North Carolina during the election made absolutely no sense. For the Presidential race it went Republican for Donald Trump, but for the Gubernatorial race it went Democrat for Roy Cooper. One of the main reasons it did not go Democrat for both is because there were enough people that while they definitely did not like Trump, they also did not trust Hillary Clinton so they voted for the governor's race, but left the President's race blank. Trump had it in the bag now, but the race for governor was too tight to call.
Incumbent Governor Pat McCrory was equally liked as he was disliked. For hardline Republicans he was their man, for everyone else he was the guy giving NC a bad reputation. When he was elected over the unpopular Democratic governor Bev Purdue there was optimism that he would bring some much needed change after Purdue's stagnant time in charge. What we actually got was favoritism and favors paid. As soon he as he got into office he was appointing campaign donors and close friends to head roles in the different state departments (mostly the Department of Health and Human Services) and giving them 6-figure salaries to boot. A clear example of this was when McCrory appointed Tony Tata as his head of the NC Department of Transportation right after Tata resigned from the Wake County Public School System because he couldn't figure out how many buses the schools needed (many kids were not getting dropped off at home until after 5pm because of the shortage).
The next scandal for McCrory was the Dan River Coal Ash Spill caused by Duke Energy, his former employer and at the time a company he had a lot of stock in. His administration was intervening on lawsuits against Duke Energy on the behalf of Duke instead of heaping penalties on Duke for how their spill was impacting the environment. After the dust (or rather, ash) settled on that came his and the GOP-led General Assembly's most vile act during his tenure: House Bill 2.
Unless you live under a rock you know what HB2 is so there isn't much to go over here. It's a law that can't be enforced, but was definitely used to discriminate against the LGBT community and to make people believing that all transgender people are rapists and pedophiles that only exist to creep on women and young girls. The passing of HB2 caused the state of NC to lose almost $1 Billion dollars in business and a lot of potential jobs. A lot of sporting events, musical acts, and businesses now avoid NC because of HB2.
Now that we know Roy Cooper is going to be the new Governor of NC you would think McCrory and the General Assembly's terror reign would be over, but we are dead, dead wrong...
After McCrory called for a special session to sort out funds and other details for Hurricane Matthew relief the GA surprised everyone by calling for another special session out of nowhere which aimed at limiting the power of Cooper when he came in. What was passed by the GA during this time was the following:
- All appellate court elections will now be partisan.
- Ethics, Lobbying, and Elections are under one board
- State Superintendent has authority over the Board of Education
- Appointees that the governor can hire and fire at will are reduced from 1,500 to 450 (Purdue had 500 positions and the GOP-led GA increased the amount for McCrory to 1,500).
Luckily the last rumor of the GA increasing the State Supreme Court from 7 justices to 9 in order to have a Republican majority did not happen.
This last-minute power grab is not just a F.U. to Cooper, but to the people of North Carolina who have had to watch Republicans in power pick and choose what they want at the expense of the taxpayer. These special sessions have done more harm than good for this state. If it wasn't for these special sessions there would have never been the passage of HB2. I do not understand how Republican voters in North Carolina are completely fine with what the GA is doing. Are they perfectly content with holding democracy hostage? There's a reason I am comparing this to the Reichstag Fire of 1933 because when in the aftermath of the Fire Hitler was able to blame the Communists for the arson of the Reichstag. He was able to get rid of the Communist Party from the Reichstag by blaming them for the damage and then was able to dispose the remaining parties except his own and made it illegal for any other party to form. It's a blatant power grab to make sure that Republicans, and only Republicans are in control. They gerrymandered a lot of districts in the state for their favor which has caused super majorities in both state houses and have now made sure that Cooper's power will be one of the weakest of all the state governors.
There is some light ahead. In 2017 there will be new elections for the General Assembly. The Supreme Court has deemed the districts unconstitutional and will need to be redrawn as well as hold new elections. These districts could sway in favor of the Democrats or at least get rid of the super majorities. Anything to bring normalcy in this state will be beneficial both fiscally and socially. Cooper will have to use whatever means necessary to get North Carolina out of this hostage situation and into safety.
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