North Carolina – Republicans
Who Won?
The Governor lined his cabinet secretaries up in a row, sat down behind a table, clenched his fist, looked straight into the cameras and said there’d been tough, tense negotiations but he’d threatened a few vetoes and everyone had come around so, to his way of thinking, the budget was fine. Since May, when…
Read MoreA Veteran’s Verdict
A long-time veteran of the Legislative Building, one who looks at both parties with a critical eye, offers this critique of the end of the not-so-short session. “Legislative Republicans treated each other last week just like they’ve treated the state’s citizens for the last two years: with meanness, impatience, and a lack of caring,…
Read MoreWhacking a Structuralist
The mention of the phrase ‘public schools’ conjures up a vision of nurturing teachers and faithful laboring principals but it turns out ‘Big Education’ is a kingdom teeming with ‘Big Players’ from teachers’ unions to textbook publishers to testing companies all battling for promotions, contracts and a bigger piece of the billions spent on public…
Read MoreSine D’oh
It may still be unclear what this legislature did, but it’s very clear how they did it: with remarkable bile, bitterness and backstabbing among the forces of McCrory, Tillis and Berger. Oddly, there wasn’t the usual simultaneous adjournment, with members from both houses sharing smiles and handshakes at the end. The Senate passed its…
Read MoreTwo North Carolinas
Shades of John Edwards and “Two Americas!” The state Senate seemed to channel the former Senator in the debate over how to help the state’s stagnating rural areas keep up with booming urban areas. One Senator said we need to “level the playing field.” There is a political angle to this, of course.…
Read MoreBOMs Away!
Democrats and progressives routinely decry Big Outside Money (BOM). Maybe they should recalculate. BOM has fundamentally reshaped the U.S. Senate race – in favor of Senator Hagan and against Speaker Tillis. A flood of ads sponsored by pro-Hagan groups like the Senate Majority PAC have painted Tillis as the friend of CEOs, yacht-owners and…
Read MoreIf Dan Blue…
As soon as Conor the Jessecrat sat down at our regular political dinner he unfolded a newspaper, pointed, and said, There’s a headline to strike terror in every Congressman’s heart. I read ‘Judge Orders Districts Redrawn’ and thought about the half-a-dozen lawsuits in North Carolina about redistricting but it turned out this lawsuit was in…
Read MoreState for Sale. Cheap!
Art Pope’s critics often accuse him of “buying the State of North Carolina.” If he did, he got it cheap. The Washington Post this weekend published its obligatory profile about the mild-mannered retail magnate who became the Superman ruling over North Carolina’s budget, politics and university system. Two numbers catch your eye. …
Read More64 and 48
They’re not highway numbers, or ages. They are the two big numbers driving North Carolina’s education debate this year. When you take an eight-miles-high view of the legislature, setting aside the partisan debates and vitriol, the most striking thing is that Republicans are arguing this year over whether to raise teacher pay 5-6 per…
Read MoreWe Report, You Decide
New Yorker magazine, as I recall, once had a department called: “Which newspaper do you read?” It juxtaposed totally opposite headlines about the same story. To wit this week: “Clay Aiken outpaces GOP candidate in 2nd quarter fundraising” (Sandhills Tribune). “Rep. Ellmers ahead of Aiken in fundraising in 2nd Congressional District” (Fayetteville Observer).…
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