Nancy

Documentation. Witnesses. Facts. Truth. That's what they're afraid of.

Friday, December 16, 2016

A Visit to North Carolina, or a Reminder that Republilcans are Never the Good Guys Anymore

Ever.

I'm not going to go too much in depth on this story; Josh Marshall and the local NC press are covering it really well.

I just thought that in the context of how Republicans conduct themselves in the context of a close race (see Trump's Nuremberg Rall... er, I mean Thank You Tours while trying to kill recounts) while the Democrats remain incredibly respectful of democracy, our readers should know what the Republicans are doing in North Carolina.

The sitting Republican governor Pat McCrory, lost a narrow race to Democrat Roy Cooper. He tried to pull out all the stops to have a recount (which is fine by me), but after not getting his way there, here's what the Republican legislature is up to:

The GOP gambit in the short term would deny the governor certain powers right before Democrat Roy Cooper is sworn in, tilting the political playing field to the advantage of the GOP legislature. But the move also defied recent trends toward a stronger governor in North Carolina.
"The trend, over the last, I would say, several decades, has been for the office of governor to get stronger," Eamon told TPM, adding that if passed, the new proposals would mark a big reversal.
The extraordinary power grab by the lame-duck GOP legislature comes after Cooper defeated Gov. Pat McCrory (R) in a bitter election battle that dragged a month past Election Day. After a special session this week to address disaster relief legislation, the Republican-led state General Assembly called an additional surprise special session and proceeded to introduce legislation that would strip the governor's authority when it comes to political appointees and reduce his power over the election system.
In a proposal from North Carolina House Republicans, the governor's cabinet appointees would now be subject to approval from the state Senate, which Eamon said would be a "dramatic change." The legislation would also reduce from 1,500 to 300 the number of "exempt positions" — which are often political in nature — appointed by the governor. This comes after the same Republican legislature in 2013 increased the number of exempt positions McCrory could appoint by about 1,000 jobs. The bill would also allow many of the political employees appointed by McCrory to stay on as permanent staffers under Cooper's administration.
Michael Bitzer, a political science professor at Catawba College, told TPM that the proposal would shift political appointees from the governor to other elected officials, many of whom are Republicans.
State GOP lawmakers in particular gave more power to the state superintendent now that a Republican has been elected to the office. Bitzer said that shifting power to the state superintendent "would basically be a slight against the governor-elect." Under the proposal, the governor would no longer have control over charter schools and would not be able to appoint members to the state education board or the University of North Carolina system's board of trustees.

They lost the Governorship, so they take power away from the governor. When they control an executive branch, they give power back to it. It's SOOOO Machiavellian. They they arrest anyone who complains.

They do not believe in democracy, and they cheat. Let me say it again. They cheat. So when Democrats say that the Russians may have hacked our election (they did in some sense or another)  and that they need to put hurdles in front of minority voters seeking to vote, they're just coming up with another way to cheat. Just keep that in mind and never forget it.

#BothSidesDont