Yet another legislative power grab

Editorial by Asheville Citizen-Times, July 7, 2015.

“I think we have too many senators and representatives who want to be mayor, city council members, county commissioners, even governor.”

That’s Gov. Pat McCrory’s take on a bill rammed through the General Assembly by Republicans to change the way the city of Greensboro is governed. It’s the latest in long line of local government power grabs coming out of Raleigh. Charlotte and Asheville have seen their airport authorities taken; Raleigh tried to take Asheville’s water system, and other moves have seen restructuring of local governments, including the Buncombe County Commission.

McCrory, a Republican, is not the only member of the GOP displeased by this move. “It breaks the spirit of why we have local bills. Local bills should come from local areas. And this bill wasn’t a Greensboro bill. It was a Raleigh bill,” said Jon Hardister, a former mayor of Charlotte.

Guilford County Sheriff BJ Barnes and former longtime U.S. Rep. Howard Coble are among those who believe any changes in Greensboro government should be done via referendum. So do we.

The Greensboro City Council consists of a mayor and three other council members elected at large, plus five members elected from districts. Under the new bill, the mayor loses a council vote except to break ties and all other members are elected from districts. The city is forbidden from making any changes to the system after the 2020 census.

Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughn sums it up: “You double-bunk six sitting council members who are Democrats and you take a seventh and put them in what looks like a heavily Republican district. You leave the only sitting Republican City Council member unscathed and take away the vote of the mayor, the only person who is elected by the entire city — I find it hard to justify that.”

As the governor indicated, the manner in which the bill was passed was as disturbing as its thrust. When the original bill failed in the House, it was tacked onto another bill. When that bill failed in the House it was steered to a friendly committee that made it worse, adding the provision forbidding Greensboro to change the system after 2020.

When the resulting bill still couldn’t get through the House, the GOP twisted enough arms in caucus to get it passed the second time around. That was all it took, as North Carolina governors cannot veto local bills.

Greensboro officials are seeing if there is any way to challenge the new law in court. So is the governor. “I think it’s worth reviewing the legality of it,” McCrory said. “And I’m going to have my lawyers looking at it as well.”

The Greensboro deal was crafted during the week we celebrate government of, for and by the people. The deal was anything but.

McCrory said “it’s a bad bill and a shameful process …

“This was not the conservative thing to do. The conservative thing to do is to leave changes like this to the locally elected representatives or to a vote of the local people.”

No, it was not the conservative thing to do, or the small government thing to do, or the good government thing to do.

It was the petty thing to do.

Shameful, indeed.