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North Carolina - Republicans

08
This week’s headlines tell a tale of the priorities and problems of North Carolina’s top three Republicans.
 
Governor McCrory, like all new governors, is focused on getting his cronies into state jobs and frustrated that he can’t fire current state employees fast enough. (A TAPster noted that McCrory’s off-with-their-heads story came out on State Employee Appreciation Day. Nice timing, Guv!) Unfortunately for him, state employees are skilled at exacting their revenge on Governors.
 
McCrory’s big story this week – his drill-baby-drill visit to Texas – was overshadowed by Senator Berger’s tax reform package. That’s not the first time Berger has upstaged the Governor; the last time was on education reform. Coincidence? (No, there are no coincidences in politics.)
 
Predictably, the House and the Governor will be happy to let Berger walk out onto the tax limb, and eager to saw it off. Already, Berger had to back off his ambitious plan to abolish income taxes.
 
Tillis, for his part, was warning his Republican flock about overreaching just as they were overreaching on guns. One young TAPster noted: “Great.  More guns at bars, college campuses and sporting events – the places where I spend 90 percent of my time.”
 
It took the Big Three less than four months to start stepping on each other’s toes. They obviously learned from the Democrats.

 

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07
A TAPster notes that the House’s gun bill allows concealed weapons at sporting events, adding: “I wouldn’t want to be a ref.”
 
Anyone who has been at a game and witnessed the raw anger that can erupt gets the point.
 
How would you like to be the ref who makes an unpopular call against the home team, wondering whether one of the 50,000 crazed fans screaming at you is packing?
 
Good call, House.
 
This is another issue where it would be nice to know where Governor McCrory stands. He does have the veto power, remember.

 

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06
Governor McCrory went to Texas to push for off-shore drilling, but where does he stand on deep-sixing renewable energy?
 
His old boss at Duke Energy opposes the bill. So do some legislative Republicans. But McCrory, the jobs and energy governor, is silent.
 
Does he agree with the argument made by Republican Rep. Mike Hager, who is pushing the bill to end the state’s renewables mandate. Hager told the N&O: “The idea is, what jobs expand the economy versus what jobs contract the economy.”
 
In other words, this free-enterprise Republican wants to decide which jobs he likes and which he doesn’t. At a time when many North Carolinians want any job.
 
What jobs does McCrory want?
 

 

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06
Who’d have thought it was possible – the Internet sweepstakes poker parlor folks have offered ‘to put $500 million’ in the state treasury – if the legislators will just see the light and let them stay in business.
 
Whoever heard of anybody volunteering to pay half a billion dollars in taxes? You have to wonder how much people in North Carolina are spending while sitting in Internet sweepstakes parlors? A billion?  $2 billion? $5 billion?
 
The story started last year when legislators voted to close down the sweepstakes parlors and put ‘em out of business;---of course the sweepstakes parlor operators didn’t much like that so they sued and took their lawsuit all the way to the State Supreme Court. At the same time, in case their lawsuit didn’t work out, the parlor operators got a couple of friendly legislators to sponsor a new bill to let them stay open – and that’s when they dangled that $500 million carrot in front of legislators.
 
And that’s not the only carrot: The newspaper reported sweepstakes operators also contributed $520,000 to politicians. And, a sweepstakes parlor operator told the News and Observer how, since last year, they’ve been spending $40,000 a week to pay lawyers and lobbyists.
 
That’s eye opening too. The politicians received $520,000 in contributions – while the lawyers and lobbyists were paid $2 million. Four times as much. What does that say about the ‘market value’ of politicians as compared to lobbyists?
 
The whole thing’s such a tangle it’s bound to land some of our well-meaning, church going Baptist legislators in a quandary: Righteousness must be whispering it’s wisest to shut the sweepstakes parlors down but temptation must be whispering $500 million is a lot of money to say No to.

 

 

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03
Raleigh Republicans’ once-united front is fraying. There was Rep. Larry Pittman’s non-apology apology to Speaker Tillis (“I’m not sorry I said it; I’m sorry I got caught.”) One wit noted that it read like a hostage letter. Was he waterboarded?
 
Then there’s renewable energy. Some Republicans chafed at the pressure behind the bill to abolish the renewable-energy portfolio, especially those whose districts have jobs and investments at stake. There are also those who worry about the signals the legislature is sending to companies looking at North Carolina (“We’re in a race to the bottom with Mississippi” and “No contract is safe with us in town.”)
 
The party that once chided Democrats for heavy-handed rule now routinely gavel through bills regardless of how members voted, including their own.
 
The sinister force behind the renewables bill appears to be Americans For Prosperity, who are for jobs and growth except when they’re aren’t. When these guys hear “renewable energy,” they apparently see the face of President Obama (also known as “Satan”). Jobs, schmobs! Off with their heads!
 
This suggests AFP would support Senator Berger in a Senate primary against that increasingly squishy moderate Tillis.
 
Intra-party splits like this are part of the natural order of things. As you would expect, the House and Senate clearly hate each other. Just as clearly, Governor McCrory is eager to spend as much time as he can out of town doing what he does best: grinnin’ and shakin’ folks hands.

 

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01
Is this what Governor McCrory means by government serving its customers? It’s certainly as blatant a statement of pay-to-play as has ever been made.
 
Sweepstakes operator William George of Rock Hill, S.C., who gave $4,000 to McCrory’s campaign, told AP: “We didn’t give them money because we liked them. We just knew they were powerful people up in Raleigh and they could get done what we wanted to get done. You give them your money and they’re supposed to do what they say they’re going to do.”
 
Now, here are some questions for the new Board of Elections to ask: Who are “they”? Lobbyists? Campaign officials? Elected officials? What did they say? To whom? On behalf of whom?
 
And, of course, what did the Governor know and when did he know it?
 
Law enforcement officials in North Carolina call video sweepstakes as one of the scummiest operations they have ever seen. The campaign contributions, according to George’s statement, were intended to “get done what we wanted to get done.”
 
First, the Governor and legislature should start by kicking these people firmly out of North Carolina. Then the board – and the SBI and the DA – should find out who promised what for the money.
 
This needs to be pursued just as hard and far as questions about Governor Perdue’s campaign flights.

 

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30
Raleigh has never seen this kind of one-party control.
 
Hold on, you say – especially my Republican friends: Democrats had one-party control for over 100 years.
 
No, not like this.
 
For most of those years, the Democratic Party was two parties. Think Terry Sanford and I. Beverly Lake. Or Jim Hunt and Jimmy Green.
 
After 1972, when conservatives began moving to the Republican Party, Democrats were constrained by their own moderate sensibilities and by practical politics. Marc Basnight and Tony Rand squelched some liberal initiatives from their own caucus because they feared the ballot-box consequences. They caught hell for it sometimes. So did Governor Hunt.
 
That’s not the case today. Only in the most extreme cases – say, establishing a state religion – have Republican leaders squelched their extremes. (If that bill had gone to a vote, most Republicans probably would have voted for it.)
 
So, as Carter has noted (see “Worrying About Primaries” below), Republicans in the legislature aren’t worried about ballot-box retribution from moderates across the board, they are worried about retribution from the most far-right elements of their party.
 
That’s a bad way to run government. I wouldn’t trust things to the most extreme elements of my party. And, in fact, Democrats didn’t.
 
If Republicans don’t rein it in, their reign will be short-lived.

 

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29
Within just a few days last week, the Perdue campaign-fund serial wrapped up, Sweepstakesgate ramped up and Governor McCrory cleaned house at the Board of Elections.
 
Grab a big bag of popcorn and settle in. This will take a while.
 
Especially since a majority of the previous board called for an investigation. And especially since AP reported that most of the $235,000 in contributions from Chase Burns “were delivered to candidates by Moore & Van Allen, a Charlotte law and lobbying firm where Gov. Pat McCrory worked until just days before he was sworn into office in January.”
 
Democrats will pursue this like bloodhounds. They’ll pressure the board, its staff, the media, the DA and watchdog groups to chase it just as hard as they did the Perdue matter.
 
Republicans will doubtless squawk that it’s overkill. But there is karma (and payback) in politics. And the new elections board can’t look like it’s applying a double standard.
 
Republicans will be in the campaign-finance crosshairs. Like Senator Berger on Page 1A of the N&O Sunday.
 
He said indignantly that he “would have walked out of the room” if anyone had tied a campaign contribution to a big corporate tax break. No need to walk, Senator. Nobody in the room needed to say anything. They all understood.
 
As someone said recently, the problem is that what looks slimy to the public passes as savvy in Raleigh.

 

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26
A legislator looked at a bill, winched, looked at another legislator and said, ‘Well, if I don’t vote for it I guess I’ll land in a primary.’
 
‘You think,’ the second legislator said, ‘that Republicans in your district are for people carrying guns in bars?’ The bill allowed people carry guns in bars, restaurants and on college campuses (as long as the gun is in a locked box).
 
‘Looking at the emails I’m getting,’ the first legislator said, ‘I’d say they do.’
 
‘How many emails are you talking about?’
 
‘Over a hundred.’
 
‘And how many Republican voters are in your district?’
 
‘About 20,000.’
 
‘So, because you got a hundred emails, you think you’re hearing the voice of 20,000 Republicans saying they support people carrying pistols in bars?’
 
The first legislator bristled. ‘You think that’s wrong?’
 
‘I think if you want to know what voters think you should take a poll.’
 
The first legislator, his mind made up, scratched his head. ‘You ever try that?’
 
‘Yep.’
 
‘What did it show?’
 
‘It said Republican voters have more common sense than legislators give them credit for.’
 

 

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24
Absolute good met absolute evil in a quiet Raleigh home Monday evening. Early Wednesday morning, Jamie Hahn lost her fight to live.
 
Her husband Nation and her family are devastated. But, as always happens at times like this, the best in people comes out. All day Tuesday, friends streamed into WakeMed to do what they could, say what they could and simply be with her family and with each other.
 
Mid-afternoon, their friends decided there should be a prayer vigil. Less than four hours later, hundreds of people jammed into Pullen Memorial Baptist Church. We lit candles for her. Nation spoke. We hugged, and we wept.
 
Together, Jamie and Nation had a unique quality that people responded to. They liked people. Their home was a familiar gathering place. People had fun.
 
Jamie liked politics, and she was good at it. She exemplified all that is good in politics. Nation is familiar to readers of this blog. He has been a guest blogger and will again, I trust.
 
Yesterday, the Wake County Republican Party posted a tribute to them both. That was a class act.
 
This is one of those times when what unites us as people is so much bigger than what divides us in politics.

 

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