Today’s political news will be dominated by the debate over whether or not to allow magistrates to forego their responsibilities to their jobs and opt out of marrying same-sex couples. The whole debate is depressing and a symbol of how far North Carolina has fallen.
The political leaders pushing this bill are grabbing the same mantle raised by segregationist leaders like Lester Maddox. Even as society’s views were shifting in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement, Maddox and his peers in the deep South tried to hold back history. North Carolina, in contrast, was trying to move on. Back then, and for the next forty years, we were seen as leading change. Now, we’re seen as resisting it.
On other fronts, we’ve already lost our stature. From the mid-1990s until the Republicans took control of the state, we made investments in public education that showed steady improvement in our schools. Today, South Carolina has surpassed us in both per pupil spending and teacher salaries. The GOP raised a battle cry about broken schools and are taking us down an ideological rabbit hole of for-profit charter schools because, in the view of the free market ideologues, competition makes everything better.
Our university system fired a highly respected and competent president without any discernible reason. The firm hired to find a replacement has said that the Board of Governors must offer a plausible explanation for ditching President Tom Ross if they hope to find somebody of his caliber to lead the system. Unfortunately, everyone knows that he was fired simply because of his political affiliation. By appointing ideologues and partisan zealots to the BOG, the Republicans have put the reputation of our university system at risk.
In passing highly restrictive abortion measures, the legislature sends a signal to the country that religious beliefs take priority over women’s rights. Despite the success of the solar industry in North Carolina, the legislature wants to kill the Renewable Energy Standard–not because it’s not working, but because it stands in conflict with free market principles.
The guiding principles of the Republicans leading our state are based in religion and ideology. The religious conservatives want to impose their Old Testament views of morality on the state and the free marketeers apply competition to every scenario whether it’s warranted or not. Instead of moving forward and leading the South, we’re clinging to the past and letting the rigid confines of ideology drive our economic strategies while tearing apart the institutions that made North Carolina great.
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 >
Unaffiliated?? This gets funnier by the minute. I am a Democrat, and I want my party to win elections, rather than going down in flames on causes that the rank and file of voters do not support. You gay marriage “evangelicals” are one issue people. Where were you for the first 130+ years after the 14th Amendment was passed? Were you old enough to vote in 2008? If so, did you refuse to vote for President Obama in 2008 when he said that he regarded marriage as a union between one man and one woman? If not, why not? If you need a source for his statement, I will provide it. It is more likely that you will simply ignore the issue.
Did you know that a famous case came before the SCOTUS more than a hundred years ago wherein women plaintiffs were suing to gain the right to vote under the 14th Amendment. The Court held that it did not ensure women’s right to vote. So, the suffragettes went to work and succeeded in passing the 19th Amendment. And remember that women could not vote for its passage, but “old conservatives” like me stepped up and supported it. The modern generation is too lazy to do anything like that; they want legislation enacted by sympathetic judges. We encourage people to get out and vote, telling them that their vote “will make a difference”. But when the vote does not go the way you want, you run to liberal judges and ask them to nullify the results.
Here is my final point — I not only support my party; I also believe in democracy.
But I expect you to just keep spinning and ignoring facts that I send you, which you obviously did not know previously.
Your final words are no surprise, Tom Hill. Take swipes at unaffiliateds, the “modern generation,” and all those who might seek recourse of grievances —- who might advocate for their constitutional rights —- via the judicial branch.
The judicial branch. That’s the courts, Tom. You know, the third branch of our democratic republic? But, by your words and your tome, it appears you find the courts extraneous and interloping. Your post suggests that you would see decisions like Roe vs. Wade or Brown vs. Board of Education as cases of illegitimate meddling by the courts.
And in answer to your questions, I was not alive 130 years ago (although by you own words, you apparently were). But I was 58 years old in 2008. I disagreed with Obama’s stand on gay marriage then, but not being a one-issue voter, I gave him my vote.
In sum, I support progressivism, not parties. I registered Unaffiliated because the GOP stridently seeks a regressive, aristocratic, anti-science (and often just plain insane) agenda across the state and nation, and because the Democratic Party in NC has been wholly dysfunctional and too often much like the GOP in its positions on social and economic issues.
I am not spinning anything. I just cited the numbers, and they were a record turnout for a primary vote. Something else you probably do not know is that ten Democratic legislators joined the Republican majority to provide the number required by the Constitution to put the measure on the ballot in 2012. They did so under the stipulation that the measure would be decided in the primary rather than the general election. Do a little research when you have time, instead of just assuming that the Republicans are responsible for all of the things you do not like. The 61 percent approval of Amendment was reached with a lot of Democratic votes by members of your own party who do not agree with the ultra-left agenda, and surprise — polls do not always reflect the way people vote when they step into the booth. Here is another thought — opinions do not count unless people have the fortitude to step up and vote on election day.
And you call me a brick wall?. I’ll repeat: a whole 26% of registered voters in NC voted FOR the Amendment. As you said, just citing that numbers.
Please, that one can find 10 very conservative Dems in the NCGA and lots of conservative Dems across the state who might go along with the regressive agenda of NC Republicans is no surprise to anyone.
You seem convinced that for Dems to win elections and regain control is to go quietly on the social issues front, to meekly go along with whatever regressive claptrap the GOP wants to advance — even if it further stifles the disadvantaged or denies people their rights.
Well, NEWS FLASH! Odds are good that the NC Marriage Amendment, which you seem so enamored with, and which already has been rendered moot via federal appeals court decision, will essentially be found unconstitutional by the SCOTUS in a few weeks. And if/when that happens, what will the votes and opinions of those “droves” of voters who approved the marriage amendment in 2012 mean, exactly? They will only mean that a lot of NC voter thinking was (and likely is still) backward, behind the times, and intolerant.
And it will also mean that those who opposed that amendment then and have made noise about it ever since will be vindicated and proven right.
You have said it, again and again, as in “don’t upset the more conservative members of the Dem Party with progressive ideas. Just focus on the important things, like jobs, income inequality, student debt and a living wage.” But indeed, there are unaffiliateds like me who would love for the Dems to have that focus on those issues, but who cannot, at the same time, go quietly when people’s rights and lives suffer at the hands of the GOP.
And perhaps you should spend less effort trying to spin things with your stats.
Fact is that an amendment to the NC constitution was decided in May 2012 on the basis of 2.2M votes cast out of a registered electorate of 6.3M. As such, the state’s constitution was changed (so as to essentially discriminate against NC citizens on the basis of sexual orientation) by a vote held on a primary election day and NOT on a general election day, which would have more attuned to the state’s voters’ true voice.
That primary day attracted only 35% of the state’s registered voters, and, given that there was a Republican presidential primary vote on the ballot (a vote that still had some meaning nomination-wise), it drew a greater proportion of registered Repubs than registered Dems. That happening was not lost on NCGA GOP leaders who explicitly called for the amendment vote to be held that day. The result? The amendment passed, but with only 26% of the state’s registered voters voting in favor of it.
But you go right ahead and keep on believing that a 35% turnout of voters represents “droves” of NC voters, and that 26% of NC registered voters who voted for Amendment 1 constitutes overwhelming support.
In the 2012 NC primary, there were a total of 2,157,980 votes cast, of which 1,317,178 (61 per cent) voted in favor of Amendment 1. There were 840,802 votes (39 percent) cast against it. In the 2014 NC primary there were 1,028,600 votes cast out of 6,516,126 registered voters, and there was a spirited contest between Thom Tillis and the Tea party candidate. The 2014 number is less than half the votes cast in the 2012 primary. State Board of Elections data. Perhaps we should spend more time doing a little research and less time pontificating.
Dear Progressive Wing:
If I understand you correctly, you are saying that our party has no blame for the disastrous losses we have endured since the 2010 election, and we should keep doing the very things we have been doing — our losses are strictly due to gerrymandering by the Republicans. If this is true, how did they manage to take control from us in 2010 before the gerrymandering began, and not by a small margin either? I have heard before the litany of excuses you offer: gerrymandering, don’t compare state with federal results, low voter turnout in an off year general election, low voter turnout in the 2012 primary, etc. The last claim is simply false. Voters turned out in droves for a primary election to vote on homosexual marriage, and the result was a landslide for Amendment 1. BTW, you forgot to claim “bad luck”. That is a favorite for people who keep doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result every time. I am going to let this conversation end now, since I am arguing with a brick wall. But I am still smiling over your “beyond logic” comment. Thanks for that.
Keep speaking these truths!
No, you don’t understand me correctly; you have reading comprehension issues, and like to put words in posters’ mouths. Not sure where you are getting your misinformation either; voters did not turn out “in droves” for the marriage amendment vote. Finally (as I too would like to end this volleying), I hope your dream that Dems stop standing up strongly and loudly against intolerant and mean-spirited social issue legislation perpetrated by the GOP (because, well, that upsets some people) never becomes a reality.
Dear Progressive Wing:
1. The Senate race in 2014 was state-wide and could not be gerrymandered. Yet we lost with a good incumbent Senator named Kay Hagan who, with a campaign chest of $22+ million, out spent Thom Tillis, the leader of the bad legislation which had been passed by the Republicans. That happened even though many partiers disliked Tillis extremely and refused to vote for him.
2. Amendment 1 passed in 2012 by a statewide majority of about 60 percent. In my district the majority was exactly 2 to 1. But the votes had barely been counted when the gay marriage advocates began claiming that polls showed the opposite result would occur if the election were to be held the next day. As the court battles show, they never had any intention of accepting the vote by the majority. A lot of people are still angry about this issue, and if the SCOTUS approves gay marriage as a federal constitutional right, which I believe they will, the Amendment 1 voters will rightly blame the Democrats for that outcome during the 2016 election.
3. Yes, there is gerrymandering by the Republicans, but we started it. It was a Democratic controlled state legislature that passed the law forbidding the governor from vetoing redistricting. Our leaders at that time couldn’t believe that the Republicans would ever gain control of both houses, but would win the governorship from time to time. Then when the unthinkable happened, Gov. Perdue could not veto the Republican actions. BTW, they have been in control for the past 5 years, and now have a super majority.
The sad truth is that on the whole we Democrats are not connecting with any voters other than our own loyal party members. Check out the vote counts yourself. We have lots of excuses, but if we want to return this State to an education and middle class oriented place that we can be proud of, we must be honest with ourselves and focus on issues such as income inequality, outrageous student debt, and jobs that pay a decent living wage. That is our challenge.
1. Thomas’ blog is about the NCGA, not a statewide federal office. Extreme, perhaps-still-to-be-found-unconstitutional gerrymandering has everything to do with the GOP’s hold on the NCGA since 2011.
2. That marriage amendment vote succeeded in a very poorly attended May primary vote. Recent polls suggest that, if a re-vote was held today, it would be neck-and-neck. And your argument that the Dems are losing voter support because they have steadfastly resisted and not meekly accepted an intolerant social issue amendment to the state’s constitution, and in doing so, have thus alienated too many in their own party and unaffiliateds, is beyond logic.
3. Arguments like “well, they (or we) did it, so all’s fair” don’t cut it with me. The sort of gerrymandering conducted by the GOP in 2011 went beyond anything ever done by the Dems. High-paid demographic and locational-analysis consultants utilizing the best cartographic and GIS software, went down to people’s mailboxes to carve up districts in their favor.
4. If we agree on anything, it is that the Dems need to be more focused about jobs, income inequality, regressive taxation, and the minimum wage. That said, I think being vigorously opposed to intolerance in every corner of our society is a noble cause, and the Dems should always do that—regardless of who “takes offense.”
Thanks for speaking the truth. Rare and courageous.
Tom Hill:
1. “Yet the voters reelected them. Why? Are all the voters stupid?”
No.
The election district lines are now the product of extreme gerrymandering, and will likely be until 2021. Even though Dems and Unaffiliateds outnumber Repubs in NC, the lines are drawn in such a way that elections in most (not all) House and Senate districts are skewed toward GOP wins.
More registered Dems and Unaffiliateds than registered Repubs voted in 2014. But until demographic/residency trends have greater impact voter registrations within district, or until the next reapportionment happens (2021) with Dems in control, or until the courts intercede and call for redrawing district lines, it will be tough to lessen the Republican advantage.
2. “It is my belief that we have alienated them through social issues, and they are so ticked off that they were and are willing to vote against their own economic interests.”
I disagree. I do not believe the social issue alienation drove the 2014 results. Trending on social issues in NC is now clearly toward the progressive side (see how the polling numbers on same-sex marriage here and across the country have turned around just since 2012). It was just the typical low-turnout midterm election, which in NC favors the GOP.
I am glad they are wasting their time on social issue legislation and that the energy issues are on the back burner. Energy being the foundation of civilization, its future direction must be secured and pointed down the correct path of renewables. NC State has the technology to make gas long after Frackers have ruined the water and left. Once the water is ruined the State is ruined.
Yankee invaders, or just invaders have long been seen as bad minds in the area and putting them all in Raleigh and Cary was good enough for the blockheads of the state till recently. Now legislation will run the invaders out, leaving the old timey fat men and their expensive plate events to the wasting of the land.
During the 2014 campaign we Democrats pointed out what the Republicans were doing with education, taxes, retirement benefits, etc. Yet the voters reelected them. Why? Are all the voters stupid? I don’t think so. The independents and the Democrats together outnumber the Republican voters. So, why are we not appealing to the independents? It is my belief that we have alienated them through social issues, and they are so ticked off that they were and are willing to vote against their own economic interests. We sit back and congratulate ourselves on our intellect and liberalism, while we continue to lose the general elections.
maybe Democrats and Independents should vote and we would have no more 2014’s. Until then suck it up!
The only ‘failure’ is the failure to see that poverty has an impact on a child’s ability to learn.
When the test scores of children from low income homes are taken out of the average, American test scores are some of the best in the world. Our schools are doing just fine. If we want all test scores to be high, we have to tackle poverty in America.
Some are so busy blaming the poor for being poor, and trying to punish them for their supposed lack of a Puritan work ethic that they are incapable of seeing that providing help for the poor, and especially for their children, will be the tide that lifts all boats (corporate profit margins are never going to be that tide).
Thomas, I am glad to see you publicizing the role religion and ideology play in our current leadership. It is clear from observing GOP actions at the General Assembly that they do not really represent NC citizens but owe their allegiance to someone, someplace else.
Thomas, why don’t you run for office? You are on top of the issues and know as much or more about campaigning than any of our office-holders.
It’s not hard to see the dept of education is a failure. We’ve dropped from top in the world…well I will use a famous movie line…”if you’re not first you’re last.
But keep pushing education brainiacs…you will push the USA off the ledge all for YOUR ideology!
“From the mid-1990s until the Republicans took control of the state, we made investments in public education that showed steady improvement in our schools.” At What Price? Is any price ok? Is no price too high? Is near fiscal insolvency worth it? Is there no limit to the tax burden placed on the citizenry? just tax the rich and everything will be ok? Don’t you think the change happened because the population finally realized the tax and spenders, (on all the lovely niceties you list -ha) would never stop? Outcomes Baby…that’s what matters. There was no ‘steady improvement’ in our schools, and the other ‘investments’ ( raising taxes) were clearly not well done now, were they, or our infrastructure wouldn’t be crumbling, surely that doesn’t happen in 3 or 4 short years? How about addressing that? Where are the results of that? Poverty rate, unchanged, graduation rates, unchanged. Sigh…must you bury your head so deeply so that you really can’t see the simple untruths you are spouting?
Actually, high school graduation rates have gone up steadily—and started going up 12 years after greater funding was invested in schools, teachers and teachers’ assistants.
It was not education investment that created what you call ‘fiscal insolvency’ but a major market crash.
Most Americans view paying taxes as not just a obligation of citizenship, but as a right of citizenship. We ALL contribute to the Common Good. Yes, there is a common good. And part of it is in seeing that everyone is as educated as they can possibly be.
There WAS steady improvement in our school outcomes. And making good long-term investments and “raising taxes” are NOT one in the same thing. And infrastructure, when not maintained, DOES go downhill fast—like in the last 5 years. And the poverty rate CAN’T change much when a certain party eliminates the EITC and won’t move on a raise in the minimum wage, and when businesses don’t use their tax breaks to invest in their facilities or workers. And the so-called “tax and spenders” clearly have now been replaced by the “tax and non-spenders”.
Sigh….must you dwell in that neo-con echo chamber so comfortably and so often that you are blind to so many realities and truths?
$834 billion is being hidden in off shore havens by north Carolina businesses to evade taxes.
Duke power got a IRS tax refund for $143 million and paid zero taxes the same year they requested a rate hike.
On the average small businesses own paid $1200 more this year in taxes. the repugs “Claimed ” to have cut personal tax only to recover it and more with hidden nickel and dime sales to death sales taxes. causing the middle class and working poor to disproportionately to pay more in hidden taxes than they would have under the old system.
Cities are discovering where the magical surplus the Repugs touted about came from noting they must raise property taxes and and local taxes on all thing to make up the loss of state revenue that they were getting.
Even the Pope of North Carolina ( art pope) the hand picked koch ” state budget director
quit before anybody could pin the blame for the economic mess on him LOL
At best this new breed of Repugs are no more that the latest wave of carpetbaggers to hit our state to loot the state for it’s resources for their own personal gain at the taxpayer expense.
Like the Kids to Cash charter school conversion system taxpayer funded voucher scam.
we can sell now you wallsteet junk bonds for the I-77 troll road. LOL! Thanks to repugs we ” can ” sell you the Brooklyn bridge here in North Carolina or at least a freeway.
you want to bet more that a few republican donors and city councilmen along the route are investing in heavily in toll road special bonds now.
It is a Rick Perry style toll road tax payer rip off.. the same company has bankruptcy proceedings across America for their toll road scams.
The strong anti-union,out sourcing, prison labor and illegal immigrate hiring republican businesses accounts for the ongoing Poverty in the State and of course you have STEM ,why educate your work force when you can import techs from India or Norway to do the brain work. Much cheaper that funding public schools for educating your workforce,
If we can ever get these Corporate welfare Queens off our citizens backs we might have a chance….
To say there were no education improvements that came with the state’s tax-based investments in public education and in the UNC system is patently false and a display of willful ignorance. Here is a short list of what we got for our money: teacher retention went up; the academic caliber of our teaching force improved; NC produced the largest number of Nationally Board Certified Teachers of any state in the US; student success on NAEP test increased; minority enrollment in UNC institutions increased at a higher % than non-minority students.
But, perhaps most important was the impact of knowledge-based jobs growth in NC and business recruitment as the word spread that NC was investing in education. The message was: you can do business here and your children can get a great education PreK through college. That is not the message they are hearing now – and we will pay the price and we already see it happening. While low wage jobs are up, overall wages in NC is down.
Excellent analysis, Thomas. I still … and will continue to go back to the voter(s). This is the change they wanted. I yearn to hear one republican yet again exclaim; “well, this isn’t exactly what I voted for.” I read numerous republican comments from different sources who are dismayed with McCrory and the current legislature.
My only question is …. Were you truly that lazy and ignorant to have not done your homework before casting your vote?
Yes they were. It is sad.
I believe that it is not wholly the voters who are at fault.
Pre-2010, NC was very purple, leaning blue. The upcoming 2010 elections would be critical in terms of which party would reapportion all state and federal electoral districts for the next decade. But, alas, the state’s and nation’s economy tumbled very badly in 2009-10, into the worse economic times since 1929, and, following their fears and their job and pocketbook needs, NC voters gave Republicans their chance at the helm in Nov. 2010.
It was very hard to foresee the extreme Tea Party, ideological, and free market agendas that the GOP would advance once in power. Republicans carried out egregious gerrymandering of districts so skewed that it’s still a court matter as well as making it near-impossible for Dems to close the NCGA super-majority. Add to that the dysfunction of the NCDP and, well, “it is what it is ” today.
Yes, NC voters shoulder a good amount of the blame, but not all of it.