Legislative session leaves state of shock

Editorial by Greensboro News and Record, July 28, 2013

An unhappy season, the state legislature’s 2013 session, has finally ended. Its impact will be felt far into the future.

With control of the governor’s mansion, the House and Senate for the first time since the 19th century, Republicans aimed to flex their muscles. They enacted tax and budget changes, regulatory reform, transportation and economic development initiatives and plenty of social and political engineering.

The legislature ruled out expanding Medicaid coverage under Obamacare, although it would be 100 percent federally funded for three years and 90 percent thereafter. It declined to allow a state health insurance exchange. It reduced unemployment benefits and dropped thousands of jobless people from the rolls. It clashed with cities as it exerted state authority over local issues. It repealed legally enacted annexations in towns across the state. It moved to allow guns on university campuses over the objections of UNC leaders and police chiefs. It took from sheriffs much of their discretion to deny handgun purchase permits. It put its stamp on every facet of state government — for just one example, by appointing Republicans to every seat on the 32-member UNC Board of Governors.

Republicans took office with promises to cut taxes and control spending. They did. They say dropping personal and corporate income-tax rates will make North Carolina more competitive with other states, helping in the race to attract businesses and create jobs. We hope that strategy works. At the same time, losing tax revenue will drop the state’s already low rankings in K-12 education spending and teachers’ salaries. With state appropriations falling, community colleges and universities will raise tuition.

Teachers perhaps have never been angrier or more dispirited. Not only do they remain poorly paid, but they will get no stipend if they expend the effort and money to improve their skills by earning master’s degrees. Nor can they count on the relative (though not ironclad) security of long-term contracts. Accountability is important, but it seems as if the legislature assumes public school teachers are incompetent unless they prove otherwise. Meanwhile, private schools — despite few accountability requirements for their teachers or educational outcomes — are slated to begin receiving tax dollars through “scholarships” in 2014.

Gov. Pat McCrory was acquiescent, signing bills he’d expressed reservations about or even promised he wouldn’t. Maybe that was the price for winning legislative support for initiatives he thinks will strengthen the state, such as prioritizing transportation projects and creating a more nimble economic development structure.

While not all actions of this General Assembly were detrimental — we’ve already praised it for budgeting funds for compensation of eugenics victims, for example — the overall effect is something like shell shock. No one could have foreseen the hard drive to the far right of the political spectrum, as if the legislature meant to satisfy the demands of the most conservative 20 percent of the state’s population. That number coincides with its approval rating, according to polls.

If McCrory and legislative leaders had introduced moderate-conservative reforms, more North Carolinians could have granted support. Instead, they’ve brought about political divisions not seen here since perhaps the Jesse Helms-Jim Hunt Senate race of 1984. Although Hunt lost, and the heirs of Helms are running North Carolina now, it’s also true that Hunt came back to be elected governor twice more. No one is up or down forever in politics, and North Carolina is not a state where only one point of view is acceptable.

As a ruling party, Republicans have conducted this legislative session more like conquerors than representatives of the entire population. They have touched off resentments that will burn hotter and hotter if schools decline, voting becomes more difficult and the jobs don’t come.