Governor Josh Stein wisely ignored my semi-serious suggestion that he devote his inaugural speech to denouncing power-obsessed Republican bosses in the General Assembly.

But he made the point.

He said, “We have real problems to solve. And we do not have time to settle petty political scores or fight divisive culture wars.”

The Governor noted that when people in Western North Carolina helped victims of Hurricane Helene, “none of (them) cared a whit about the party registration of the person they were helping.”

In Raleigh, he added, both parties have worked together:

“It was Republican Governor Jim Holshouser working with a Democratic General Assembly who made North Carolina the first state in the South to offer kindergarten to every child.

“It was Democratic Governor Roy Cooper working with a Republican General Assembly who provided insurance coverage to 600,000 of our neighbors, improving their health and strengthening our healthcare system.

“And it was a unanimous bipartisan General Assembly that worked with me as attorney general to enact the Stop Act to combat opioid addiction, the Safe Child Act to protect kids from abuse, and the Survivor Act to clear the nation’s largest backlog of untested rape kits.”

But those are the exceptions to the rule.

On vital matters – education funding, climate change, reproductive rights and social and economic justice – Republicans ignore Democratic governors, who represent the interests of all the state and received a majority of votes across the state.

Imagine what Governor Stein could do, and what Governor Roy Cooper could have done, with a legislature that truly reflects North Carolina.

Governor Jim Hunt passed Smart Start and raised teacher pay to the national average. Governor Mike Easley passed More at Four and assured adequate funds for public schools despite a recession.

Instead of taking bold new steps, Cooper and now Stein have been locked in endless battles to sustain vetoes of bad legislation.

Legislative bosses get away with it because unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering blocks North Carolina voters from freely choosing their elected representatives. A partisan Supreme Court rubber-stamps the legislative bosses’ wishes.

Democrats and Republicans rightly denounce Jefferson Griffin for trying to disenfranchise 60,000 voters in the 2024 Supreme Court race.

But every year gerrymandering in legislative and congressional elections disenfranchises five million voters.

That is wrong.

As my friend Ken Eudy, an adviser to Governor Cooper, says, “This is North Carolina, not North Korea.”