Ted Davis, Rationalizing His Veto-Override Vote

 

NC House member Ted Davis, Republican from the coast, recently took a starring role as one of the four Republican legislators targeted for pressure by Gov. Roy Cooper because they had once promised not to monkey with North Carolina's 20-week abortion limit and yet were on the verge of voting to overturn the guv's veto and therefore monkey big-time with things they shouldn't be monkeying with. (The other three targets: Tricia Cotham, John Ray Bradford, and Michael Lee.)

Ted Davis spoke to a reporter recently about why he personally “took a walk” during the initial vote on passage of the abortion bill. He ducked out on the vote, he said, "because he was doing what he told voters he would do — supporting keeping the 20-week law in place," so his principled stand for abortion rights meant sneaking off.

But why come back to the chamber another day and vote to override the veto of the very bill you didn't want to be caught supporting? Davis's rationalization is both hilarious and illustrative of situational ethics, coastal-style:

“I view the veto as an entirely different matter. That’s not voting on the bill. That’s voting on whether or not you support Roy Cooper, and Roy Cooper’s veto. I don’t support Roy Cooper, and I do not support his veto, and that’s why I voted to override.”

Suddenly realizing (perhaps?) the stupidity of what he just said, he added rather plaintively, “And if they want to use that against me, that’s fine. It is what it is.”

Indeed it is.