North Carolina House Speaker Tim Moore told reporters earlier this week that he’s slowing down the religious freedom bill because he’s concerned about how it will affect the state’s “brand.” He should be equally worried about how all these bills to wrest control from local governments affects the GOP brand.
In Buncombe County, former Rep. Tim Moffitt thought he was in a safe seat. He was so confident that he made it clear that he wanted to succeed Thom Tillis as Speaker. He also made it clear to other Buncombe County elected officials that he was the boss. He redistricted the county commission to favor Republicans. He tried to take over the Asheville’s airport and water system. Last November, voters called him on it. They ousted him in the middle of a Republican wave.
Down in Lee County, former Rep. Mike Stone thought he could help his party by making local elections partisan. In reality, he just made it very difficult for unaffiliated voters to run for office, but that’s besides the point. He also didn’t listen to the caution people in Lee County had about fracking. He, too, went down in spite of the GOP wave.
So, with little understanding of political lessons, Sen. Chad Barefoot decided that he is King of Wake. He’s redrawn the Wake County Commission districts and changed the way commissioners are elected. House Majority Leader Skip Stam took up the cause in the House and they’ve created districts that might lead to a Republican board despite Democrats garnering a solid majority of votes in 2014.
Now, the flood gates have opened. Republicans all over the state want to assert their authority over the peons who hold local offices. As the state grows and becomes more urban and liberal, the GOP wants to ensure minority rule by rigging the system.
Tim Moffitt and Mike Stone paid the price for overreach but it was confined to their districts. The abuse of power going on now reaches across the state. Die hard Republicans might approve the moves. Conservative independents won’t. They are small government people who don’t have much use for big government authoritarians.
Tim Moore is right. The so-called religious freedom bills will adversely affect North Carolina’s “brand.” The redistricting bills will harm the GOP’s.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
Actually, the types of anti-democratic tactics being used to disenfranchise voters and to rig elections should be called what they truly are–FASCISM!
Newish to NC – have never seen anything as corrupt and despicable as NCGOP policy in all areas. Have never seen a group of politicians so intent on destroying their home state. Never.
To Someone from Main Street.
You are newish and I was born here and lived her for most of my life(61 years old). I love this state and it people. I have seen NC go from the backwater to the most progressive southern state in US. Our growth and prestige was the result. I am not sure what the end game of the current leaders are, but this will not turn out well.
I’m sure that a few unaffiliated voters are former Republicans, but most are not. They are voters who disagree with both major parties. Some joined a party, became disillusioned, then went independent, but probably most of the unaffiliated voters were unaffiliated from the start. They did not agree with the leaders of either the Republican Party or the Democratic Party. They thought for themselves and recognized that the leading politicians for both parties were hypocritical, so they decided not to follow those leaders. They decided to vote for the candidate, not for the party. They registered to vote as unaffiliated with a political party.
I’m an unaffiliated voter. I vote progressive when given the chance. For me, the NC Democratic Party is way too conservative. In the past four years, it has also been way too timid when dealing with the shenanigans in the State House. They need to call the Tea Party out when it does things redistricting a county after a sweep that didn’t go their way. If they speak truth to power, the people will listen.
It doesn’t help that the state Democratic Party has been a dysfunctional extended family of late. But, you are correct, Robert. IMO, with the exceptions of Senators Josh Stein and Dan Blue, the Dems have been just too damn quiet. Yes, there may indeed be little they can do, legislatively and state policy-wise, in the face of the GOP supermajorities and with a sitting unfriendly governor. But where is the continuously expressed outrage, the organized and coordinated traditional media campaigns, and the heavy presence on and use of social media??
Lots of complaining by Dems that their supporters are slumbering and don’t turn out heavily enough at the polls. But, by now, might that have become self-fulfilling prophecy? Where are the loud and high profile efforts to wake voters up?
Only problem with voting “for the man or woman” is, if elected you get his/her PARTY.
I think the Republicans must lack faith in the righteousness of their policies and programs to resort to manipulating the electoral system in such egregious ways. If they plan to succeed in making North Carolina a new Jerusalem, why do they find it necessary to stack the political deck in their favor? Don’t they think they will be able to compete on the basis of their wonderful ideas? Maybe they don’t really believe in free markets and supply-side economics. Golly, one would have to call Barefoot, Stam, Tim Moore, Harry Brown, and their brothers and sisters cynics. I am shocked!
Excellent point, Puzzled Voter. One would think that if they had faith in what they are peddling they would be chomping at the bit to compete in the marketplace of ideas. That they would be imbued with a great certainty that a majority of voters would embrace them and their radical notions.
That they keep trying to game the system in ever more extreme ways to gain and keep power speaks volumes about them and the fact that they know their ideas are not embraced by a majority of average voters who are not highly ideological as they are.
Their attempt to rig judicial review of some of their radical policies in the future tells us a lot about them too. Clearly they know that once they are removed from the majority the bulk of North Carolinians will want to undo and mitigate as quickly as possible what they have wrought.
The flood gates for rigging the voting system and advancing state government intolerance and heavy-handedness have indeed opened wide here in NC. GOP arrogance and closemindedness is in full bloom.
Here’s hoping that with each GOP move toward ideological extremism (can you say “tax reform” favoring the wealthy and micro-managing the UNC system?), religion-based stridency (can you say religious freedom acts in Indiana and maybe soon North Carolina?), and election district mischief-making (can you say extreme partisan gerrymandering statewide and in Wake County), more voters simply swear off voting Republican — especially at the local level.