a business incentive program the first two weeks of the General Assembly session. McCrory said he did not have the tools he needed when he was negotiating with corporate executives about locating in the state and he specifically mentioned the need to replenish the Job Development Incentive Grant Program or JDIG.

McCrory said passing an incentive bill was “priority No. 1” for the legislature. Sounds pretty urgent.

But Rep. Julia Howard, a veteran leader in the House, doesn’t seem too concerned about it, telling WRAL-TV, “Is it going to happen in the next two weeks?” Howard said. “No. Nada.”

Well then.

Senate leaders aren’t in a rush about it either. Senator Bob Rucho told WRAL about the plea for emergency action on JDIG, “it’s time for the General Assembly to take a good look at it and make sure it is indeed a program worthy of being continued.”

So much for the priorities of the governor, the leader of the Republican Party that enjoys supermajorities in the House and Senate. Legislative leaders not only don’t seem inclined to rush to approve more JDIG money, they are not even sure the program should continue at all.

McCrory unfamiliar with tools of leadership

McCrory also wants the General Assembly to restore the state historic tax credit program that legislative leaders unwisely ended as part of the 2013 tax reform package that McCrory enthusiastically signed.

McCrory says he has formed a coalition with local government officials, conservationists, and developers to restore the credit that spurs private investments, revitalizes downtowns, preserves important historic structures, and created job.

McCrory’s Secretary of Cultural Resources Susan Klutz is leading the charge and there’s a petition and website detailing all the benefits of the credit. All of that is a good idea, but it does beg a question that no one in Raleigh seems to be asking.

If Gov. McCrory believes the historic tax credit is an important part of a strategy to create jobs—and it is—then why doesn’t he demand loudly and publicly that the General Assembly controlled by fellow Republicans restore it?

McCrory can stop any bill that passes with his veto stamp. He has enormous behind the scene powers with appointments and grants, etc.

And he has the bully pulpit. He could make a speech every day in front of a project that was completed because of the tax credit, many of them in the districts of legislators that oppose putting the credit back on the books.

McCrory is right on the issue, and there’s nothing wrong with him being part of a coalition working to restore the tax credit, but he is the governor after all, not an outside public interest group trying to get something passed.

He simply needs to demand it and use the vast powers of his office to make it happen. It’s called leadership.

A pathetic plea from Berger and Moore

Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger and Rep. Tim Moore, soon to be elected House Speaker, simply can’t bring themselves to accept the fact that thanks to the federal courts gay couples in North Carolina have the same right to get married as straight couples.

Berger and Moore are filing a petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take up their appeal of court decisions last fall that allowed gay couples to wed, even though the decisions came after a higher federal court with jurisdiction over North Carolina ruled in favor of marriage equality.

Moore said in a statement that “regardless of where you stand on the ultimate issue, it is important to protect the will of the North Carolina voters who overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment. “

Putting aside the fact that the May primary vote in favor of the marriage discrimination amendment reflected the support of roughly 20 percent of registered voters, Moore’s statement reflects a troubling view of the way our system of government works.

Decisions by federal courts are binding in states and fundamental questions about the constitutionality of laws are not decided by popular vote.

And in case Moore and Berger haven’t noticed, gay couples have been getting married in the state for three months now and the sky hasn’t fallen and the institution of marriage has been strengthened, not weakened, because everyone in North Carolina finally has the same right to participate in it.

It is past time for Berger and Moore to move on and stop wasting time and public resources defending discrimination.

- See more at: http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/2015/01/09/the-follies-219/#sthash.SzGOEEfu.dpuf