“Group of pawns”? At the NC legislature the “GOP” label takes on a new meaning

North Carolina’s Republican-dominated state legislature is back in Raleigh this month for more of what’s become a post-election tradition when Democrats manage to win a few statewide offices or narrow the margin in the absurdly gerrymandered state House and Senate: seizing power.

This year’s exercise got underway the week before Thanksgiving when Republican leaders unveiled an out-of-nowhere, 131-page proposal to dramatically overhaul state government and rammed it through both chambers in a matter of hours.

While partially and clumsily cloaked as Hurricane Helene relief legislation, the bill is packed with dozens of significant law changes – many of them unprecedented, hugely impactful, and of highly questionable constitutionality.

In vetoing the bill on Nov. 26, Gov. Roy Cooper rightfully described the billas a “sham.” As he noted, not only does it not appropriate significant sums to aid the people of western North Carolina struggling to recover from Helene, it actually blocks his attempt to boost unemployment insurance benefits for people who have lost jobs because of natural disasters.

Meanwhile, the list of powers seized from the offices of the governor, attorney general, lt. governor and superintendent of public instruction is long, maddening and a direct assault on the verdicts voters rendered just weeks before.

If ever a bill deserved to be relegated to the circular file because of its toxic substance, this is it.

But if there’s an even more objectionable and worrisome aspect to this legislation than what it says, it might just be the way it came to be.

For many decades in North Carolina, both the Republican and Democratic caucuses at the General Assembly were fairly well-stocked with independent thinkers – boat rockers who often worked across partisan lines, and who regularly demanded that leaders of both parties adhere to basic rules of process and transparency in order to protect the rights of political minorities and the public’s right to know.

In practice, this meant demanding that bills proceed through the normal committee processes with ample time for public notice and comment, opportunities for amendments, and adherence to basic parliamentary rules of “germaneness” (that is, requiring add-ons to relate to the main purpose of the legislation). Often, debates over these topics spilled onto the floor of each chamber, where members sometimes openly and publicly questioned and challenged their own party’s leadership.

In recent years, however, this pattern has waned dramatically – especially in the Republican majorities, where members now walk, at least publicly, in almost complete lockstep. Indeed, it’s a fairly remarkable phenomenon to behold – nearly 100 opinionated and strong-willed elected officials reliably doing the bidding of party leaders like dutiful sheep.

And the results of this big and unfortunate shift have become increasingly apparent in numerous places – from the way the state budget is now crafted each year in secret and rushed through the legislature with limited debate and opportunities for amendment, to the way the legislature now pops in and out of Raleigh throughout the year with little-to-no public notice as to what might be on its agenda, to lame duck sessions like the current one in which a momentous rewrite of state law (and as of Monday of this week, a new pair of constitutional amendments) can receive swift approval in minutes without so much as an opportunity to introduce or discuss an amendment.

Of course, the reasons for this gradual but steady decline are not terribly mysterious. Long entrenched bosses with massive campaign war chests like Phil Berger and Tim Moore are more powerful than ever. Meanwhile, gerrymandering, the rise of Trumpism, and the threat of primaries from the far right have all but eliminated Republican centrists.

And there should be no doubt that all of this amounts to, despite the claims of GOP leaders that they’re simply engaged in “politics as usual,” a genuine and momentous decline.

https://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/article296250119.htmlAs veteran state government watcher Ran Coble put it in an essay recently published by Raleigh’s News & Observer:

Can this dramatic and destructive decline be halted? Coble expresses the hope that “rank-and-file legislators who are not part of the leadership in both chambers will revolt against the leadership and demand…reforms,” and the recent decision of three House Republicans to vote ‘no’ on the power grab bill certainly shows how such a move, if sustained over time, could be effective.

As Buncombe County Democratic Senator Julie Mayfield told NC Newsline recently, however, there are few indications that any Republican members possess the courage or inclination to take on such a battle, given the political “repercussions” they would likely face.

In other words, unless something truly unforeseen and heroic occurs, for the time being, it looks as though “GOP” at the state Legislative Building will continue to refer to, among other things, the “group of pawns.”