The politics of power grabs

by | Dec 15, 2016 | Editor's Blog, Politics | 6 comments

After the sweep of yesterday’s special legislative session to weaken Governor-elect Roy Cooper’s hand, everybody needs to take a breath. Certainly, the GOP is doing a lot bad stuff from the perspective of Democrats. Some of it is also bad for our democracy and state, but some of it is just inside political baseball that’s been going on since the beginning of the Republic.

First, a brief and incomplete history lesson. One of the most audacious power-grabs in recent history occurred in 1988 when the state elected its first Republican lieutenant governor of the century. Back then, lieutenant governor was easily the second most powerful position in state government and arguably the most powerful.  The LG had a four-year term and ran the senate including doling out committee chairs and making appointments to various boards and commissions. The governor, at that time, lacked the power of the veto.

In 1988, when Republican Jim Gardner became lieutenant governor, the state Senate, still controlled by Democrats, stripped him of all his power and gave it the President Pro-tem. Lieutenant Governor became largely a ceremonial seat. When Democrat Dennis Wicker won the seat in 1992, Democrats who controlled the Senate decided they liked the power they’d gained and declined to restore it to the lieutenant governor. That’s how we got Phil Berger. Of course, the alternative would be Dan Forrest.

In 1992, Jim Hunt returned to the Governor’s Mansion from an eight-year hiatus to begin the third of his of four terms. He came into office with an ambitious plan to reform public schools and focus on early childhood education. To help Hunt out, the legislature shifted power that was with the Superintendent of Public Instruction, Democrat Bob Ethridge, to the State School Board, a body controlled mostly by gubernatorial appointees.

Later, after voters amended the constitution of the state to give the governor veto power, the legislature made sure that the governor had no such power over redistricting. Democrats, in their own arrogance, wanted to make sure that a GOP governor couldn’t interfere with their plans to slice up the state. It came back to bite them in the redistricting of 2011.

As the party controlling the legislature in a state with a relatively weak executive branch, the Republicans are going to grab more power and they will almost certainly overreach. They always do.  Democrats should figure out where to fight and where to shine lights and not get distracted with the less important matters.

The assault on the courts is important. Restructuring boards of elections matters. Those actions can weaken protections for people who are vulnerable while solidifying power at the expense of democracy. Democrats need to push back hard.

The UNC Board of Governors and Board of Trustees is important. The university system is huge and an important part of our economic development and our national reputation. It needs representatives of both parties to reflect the state. It should not become just a perk for GOP donors.

The deregulation bill is bad but it was probably going to happen anyway. Some of the worst stuff was taken out of it. Still, it’s not good and legislators, environmental groups, and the press should let the public know.

On the other hand, the 1,000 jobs that will become protected instead of at-will may seem big, but that will sort itself out. Republican appointees who choose to stay will likely find life at work pretty uncomfortable. They can expect to see their offices shrink as well as their responsibilities. If they’re happy just collecting a paycheck waiting for another Republican administration, they’ll be fine. If they want to actually make a difference in their jobs, they’ll probably be gone in the not-to-distant future.

Stripping power away from Cooper was inevitable. Democrats did it to Republicans and they’ll do it again someday. What protestors and the press need to assess is which moves are going to most impact the people and which are going to most impact politicians. Further reducing the power of voters is bad. Jeopardizing the rights of citizens is bad. They might not be able to stop the GOP legislature, but they can make their moves political liabilities by explaining how the measures harm the lives of voters. Screaming about a generic naked power grab is probably going to fall on deaf ears.

 

6 Comments

  1. Glenn C. Koenig

    While shopping this evening, I noticed that North Carolina had made the front page of the New York Times today, … again. I live in Arlington, Massachusetts, but I’ve been watching some of what’s been going on in North Carolina for some time by now, after the passage of HB2 and the reaction to it, not only in North Carolina, but across the country.
    I went back to get a little background. I came across David Daley’s book ( https://www.amazon.com/Ratf-ked-Behind-Americas-Democracy/dp/1631491628 ), where he outlines how Democrats were asleep at the switch while Republican operatives openly announced what they were going to do and then went ahead and did it – seized upon the 2010 census as an opportunity to perform massive redistricting in key states across the country.
    The result was a legislature that doesn’t accurately represent the people of the state, because the election was ’tilted’ (I hesitate to say ‘rigged’ – I reserve that term for more direct fraud) by extreme redistricting. The more a legislature fails to represent the population of a state, the more I would call the government ‘unstable.’ I theorized that there were a lot of people in North Carolina who felt unfairly characterized by what the legislature was doing, as if the state was a monolithic population of reactionaries in the eyes of the rest of the country, resulting in boycotts and ridicule.
    To me, the essence of HB2, was how the state legislature directly overrode municipalities across the state. I looked into how HB2 was suspiciously similar to similar measures in other states, right down to the wording (see http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/04/alliance-defending-freedom-lobbies-anti-lgbt-bathroom-bills ). This further convinced me that the bill and the legislature that passed it did not fairly represent the people of North Carolina, and they were not going to sit idly by while all this went on. Call it ‘anti democratic’ if you will, but the point is, if government drifts (or is pushed) too far away from what the citizens (voters) really want, there is likely to be big trouble and soon.
    Now I think we are about to see what happens now that, in my opinion, the entire country has become more ‘unstable,’ if you will, after the 2016 election. I am waiting to see how the 157 million people (see http://www.messagerain.com/topic-blog/by-the-numbers-not-what-you-might-think ), who did not vote for Donald Trump are going to react to what he does. Even some of the 63 million who did vote for him may not end up being too pleased.

  2. Proud Progressive

    You attempt to be measured and balanced by saying some power stripping is inside baseball and should be expected. But what this legislature is doing is unprecedented.

    Taking whatever limited power a lieutenant governor may have had 30 years ago and moving the policy decisions about state public education from one elected Democrat to a board appointed by a Democratic governor – to advance a pro-public education platform is nothing close to what is happening with this legislature. And for no other reason than to undermine the electoral process, undermine public education at the state and local levels, and to undermine the new Democratic governor’s ability to enact a progressive agenda (which was already weakened by a Republican supermajority in the General Assembly),

    Granted, you said some of the measures being enacted now are extreme. But you spent a lot more time explaining how Democrats have done similar things in the past. Although it may have been well-intentioned, by saying Democrats have done similar things in the past you enable the Stams and Dallas Woodhouses and the other reprehensible and irresponsible Republicans to drive that argument in their arrogant messaging.

    We saw this dynamic in the Republicans’ extreme gerrymandering. Please stop enabling it. This is different. The better argument is to hammer away at how extreme this in fact is.

  3. Jim Bartow

    Of course the Democrats then are the Republicans now. Same people same tactics.

    • TY Thompson

      One learned from the other. Dems had many, many decades to teach Reps how to act when you have the majority and the Reps were apt students as it turns out. But where this constant short-sighted pursuit of immediate political advantage is killing the Dems is at the U.S. Senate….Reid was a fool to largely eliminate the filibuster and Senate Dems are now really going to learn why no one really wins when you go for “the nuclear option”.

  4. Eric Smith

    Tom– I think your Jim Gardner Lt Governor analogy is faulty. Bestowing that much legislative clout on the position was an inherently unworkable arrangement which might have made sense in the past when North Carolina was a one party state, but became untenable after we had evolved to a two party system. Reducing the Lt Governor’s span of control was a necessary revision to the modus operandi in the Senate. Some have argued that Jim Holshouser’s powers were diminished by the Democratic General Assembly when he was elected. I do not know that history. Did the Dems do anything to undermine Jim Martin’s authority? Martin was a good street fighter.

    Depending on the job descriptions, you may be too optimistic about the inability of the McCrory appointed moles now ensconced by civil service protections to make mischief in a Cooper administration.
    As for howling about power grabs, Trump got a lot of mileage with his accusations of a rigged system. North Carolina Republicans are not being the least bit subtle about how they are rigging the system in our state. North Carolinians elected Roy Cooper to be their governor not just a place holder in a powerless executive branch. Democrats certainly have certainly argued the broader issues like reduced teacher pay, refusal to accept federal MEDICAID expansion, reduction in unemployment benefits, etc. I have been on Halifax Mall with the Moral Monday movement many times. The brazenness of what is happening in the General Assembly today is an offense to everyone’s sense of fair play. I think what you have written above is too detached and wonkish.

  5. HunterC

    Astute assessment.

    So are you going to be the party chair now or an advisor?

    Who is to take this advice and use it in an effective manner.

    Great advice is one thing. Using it effectively is another.

    Seriously. There is no time to lose if a filing deadline is coming up in a few months.

    Who is leading the party/caucuses now? Not being facetious. This is usually a transition time, but competent leadership needs to be in place this week.

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