GOP legislators outfox governor

This column was published in the Wilson Times Sept. 7, 2019.

North Carolina Democrats are entitled to feel good about themselves after two successful elections. In 2016, their gubernatorial candidate, Roy Cooper, won the governor’s seat, but his effectiveness was stymied by powerful personalities in the state legislature, who held a veto-proof majority and used a lame-duck session in December 2016 to pare away powers traditionally wielded by the state’s chief executive, leaving Cooper as a governor with relatively few executive powers.

In 2018, Democrats set their sights on taking enough legislative seats away from the Republicans to make the Democratic governor’s veto power an actual power. Democrats succeeded in what has been called a “wave election,” and Cooper soon made it clear that he wouldn’t be shy about vetoing legislation he didn’t like. Democrats won nine previously GOP seats in the House and six formerly GOP seats in the Senate, enough to prevent overrides of his vetoes.

But Democratic officials have made some strategic errors since last year’s election. Gov. Cooper misjudged the tenacity of the GOP legislative leaders. As usual this year, the legislature’s budget and the governor’s budget did not match. Among other expenditures that they disagreed on were teacher salaries and expansion of Medicaid.

Cooper found the legislators’ budget unacceptable, so he vetoed it. He called for negotiations with the GOP leadership. Speaker of the House Tim Moore and Senate Majority Leader Phil Berger have essentially told Cooper, “Go negotiate yourself.”

Republicans have done all they can to minimize gubernatorial powers, and Cooper’s adamant demand for negotiations on the budget is going nowhere, adding to the GOP’s aim to make the governor appear irrelevant. That perception won’t help Cooper win re-election next year.

GOP leaders displayed their shrewdness and strategic thinking by introducing individual parts of the legislature’s vetoed budget and bringing these individual bills up for a vote. Piecemeal is a poor way to plan spending, but it can have some political effectiveness. Among the popular bills passed while this stalemate continues is one giving raises to state employees — raises that had been on hold because of Cooper’s budget veto.

Cooper is likely headed for a difficult re-election bid in 2020. President Trump carried North Carolina in 2016, with Cooper’s success (thanks to then-Gov. Pat McCrory taking a more conservative turn after taking office, having campaigned as a pragmatic moderate in 2012). Being out-played by legislative leaders is not Cooper’s only political problem in 2020.

As Hurricane Dorian aims for the N.C. coast, the Cooper administration has spent only seven percent of Federal Emergency Management Agency block grants to aid recovery from last year’s Hurricane Florence. Cooper says the problem is that the feds have not issued rules and standards for spending block grants to help Florence victims. That may be true, but the Cooper administration has done a poor job of explaining exactly what the problem is and how the governor aims to fix it.

Cooper may also come to regret another veto he issued, this one on a bill requiring North Carolina sheriffs to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention requests. Some newly elected Democratic sheriffs, including sheriffs in urban counties have announced they will not do ICE’s work for them, but in a generally conservative state that has been dramatically changed by hundreds of thousands of immigrants, many of them undocumented, cooperation with ICE doesn’t sound so bad to many voters. Expect this issue to be discussed in the 2020 election for governor.

Cooper has found himself outfoxed by a strategic-thinking GOP while he has focused on playing to the Democratic base.

I will vote no on state amendments

There likely will be six amendments to the State Constitution on the November ballot, and I intend to vote against all of them. Not all have made it through the legislative process yet, I might not get to vote no six times, but I'll vote no as often as the ballot allows.

Part of my distaste for these amendments is philosophical; constitutional amendments should be rare and thoroughly examined and should deal with major issues that cannot be settled by a simple legislative bill. The constitution is a permanent standard, and amendments become part of that standard forever unless repealed by another statewide referendum rescinding the previous amendment.

It's not the subject matter of the proposed amendments that bother me as much as the manner in which they are being placed on the ballot and the dishonesty, vengeance, and power-grabbing that are behind these permanent changes to state law. Some of the amendments deal with topics that need examination and perhaps change, but this legislature, with it veto-proof Republican majority gained through blatant and admitted political gerrymandering, would distort the balance of power among the three independent branches of state government by allowing legislators to control all three branches.

Take, for example, the proposals to take away the governor's authority to appoint members of executive-branch boards and commissions. The governor, elected statewide, would lose that authority, handing it over to the state Senate and House. Effectively, the change would give two members of the legislature, the speaker of the House and the president pro-tem of the Senate, the power to appoint officials in the executive branch. The leaders of both chambers enjoy nearly dictatorial powers over their partisan colleagues (similar powers have been wielded by leaders in both parties over the years). The effect is that appointive power would be taken from a constitutional officer elected statewide and given to legislators elected by constituents in gerrymandered districts.

Although none of the amendments are earth-shattering, they do deal with important issues. Voters will not see a full description of the amendment they vote for or against, only a very short (and incomplete) summary. It is not a stretch to say that voters in most cases won't know what they're voting on.

Take the Voter ID amendment. It makes no sense to put this requirement in the state Constitution. A simple legislative bill would have the same impact — requiring a photo ID at the polls. The legislature's prior effort to pass this requirement was struck down by a federal court because it was found to violate voting rights laws. Putting the requirement in the state Constitution won't change the court's authority to strike down the requirement. State laws or state constitutional amendments are both subject to federal court review and rejection.

The real reason for this amendment? Republican officials think having the amendment on the ballot will bring voters out to vote for it. If the amendment passes, the legislature will have the authority to pass a law with all the details; voters won't know what's in the implementing legislation until sometime later. If you vote for this amendment, you're buying a pig in a poke. (Personally, I do not oppose a voter ID law if it provides assurances that every eligible voter can obtain an acceptable photo ID without unreasonable cost or difficulty.)

Another amendment restricts the state personal income tax rate from going above 5.5 percent. The constitution now limits the rate to 10 percent. This bill may be popular, like the voter ID bill, but it could have unanticipated consequences. The state has huge needs in infrastructure (highways, bridges, parks, schools, building repairs, etc.). By restricting the income tax, this amendment would force the state to look to property taxes, sales taxes, fees and other revenue sources to meet the state's needs. Is a 5.6 percent tax rate all that bad? How about a 15 percent sales tax?

Other proposed amendments would enshrine a constitutional right to hunt and fish in North Carolina, would install a second victim's rights amendment to the state Constitution, would upend the traditional means of filling between-elections vacancies in state judgeships through gubernatorial appointment based on recommendations from the local bar, giving legislators a role in the process; would end the governor's authority to appoint members of the state Elections Board, which would become the Elections and Ethics Board, giving legislators a role in the process.

Voting for these proposed amendments would endorse a power grab by legislative leaders, who have already grabbed all the power they could get away with.