North Carolina is undertaking an effective coup against the incoming governor who beat Pat McCrory

[ehrnst]

While attention is elsewhere on Russia and Trump, the GOP in North Carolina is undertaking an effective coup against the incoming governor who beat Pat McCrory. They are passing laws effectively rendering the governor powerless because of course they want ALL THE POWER.

PLEASE. If you can, write, call, tweet these people in the NC legislature using this list.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1d4aqgRgDqjz1KZl219xsQw8F8dGJ-PJzvltN7uDMLX4/edit#gid=0

Tell them to STOP the power grab. Tell them you are watching. Tell them how shameful they are. Tell them to respect our democracy.

You can refer to the piece for specifics, below. If you can only call/write/ and/or tweet the House and Senate leadership in North Carolina, do that.

Do this even if you do not live in NC. But ESPECIALLY do it if you do live there and send it to those you know who live there.



http://www.statehouseaction.com/2016/12/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-nc.html

[ehrnst]

1. Story in NYT:

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/12/14/us/politics/north-carolina-governor-roy-cooper-republicans.html

[still_one]

2. This is an outrage, and I suspect the national television media is ignoring it

NY Times and other papers are reporting it

[MattP]

3. They are making the governor powerless

[drm604]

4. Wow. They are being completely blatant about it.

They held a surprise special session, with no notice to any of the Democrats about any of the bills they plan to file.

Bad faith governance at its worst.

[Jersey Devil]

5. Most insidious is the election board changes

The NC governor's office has controlled the majority on election boards throughout the state and now the Repubs are trying to make it "bipartisan" because they fear a special election in 2017 called by the courts due to district gerrymandering along racial lines. They fear the new gov will expand early voting days, hours and places, reversing this year's voter suppression by McCrory and the Repub legislature.

Hopefully the Dems will take it to court on the grounds that this special session was illegal and if they do, Dems now have a majority on the NC Supreme Court. The Repubs were even considering "packing" the court by expanding its membership and having the outgoing gov appoint additional Republican members, but they have apparently chickened out of that blatantly political move. So this power stripping bill is the alternative.

[PRETZEL]

7. In addition,

from what I read a bit earlier, they want to effectively dismantle the election board itself. I think I read that there are 2 different proposals, both of which changes the Gov. appointed board from a majority/minority odd member panel to one where both parties are 1) equally represented at 2/2 or 2) Gov appoints 4 members and each body of the GA names 2.

However, this is the kicker, the Dems will control the election board on ODD years which the Rep control during EVEN years.

Anyone want to venture when elections are normally held?

[ProfessorGAC]

6. These Laws Are Consistent With The State Constitution?

Seems hard to believe that they can change the distribution of power with just one set of votes in the legislative branch.

Or, is this just a grandstanding attempt at an end run that won't pass constitutional muster?

[CanonRay]

8. Isnt there a State constitution which defines power of each branch of government

should that not prevent just this thing?