December 2016 - You might think that after losing the Governor's mansion and their majority on the state's Supreme Court in the fall elections, North Carolina's Republicans might temper their aggressively partisan behavior. But you would be wrong. The gerrymandered Republican legislature decided to continue the power grab they began in 2010 after winning majorities in both houses of the legislature.

Under the guise of a special session called for purposes of addressing hurricane relief, the Republicans passed the following measures, most of which are an attempt to limit the power of the incoming Democratic governor, Roy Cooper. These measures include:

Requiring that various gubernatorial appointments be confirmed by the State Senate
Reducing the governor's control of state and county election boards
Limiting the governor's ability to select members for state education boards
Reducing the number of staff members the governor can hire or fire at will from 1,500 to 300, thereby attempting to keep the Cooper administration staffed with hundreds of Republicans. (This after having expanded the number of executive branch staff positions during the current Republican administration)
Creating a larger role for the GOP-controlled state appeals court

(NC Capitol image from HuffPost.com)

Most North Carolinians recognize what the legislature is up to but, for the moment, there is little that can be done, although Mr. Cooper has expressed his intention to challenge at least some of these measures in court.

Other Recent Examples

Partisan power grabs of this type are nothing new for the current breed of North Carolina Republicans. After winning the legislature in 2010, the Republicans gerrymandered the state House and Senate legislative districts and the state's U.S. Congressional districts in such a way that, while the state is pretty much evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, the Republicans now win most of those elections. In 2012, for example, the first election after instituting their gerrymandered Congressional districts, the GOP won 10 of the 13 Congressional races even though the Democrats won over 50% of the total vote in those 13 elections.

(To get more background on the concept of gerrymandering, it's consequences, and possible remedies, see our article "Voters Should Choose Their Politicians, not Vice-Versa...Just Ask Lincoln", .)

North Carolina's gerrymandering was recognized as being so bad that a court challenge to the current district boundaries has resulted in an order that 28 House and Senate districts be re-drawn and new elections in those districts be held in 2017. In addition, the US Supreme Court is reviewing the constitutionality of two of the state's Congressional district boundaries; a decision on those is expected in June of 2017.

(NC Congressional districts image from northcountrypublicradio.org)

The Republicans' attempt to maintain power through unconstitutional means didn't stop with re-districting, though. In what another court deemed an attempt to disenfranchise African American voters (who have tended not to vote Republican in recent years) "with almost surgical precision", the legislature voted to sharply reduce early voting, end same-day registration and out-of-precinct voting, and institute questionable voter identification requirements.

The Resulting Public Policy Mistakes

While the concentration of power in the hands of Republicans may have pleased some North Carolinians, the result of the GOP having held all three branches of government has neither been surprising to us nor has it been beneficial to the state as a whole. The legislature has produced the standard far right public policy initiatives that typically end up benefiting the well-off at the expense of the average Citizen.

For example, tax breaks were given to businesses and upper income individuals but, in order to pay for these tax breaks, the legislature had to find other sources of revenue. Naturally, the burden fell on workers, the middle class, and retirees, all of whom were subjected in various ways to the dozens of GOP tax increases or tax deduction eliminations, the latter effectively increasing the amount of tax that average Citizens have to pay. Some of our favorite examples (we say that facetiously) of this GOP tax shifting include:

Elimination of personal exemptions on the state's income tax
Elimination of deductions for retirement income
Elimination of credits for child care, permanent and total disability, property taxes paid on farm machinery, education expenses, and charitable contributions for those who do not itemize their deductions
Elimination of a deduction for contributions to North Carolina's 529 college savings plans
Elimination of a deduction for personal business income that was frequently used by full-time workers who moonlighted at a second job to help make ends meet
An increase in the sales tax on movie tickets and other amusements
An increase in the franchise/sales tax on electricity and piped natural gas from 3 percent to 7 percent
Replacement of the preferential 2 and 2.5 percent tax rates for manufactured and modular homes with the higher state rate of 4.75 percent
Elimination of the Energy Star and back-to-school sales tax holidays
Subjecting dozens of services to the state sales tax for the first time, including: automotive repairs, maintenance, and inspections; trouble-shooting computer software, fluid leaks, or unusual noises; repairing laptops, cell phones, cameras, and removing viruses; mending clothes and polishing shoes; tuning pianos, restringing musical instruments or tennis rackets
Limiting tax breaks for farm equipment and supplies to farms that can show at least $10,000 in direct farm income

Of course, the most publicized piece of legislation passed by the North Carolina GOP was the so-called "bathroom bill", which prohibited local jurisdictions from passing their own definitions of how public restrooms could be used. This bill resulted in many businesses and organizations canceling proposed business expansion in the state or canceling conventions/events within the state, thereby costing the state's economy tens of millions of dollars.

Another aspect of this bill that got little publicity was the provision to prohibit localities from setting minimum wage requirements above that of the state's minimum wage, which currently is set at $7.25 per hour. We're not sure why the state would be opposed to a city trying to help it's poorest workers in this way, but this is just further evidence that, not only do the extreme elements of the GOP not care to help the working poor but they actively legislate in a way that hurts them.

As indicated earlier in this article, though, change may be coming to North Carolina politics. For the time being, the Republicans still hold veto-proof majorities in both houses of the legislature, so Governor-elect Cooper will have his hands full. But let's hope the GOP sees the writing on the wall and starts to behave in a more bi-partisan manner, thereby giving North Carolinians a more representative and better state government.

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