Top 10 Worst Things NC Republicans Have Done

Shut up and play the hits!

After not quite a decade in power, and insulated from voter accountability by the nation’s most notorious gerrymander, North Carolina Republicans have pretty much been off the leash. This was a tough list to narrow down to just 10. But dear readers, we did it for you.

Here’s a compilation of the absolute worst moments from North Carolina under rigged Republican rule.

Remember Amendment One?

The state government of North Carolina has not had a budget for nearly a year. The play-by-play is tedious, but the long and short of it is that Governor Cooper (a Democrat) wants a bigger pay increase for North Carolina’s teachers, whose compensation has stagnated for a long time. Republicans in the legislature didn’t want any pay increase, and then offered around half of what the Governor proposed, along with yet another round of large corporate tax cuts. (They’ve passed a number of those already.) The Governor vetoed that solution.

NC Republicans were so desperate to override Governor Cooper’s veto of their budget — which they steadfastly refused to negotiate on — that they resorted to some of the most outrageous dirty procedural tricks the state has seen in modern memory to get around it.

Lying to the Democrats to keep them away was key to this strategy, because Republicans lack the supermajority necessary to override the Governor’s veto with all members present. It was as shameful a low point for the North Carolina General Assembly as we’ve seen. (As it happened, these dirty tricks were also futile. The veto was upheld in the Senate — exactly as everyone expected.)

The nationally infamous “Bathroom Bill” cost North Carolina dearly. The fight was dirty, pointlessly mean and deeply hurtful. The NBA and NCAA cancelled major events. PayPal moved a major expansion project to another state. It’s likely “HB2” was a factor in Apple deciding not to place its billion-dollar second headquarters in RTP. The state lost billions in tourism revenue. And… for what?

In dozens of provisions in the middle of the night, the Republican legislature set out to systematically reduce the role and scope of North Carolina’s incoming governorship. They cut the number of positions working directly for the governor by 80% and, for the first time, required that cabinet appointments be approved by the (Republican) Senate.

As if that wasn’t corrupt enough, Republican leaders used the opportunity to tinker with the state and county Boards of Elections to mandate that Republicans be in charge during all election years. Subtle, guys.

They almost pulled it off.

The end of the saga of NC’s Ninth Congressional seat ended in a new Republican candidate, Dan Bishop, squeaking out a narrow victory over the Democrat, Dan McCready — in a district that Trump carried by 12 points.

Their main obstacle is simply giving a Democratic Governor a win with a policy so closely associated with President Obama. That’s really it. NC Republicans are quite willing to let rural areas suffer — particularly during the COVID era — to show their spite. This obstinacy has cost lives.

After ramming through a racial gerrymander (see #1), the second-highest priority of the new NC Republican majority was to make it harder to vote. Especially for people of color.

Then, they tailored a new voter ID law and curtailed early voting specifically to limit access by black voters. This is not just my partisan interpretation — this is literally what the state of North Carolina, under its Republican leadership, argued in open court!

In 2011, after winning a majority in the General Assembly, the Republicans largely ended representative democracy in North Carolina.

By contrast, in 2018, Democrats won a clear majority of votes for the state House and Senate, winning the vote total by 2.5 points. But not only did this huge overperformance not win a majority of the legislature — they barely broke the Republican supermajority. (In the Senate, by just 1 seat!)

The Republican gerrymander of 2011, and subsequent versions, literally made it impossible for Democrats to win back power. There was just nothing Democrats could do. Representative democracy requires fair and competitive elections, which North Carolina Republicans simply dispensed with.

North Carolina Democrats have exactly one shot at restoring democracy to our state. It’s this fall.

After the federal courts failed us, NC’s state courts finally —just last year— declared the legislative maps unconstitutional and demanded limited redistricting. The same Republicans who drew the gerrymander reluctantly drew new maps. The new maps are not fair. They are still heavily tilted Republican. But for the very first time in almost a decade, there is a real and viable path for Democrats to take back power.

This is why the Long Leaf Pine Slate exists. We represent the “critical path” for Democrats back to a majority this fall. With a second Blue Wave election gathering, this November will be our very best possible shot at overturning the undemocratic and corrupt Republican seizure of power in our state.

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