The co-president-elect Elon Musk has threatened any Republican who votes for the funding bill to keep the government functioning past Friday, a bill that contains $100 billion in desperately needed hurricane relief for Western North Carolina, East Tennessee, and other places wrecked by Helene.
Musk, sometimes boosting false claims on X, the social media site he owns, trashed the [compromise bill negotiated by House Speaker Mike Johnson which contains emergency hurricane aid] in an hours-long tirade, calling it “terrible,” “criminal,” “outrageous,” “horrible,” “unconscionable,” “crazy” and, ultimately, “an insane crime.”[WashPost]
RALEIGH -- Republican Jefferson Griffin is asking the North Carolina Supreme Court to intervene in his effort to challenge over 60,000 ballots cast in his race for the high court.
The State Board of Elections dismissed Griffin’s ballot protests, but has not taken a final step of certifying the election. Griffin now asks the court, which has a 5 to 2 Republican majority, to prohibit the board from certifying the election and to throw out the challenged ballots....
Griffin, who trails Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs by 734 votes following two recounts of the results, argues that the state improperly counted ballots from ineligible voters across the state which, if removed from the vote count, could swing the race in his favor.
In a news release, North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton said Griffin has “refused to face reality and admit that he lost the Supreme Court race.”
“... He is now trying to achieve what’s been aiming for all along: getting the Republican-controlled state Supreme Court to toss out legitimate ballots and hand this seat to him,” she said.
Up front, I'm not going to name him. He's been called out plenty by others and criticized widely as the next House Democrat most likely to turn his coat and defect to the Republicans. He's been written up extensively by Bryan Anderson and a couple of days ago in the Raleigh News & Observer for his absenteeism and his history of voting with the Republicans on key issues. He missed the crucial vote on the veto override of S 382, and a fellow Democrat in the House said it was because he really isn't a Democrat.
I'm not naming him because he's already developed a persecution complex (is that still a thing?), and he's obviously fragile and unstable. After he missed the veto override vote on S 382, he put out a statement that he was being scapegoated by the Democratic caucus and that he was being treated exactly like Tricia Cotham was before she turned traitor, and he channeled a little Will Smith (of the Academy Award Slap Heard Round the World): “For those in our party who desire to keep my name in their mouths, let me make it plain and clear for you: Over these next two years, you need me,” Brockman said. “I do not need you.” Bam.
Message received, Sir. Your name is not in my mouth this morning.
Democrats in his Guilford County House district primaried him last spring, and apparently his constituents were somewhat conflicted about him, for he squeaked out his win by only 89 votes in a very low turnout election. If the voters were sending a message about his loyalty to the party, he clearly didn't get it.
Fragile and unstable? Yes. After the March primary, he admitted to a reporter with the News and Observer that he'd suffered through a mental breakdown in 2023, and his excuse after his most recent absence was that he "felt sick" and “prioritized my health.”
He's in a pressure cooker. His caucus expects his loyalty, and when they get jilted, they make noises so that the press and the wider public takes notice, and the catcalls grow exponentially. He's clearly an unhappy man, a distressed and lonely man, "scapegoated" (as he says) and certainly isolated, and the wolves on the Republican side know that the limping member of the herd is the one you pick off.
For his own health and well being and for the good of the party that he says he still belongs to, he needs to resign.
Berger and Moore ... said the governor has berated them for attacking the separation of powers doctrine when they are instead "seeking to preserve it."
I was reading the details about the final legal briefs submitted to the North Carolina Court of Appeals in the matter of Cooper v. Berger (case number 24-440, civil suit over constitutionality of Senate Bill 382), and what leaped out at me was the audacious hypocrisy of Phil Berger and Tim Moore (headnote above), and their platoon of legal whizzes, to brazenly assert the opposite of the truth. S 382 strips Democrats, most especially Gov. Josh Stein, of the very executive powers we recently voted he get. S 382 essentially rewrites the job descriptions after the jobs are filled.
It's also a naked attempt for "legislative defendants" to control both the creation and the execution of the laws. That's against the state constitution, a pure-dee power-grab to cement the MAGA tribe's control of all aspects of the government including the courts and all the money under heaven.
"By enacting ... S.B. 382, legislative defendants make a mockery of the guardrails put in place by the people, shifting core executive powers like Monopoly pieces to whichever Council of State member currently enjoys their favor," Cooper's brief said.... "This approach is fundamentally inconsistent with constitutional government and individual liberty."
"...separating the powers accorded our state government by the people is foundational to our republican form of government," Cooper's brief said. "It is a fundamental guiding principle, enacted by the people to prevent tyranny."
Tyrants get away with defying truth -- and violating both law and ethics -- only by the consent of the governed.
As expected, North Carolina Governor-elect Josh Stein and Gov. Roy Cooper filed a lawsuit yesterday to block S 382, the new Republican devilment shifting executive power in government to Republican hands, particularly the administration of elections.The new law’s changes “undermine the results of the election” and “violate the separation of powers,” Cooper and Stein argue. “It’s fundamental to our constitution that the legislature can not both make the laws and then choose the leaders who enforce them,” Cooper said. “Breaking the executive branch chain of command in law enforcement or any other executive branch agency is unconstitutional and it weakens our ability to respond to emergencies and keep the public safe.”
Speaker of the Republican-controlled NC House Tim Moore brazenly admitted to Steve Bannon that S 382, which the Republican House passed over Gov. Cooper's veto this week, is really all about taking control of the administration of elections to more generously guarantee that Republicans will never lose statewide races again. They don't mind admitting their schemes inside their own bubbles:
“This action item today is going to be critical to making sure North Carolina continues to be able to do what it can to deliver victories for Republicans up and down the ticket and move this country in the right direction,” Moore told Bannon on Wednesday on the latter's podcast.
No hell is hot enough for these enemies of the people.
S 382 has always and only been about putting the State Board of Elections under Republican control, and we all know what that will mean for fair elections, ballot access, and voter suppression -- mainly because we lived through what Boone lawyer Stacy Clyde Eggers IV ("Four") tried to do to student voters after Republican Pat McCrory won the governorship in 2012.
The highly endangered Sen. Thom Tillis wasted no time in announcing his reelection bid yesterday. He went public as a candidate by way of a Senate Republican fundraiser, happening Wednesday evening in DeeCee. His first public appearance as a beseeching candidate, and how natural to do it with the crowd from whence cometh his influence, since his own North Carolina party censored him and he's widely mocked by the most vociferous of the NC MAGA adherents.
It’s not a surprise that Tillis is running for reelection, but he did tell Spectrum News in 2019 that he was “unlikely” to run for a third term.
Now he sounds up for the fight and confident, and he's pledging total allegiance to the Trump doctrine:
“If I can’t defend myself in a primary after being a two-term member, then I’m not very good at my job,” Tillis told Spectrum News. “The real question is how well are we going to govern. How well are we going to come in and support President Trump and fulfill the promises that we’ve made. If we don’t do that, that’s going to be very, very difficult for anybody in the 2026 cycle to be successful, me or anybody else.”
Oh, you're so bought and paid for, you poor sad sack, whistling through the graveyard.
But of course they did. The three mountain Republicans who initially voted against S 382 discovered they could love a "hurricane relief" bill that provides no relief. Big surprise.
Bryan Anderson details the more important power-grab provisions in S 382:
Here are some of the policy ramifications of the bill:
Prevents Gov.-elect Josh Stein from appointing members onto the State Board of Elections by transferring that authority over to Republican Auditor-elect Dave Boliek.
Makes the State Highway Patrol an independent agency and requires Stein to get the General Assembly’s approval for a five-year appointment
If a Supreme Court or Court Appeals vacancy emerges, Stein must fill it from a list of recommendations provided by the political party of the departing judge, thus preventing him from filling a potential GOP vacancy with a Democrat.
Removes the seats of Wake County Superior Court Judge Bryan Collins and Forsyth County Superior Court Judge Todd Burke. Collins and Burke have ruled against election law changes that GOP lawmakers have put forward over the years.
Prohibits Attorney General-elect Jeff Jackson from participating in lawsuits that undercut actions taken by the General Assembly. The bill says Jackson “shall not, as a party, amicus, or any other participant in an action pending before a state or federal court in another state, advance any argument that would result in the invalidation of any statute enacted by the General Assembly.”
Prevents Lt. Gov.-elect Rachel Hunt from chairing committees on energy issues. The bill also eliminates the Energy Policy Council, which has been chaired by the lieutenant governor.
Prevents Democratic Superintendent of Public Instruction-elect Mo Green from appealing decisions made by the Charter Schools Review Board.
Reduces the timeframe voters can “cure” their provisional ballots from nine days to three days. Provisionals tend to favor Democratic candidates and proved essential to Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs’ efforts to overtake the lead of Republican Court of Appeals Judge Jefferson Griffin.
Yesterday in Raleigh in front of the state Supreme Court, NC Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton called out the NCGOP's evident intent to use the smokescreen of "election fraud" and "election integrity" to continue to contest the reelection of Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs (who beat Republican Jefferson Griffin after two recounts by 734 votes).
Jefferson Griffin, Clayton said, "needs to drop out of the race and concede defeat." Stop the steal.
Based on the stuff that the NCGOP has already done to cripple Democratic office-holders and gerrymander the rest into compliance, Clayton forecast the Republicans' pushing the Riggs reelection into the court system to get it eventually in front of Chief Partisan Paul Newby, who is a grub soldier but thinks himself clean and righteous.
He's actually the last cog at the top of a Republican power machine in Raleigh that's totally brazen, unafraid to be cruel, expansive in its ambitions for forcing the Right point of view. So there was good logic for Clayton to answer very frankly, “Do I have fear? Absolutely.” Truth is a motivator.
After all, what did Phil Berger and his boys do immediately after four Democrats won statewide office -- governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, and state superintendent of public instruction? They rewrote with S 382 the job descriptions for those four, taking away former powers -- for just one notorious example, the governor's right to have under his executive control the administration of elections, and gives it to Dave Boliek, the brand new Republican state auditor and a partisan hack who used to be a Democrat when that was useful. Berger passed the sweeping reorganization of the Executive Branch in a big hurry, before the session ends and they lose their veto-proof majority in the House. Insult on top of injury -- Berger did it under the guise of "hurricane relief" -- S 382 appropriates zero dollars to hurricane relief -- and thought he could get away with it.
Gov. Cooper vetoed S 382. The veto-proof Republican Senate immediately overrode; but the veto-proof NC House was suddenly shaken by the defection of three mountain Republicans who voted initially against S 382. so the scheduled veto-override vote in the House has waited until today. I have every expectation that all three mountain Republicans will fall in line. The one potential Republican holdout could be Rep. Mark Pless. If he voted to uphold the veto, S 382 would be dead, and Berger & Co. would have to get busy and actually pass some hurricane relief pronto. But I'm skeptical of Pless's standing up to his caucus.
The voice of MAGA, channeled by Kurt Schlichter (almost rhymes with sphincter), shows us why Thom Tillis will forever cave to Trump as he approaches his reelection in 2026 -- fear of the viciousness of trumpism and its adherents.
Schlichter is plenty vicious. In a column headlined "We Need to Ritually Sacrifice a Squish GOP Senator to Encourage the Others," he writes:
There is a wonderful and salutatory effect to publicly posting a head on a pike for all to see ....That is, we in the America First movement must figuratively post the head of at least one hack GOP establishment senator at the summit of Capitol Hill during the 2026 cycle. The real question is who we’re going to make an example of....
How about Thom Tillis in North Carolina? He’s always been terrible. He’s genuinely soft. There are harder noodles. The problem is that North Carolina could go blue if we don’t get the right candidate. We don’t want to risk that if we can help it, and he might be the best candidate to hold it. But we shouldn’t take him out of contention. If he knows he’s a potential primary target, he may ignore his Romneyesque instincts and play ball.
Oh, he's gonna play ball. He's gonna play ball hard. He's gonna kiss Trump's ass right up next the hole, where it's black and red and bitter.
But he'll still be primaried. The only question: Will he face a primary with a natural born loser, like Mark Robinson, or someone actually credible? We'll know well before the end of 2025.
Everybody is dumping on speculating about Sen. Thom Tillis's continued survival as a chameleon politician, whom Mills outs as a flagrant empty suit in a very recent essay on his Substack feed. In Mills's discerning view, Tillis long ago compromised away any values he's willing to actually stand up for. Mills contrasts the Tillis of today to the Tillis who first won his Senate seat in 2006, betting that after his brief feint for principle in the case of Matt Gaetz, Tillis will end up voting for every corrupt and unqualified cabinet secretary that Trump sends up the hill:
If you had told 2006 Thom Tillis, the guy who had just won a state house primary from suburban district, that he would be supporting a convicted sex offender who is selling commemorative coins and bibles for President of the United States, he would have laughed at you. If you told 2006 Tillis that he was about to vote to confirm a woman who has credibly been accused of being a Russian asset as Director of National Intelligence, he would have vehemently denied it. Or if you told him that he would be voting to confirm a vaccine denier to head Health and Human Services, he would say you were crazy. And if you asked him whether a Defense Secretary nominee with no managerial experience and allegations of sexual assault should be confirmed, he would tell you, “Of course not.” And yet 2024 Thom Tillis will probably vote for all three.
March 8th, 2022. Gov. Roy Cooper stirred the turgid waters of political insiderdom by injecting himself publicly in a Democratic primary for a Cumberland County Senate seat. District 19 was held by Democrat Kirk deViere, who'd been elected in the Blue Wave of 2018 and who was suddenly in 2022 facing two primary opponents, one of whom -- Val Applewhite -- Roy Cooper endorsed and praised. (The primary in 2022 was on May 17th.) It was obvious to every Democratic operative everywhere that Cooper wanted shed of deViere.
And he succeeded in shedding him. Kirk deViere lost his primary that May. Val Applewhite went on to win the Nov. 2022 election and was recently reelected.
What did Cooper have against deViere? Went back in the archives and found what I wrote at the time:
A sitting Democratic governor gets himself publicly involved in a Democratic primary by sticking a stiletto between the ribs of a sitting Democratic state senator. I know this sort of thing goes on all the time behind the scenes, but Cooper decided to go public. Val Applewhite was only too happy to publish the endorsement on her Twitter feed.
Dawn Baumgartner Vaughan attempts to unpack the politics behind this surprise development (posted to the News and Observer last night). The implications point to deViere's willingness to agree with Senate Republicans on some budget issues, particularly on expanding Medicaid and school funding, and those are precisely the two issues Cooper highlighted in his endorsement of Applewhite: "I need legislators who will expand Medicaid [and] pay teachers more...." DeViere's appointment to the Republican budget conference committee, which put him in direct negotiation with the governor's office, may have triggered the governor's spite.
December 3, 2024. Kirk deViere was back in my newsfeed for staging a pretty gutsy coup and taking over the Cumberland County Commission and getting to be Chair right off the bat and instantly. DeViere just won his seat on the Commission (top vote-getter) last month. (He had previously served one term on the Fayetteville City Council and had run twice unsuccessfully for Mayor of Fayetteville.) He ran this year in a field of 6. The top three take seats. DeViere is a Democrat, but No. 2 behind him was Pavan Patel and No. 3 was Henry Tyson -- both Republicans -- who were already probably teamed with deViere to recruit one additional vote (eventually from Democrat Veronica Jones) to overturn the dictatorship of an Old Guard of powerful, long-serving Democrats. (Among those pushed to the curb was a former chair -- a Black woman -- and a Latino organizer and activist.) The election seems to have hinged on pro-growth and pro-business policies, The insurgents are all young, bright-eyed enthusiasts for opening all doors and cupboards to commercial investment. They were running against a Commission grown unresponsive and sluggish. Previously serving Republicans complained that their severe minority status on the Board rendered them totally powerless to redirect resources and grants to "economic development" (a slippery term that implies deals of all sorts and deal-making not necessarily in the full light of day). The sole two Republican incumbents on the Board opted out of running again in 2024, so frustrated had they become by Democratic inertia. The old Democratic power seemed slow or uninterested.
Dec. 3rd, when he became Chair of the Cumerland County Commission
So former Senator Kirk deViere, a businessman and Florida native with an advertising agency and an eye for real estate development, along with the very successful real estate entrepreneur Pavan Patel and the commercial real estate broker Henry Tyson, built something of a wave to win their seats (though all six candidates finished with less than a thousand votes separating them), radically changing the direction of Cumberland County government. The trio of deViere, Patel, and Tyson on December 3rd recruited the vote of veteran commission member (and Democrat) Veronica Jones to get the 4-3 bipartisan majority to elect deViere Chair, kicking out of power the old Democratic Chair, a Faircloth of Cumberland. It made the papers.
The deViere insurgency was apparently no small surprise to Cumberland County. Cumberland has been a dependable Democratic stronghold, anchored by Fayetteville and Fayetteville State University, with pretty much a Democratic monopoly on local government. DeViere had the sparkle of bright prospects in his pitch to voters -- of government wide open for business. His website is pretty explicit: "I will work to streamline regulations, provide incentives for small businesses, and ensure adequate resources are available, fostering a robust business climate...." I consider that the confession of a deal-maker.
Sydney Batch with her husband J. Patrick Williams and their two sons
The unthinkable has happened. Democrats in the NC Senate dumped their long-time leader Dan Blue in favor of Sen. Sydney Batch, also from Wake County. The word out of Raleigh is that the senators decided on a secret ballot for the voting, and Blue, reading the waves, stepped down rather than have the vote go against him. Apparently, at 76 he just wasn't putting up the muscular opposition to Phil Berger's bullying majority that his fellow Democrats wanted. Will Sydney Batch do better? Remains to be seen.
So who is Sydney Batch? I first followed her in 2018 when she ran for the seat in House Dist. 37 and won in that year's Blue Wave (here, scroll down). She lost the seat in 2020 to Republican Erin Pare. (Lesson: MAGA voters wreak havoc down-ballot when Trump is on the ballot.) When Democratic Sen. Sam Searcy left his Senate seat (Dist. 17) in January 2021, Gov. Roy Cooper appointed Batch to the rest of his unfinished term. She won reelection to that Senate seat in 2022 and again this November.
Batch is a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, with both a master's degree in social work and a law degree. She and her husband J. Patrick Williams opened their own law firm in 2005. She has wide and intense experience in child welfare advocacy and family law.
DNC Chair Jaime Harrison has said he is not running for reelection. Which set off something of a footrace.
The 4th One (So Far)
Ben Wikler
Ben Wikler of the Wisconsin Democratic Party announced very recently for the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). He's the 4th to announce (see below). He's chaired the Democrats of Wisconsin only since July of 2019. Before that he was a senior advisor to MoveOn. January 2012, Wikler and a single collaborator launched a radio show and podcast, The Flaming Sword of Justice, but it didn't take off. In November 2013, he relaunched his show as The Good Fight, an hour-long weekly podcast and radio program (which MoveOn sponsors). According to its website, The Good Fight "brings you a mix of comedy, activism, and David versus Goliath battles told from the behind-the-slingshot point of view."
Wikler also has a track record as organizer and money-raiser. In March 2007, he became Campaign Director for Avaaz, "the globe's largest and most powerful online activist network" (according to The Guardian). He helped grow the org to over ten million members. He ran campaigns on climate change, poverty, human rights, and also managed the technology and communication teams.
And before Avaaz, he was the start-up producer for the short-lived talk radio Al Franken Show, and he helped write a couple of Franken's books. Served as press secretary for Sherrod Brown's U.S. Senate campaign and was the first editor-in-chief of Comedy 23/6, a comedy news website.
His understanding and experience in mass media is obviously both extensive and desirable in a national party chair. Plus he's credited with keeping the Trump wave in Wisconsin from swamping down-ballot Dem candidates. (After Wikler won the Wisconsin party chair election in 2019, he dived into grassroots organizing, developed a field team of 13 regional organizers "to get volunteers out on doors.") Trump won Wisconsin this year under Wikler's leadership, though Democrat Senator Tammy Baldwin won reelection. Wikler's running on a platform of "It Could Have Been Worse" might not be a winner, but his emphasis on boots on the ground would be a good trait to have in a DNC Chair. Plus he sounded a lot like the sainted Howard Dean in his announcement:
"When the polls are within the margin of error, we win by the margin of effort," Wikler said in a video launching his campaign. "And what has made a difference in Wisconsin can make a difference everywhere. We need a nationwide permanent campaign, a 50-state strategy in every state and every territory across the United States."
Most recently, NYTimes columnist Michelle Goldberg called Wikler "the obvious candidate to rebuild a broken and demoralized Democratic Party."
The First 3
Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) chair Ken Martin. The longest serving chair in the 75-year history of the DFL. The Minnesota DFL has won every statewide election since Martin was elected chairman. Martin was only a senior at Eden Prairie High School when he joined Paul Wellstone’s campaign for U.S. Senate. Wellstone inspired Martin to pursue a political career dedicated to the principle that “we all do better, when we all do better.” According to Politico, Martin is the current front-runner for the job, considered "a safe pair of hands." Just what Democrats need: someone safe. Ugh.
Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley. 48th Mayor of Baltimore, 1999 to 2007. The 61st Governor of Maryland, 2007 to 2015. Served as the 17th Commissioner of the Social Security Administration, 2023 to 2024. O'Malley is about as "establishment" as you can get.
New York state Sen. James Skoufis. The youngest, 37, of all the announced candidates (at the moment). Currently representing the 42nd District of the New York State Senate since 2023. Skoufis previously represented the 39th District (2019-2022) prior to redistricting. Attractive for his youth, Skoufis may be waaaay too provencial and without national profile for this job.
Who might join the race?
Chuck Rocha
Chuck Rocha. A cowboy-hat-wearing Democratic strategist from Texas, Rocha has been teasing a run for DNC chair on social media. In 2020, he advised the presidential campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders, and he founded a political action committee to turn out Latino voters. In an appearance on CNN on Nov. 20, Rocha called himself “the only senior national Democratic operative without a college degree” and said he wanted the party to return to representing “the common man.” His goal, he added, was to make Democrats “fun again.” (Source: Simon J. Levien)
Michael Blake. Blake is already a candidate for Mayor of New York City in a crowded race, but sez he might switch over to this race. A former New York State assemblyman, he lost a U.S. congressional race in 2020. Served as a party vice chair from 2017 to 2021. Obscure and a New Yawker too boot. No chance in hell.
Max Rose. Former Army officer who earned a Purple Heart in Afghanistan. Former U.S. representative from Staten Island, New York. Served one term, voted as a moderate. Failed twice to retake his Congressional seat. Nope.
Mallory McMorrow. A rather glamorous Michigan state senator. She earned viral fame in 2022 when she gave a fiery senate floor speech denouncing the Republican treatment of the LGBTQ community as a “hollow, hateful scheme” after a colleague accused her in a fund-raising email of wanting to “groom and sexualize” children (see the video below). That speech earned her a speaking slot at the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where she was one of a number of officials to brandish an oversized prop book of Project 2025, the conservative policy playbook developed by Trump.
Pete Buttigieg. We couldn't hope for anyone more articulate, logical, calm. But he hasn't said he was interested.
POSTSCRIPT
Very interesting and revealing taped interview with "frontrunner" Ken Martin of Minnesota, interviewed by Simon Rosenberg, The Hopium Chronicles. I was distracted by his hair. Looks like such an obvious toupee, and why should I care? I shouldn't. I'm a bad person.
Last night, two new Republicans were appointed to fill the empty seats on the Watauga CoCommish created by Big Daddy Ralph Hise's gerrymandering local bill: Tim Hodges and Emily Greene. Tim Hodges lives in current Commish Dist. 4, so he's double-bunked with Ronnie Marsh, who was just elected in November. Emily Greene lives in current Commish Dist. 5, so she's double-bunked with Todd Castle who also just won in November. In other words, these two appointments could almost be considered "honorary," since their appointments can only last for two years, and neither Hodges nor Greene will run (we assume) a primary against the very people who appointed them last night.
Newly appointed County Attorney Nathan Miller tried to explain away the stupidity of provisions in the Hise restructuring bill, asserting to the packed house in the Commish Boardroom that the two appointments must come from the old commissioner districts formerly represented by Braxton Eggers and Todd Castle and that they also must belong to the same political party. In other words, "We get to run for election under the new Hise districts, but we get to appoint new commissioners under the old district map." Which is on its face absurd.
Whatever. The point remains that current Commish districts 1 and 2 have no representative on the board and districts 4 and 5 have two each. The voters of districts 1 and 2 have been egregiously harmed, and any one of them, or a group of them, would have standing to sue to bring down this house of cards.
When Big Daddy Ralph Hise gerrymandered the Watauga County Commission, he simply vacated two office-holders in Commish Districts 1 and 2 while allowing new elections in Districts 3, 4, and 5. Those elections were won by lopsided Republican majorities, and now those three Republicans get to appoint the reps for Districts 1 and 2 tonight.
We have learned that the Republicans intend to appoint two more Republicans to the other two seats. Neither lives in the commissioner district they are being appointed to represent. District 1, which is largely downtown Boone and the campus of AppState, is majority Democrat. It gets as its county commissioner a Republican who doesn't live in Boone. District 2, which leans Democratic, gets a Republican who doesn't live in that district. Representative government?
It gets worse. The two new Republicans who will be appointed tonight are actually double-bunked with incumbents Ronnie Marsh and Todd Castle, respectively, in Districts 4 and 5. While Districts 1 and 2 will have no resident reps, Districts 4 and 5 will each have two. Among other things, this seems plain screwy.
Democrats, who up until 5 p.m. today, held a 3-2 majority on the County Commish, will now be shut out entirely. How is that fair? How is that not simply an abuse of power?
The Watauga Board of Commissioners will have a complete turnover of power on Monday, December 2nd, at its regular evening meeting, when returning Republican Commissioner Braxton Eggers will be formally elected chair of the board by the other returning Republican Todd Castle and newly elected Republican Ronnie Marsh.
The new Republican board will also be appointing Nathan Miller as county attorney, and they plan to pass a resolution giving Miller some eyebrow-raising powers of his own. Miller is well known to the authors of this blog for the lawsuit he initiated targeting the voting rights of AppState students (and see here), for the long-running harassment of elections expert and AppState professor Stella Anderson, and for exacting retribution against the town of Boone by unilaterally changing how sales tax revenues are distributed -- among other public and legal activities he engaged in while chair of the County Commission and then as a lawyer for the Watauga GOP. According to the board packet for Monday's commissioner meeting, the Republicans intend to pass a resolution granting Miller what looks like a free hand to act like a member plenipotentiary of the commission, with no guardrails.
The language in the resolution granting Miller a free hand:
The County Attorney is authorized to initiate and pursue legal action for the County on any matter, including but not limited to imminent domain, contractual breaches, declaratory action, and such other matters as the County Attorney deems advisable and in the best interests of the County, without need of further Resolution or Ordinance to be adopted by the Board of Commissioners....
"...and such other matters as the County Attorney deems advisable...." Whoa! From his recent history, we know that Nathan Miller deems a lot of stuff very advisable for his particular partisan disposition.
That's where we're starting the Braxton Eggers reign. Can't wait to see the additional chapters.
Watching Trump pick the people who'll help him loot the treasury and subvert the Constitution could -- and actually does -- depress the hell out of the sunniest Little Mary Sunshine, but Watauga County said no to Trump in a resounding way. Kamala Harris won Watauga by almost 2,000 votes. In fact, every Democrat on the statewide ballot won easily in Watauga, from the more than 7,000-vote winning margin for Josh Stein to the 338-vote margin for Sarah Taber, that astoundingly qualified woman who ran for Agriculture Commissioner. Congresswoman and Elevator Monitor Virginia Foxx lost her home county (as usual!) by over 2,800 votes.
It was a clean sweep for Democrats in Watauga. Seeing that blue dot in northwestern North Carolina on statewide voting maps is a framable memento to hard work and progressive vision.
The only offices Republicans could win here were Republican judges running unopposed and the three Watauga County Commission seats. The winning Republican commissioner candidates had big, corrupt help from Boss Hogg Hisownself, Ralph Hise, who obligingly gerrymandered the living hell out of our commission so that Republicans could take all three seats. If you're on a low-salt diet, you might want to avert your gaze from the salt those three are about to rub into that wound: For those three products of gerrymandering get to appoint the other two members of the commission (no kidding). That's what a Ralph Hise power-grab looks like.
But note this well: A local referendum to restructure the county commission back to something approaching fairness passed with over 71% of the vote, which was a massive rejection of Hise's gerrymandering. Hise took care of that in advance, putting a clause into his local bill that no changes can be made to his scheme until at least the next national Census.
And incidentally, Ralph Hise lost his senate race in Watauga by 1,700 votes. It was the other counties in his senate district that reelected him. Blame them.
While three other mountain Republicans from Western North Carolina sensibly voted against the so-called "Disaster Relief" bill, which provided zero relief but crippled the offices that Democrats won in the statewide election, Rep. Ray Pickett voted for it. Why? S 382 offers rather actual real neglect for hurricane victims.
How much money [was appropriated in S 382] for the NC victims of the Hurricane Helene?
Zero.
No rental assistance.
No small business support.
No direct assistance to families.
Instead, 117 pages of the 131 page “Disaster Relief 3” bill is far less about hurricane relief and far more of an overhaul to move executive branch power away from recently elected Democrats to Republicans....
Here’s what the bill really does:
The Governor would no longer have the ability to appoint people to the State Board of Elections or Utility Commission.
The Lt. Governor would no longer chair the energy crisis committee or the Energy Policy Council which would also be eliminated.
The Attorney General would lose the ability to intervene in lawsuits to protect consumers and prohibits the AG from taking a position not authorized by the Republican majority.
And lastly, the bill would prevent the State Superintendent of public instruction from appealing decisions by a state board that reviews charter school applications. (Tales of an Educated Debutante)
Gov. Roy Cooper angrily vetoed S 382 yesterday and attached this message:
“This legislation is a sham. It does not send money to Western North Carolina but merely shuffles money from one fund to another in Raleigh. This legislation was titled disaster relief but instead violates the constitution by taking appointments away from the next Governor for the Board of Elections, Utilities Commission and Commander of the NC Highway Patrol, letting political parties choose appellate judges and interfering with the Attorney General’s ability to advocate for lower electric bills for consumers. Instead of giving small business grants to disaster counties it strikes a cruel blow by blocking the extension of better unemployment benefits for people who have lost jobs because of natural disasters. Finally, it plays politics by taking away two judges elected by the people and adding two judges appointed by the legislature, taking away authority from the Lieutenant Governor and the Superintendent of Public Instruction and more.”
So, in other words, Ray Pickett will have another chance to vote like his fellow mountain Republicans did the first time -- when the bill comes back to the House for veto-override.
Please tell Ray Pickett that we'll be watching his vote on S 382.
Sunday morning Thom Tillis published this photoshopped montage on his Twitter feed, with the title "January 20th," as though Trump were the dignified scourge of God marching toward Bethlehem to be born on Inauguration Day Number 2, intimating that the Trump retribution is exactly what the senior senator has been waiting for. The horse-laughs on Twitter that this post occasioned haven't stopped. For example: "Damn Thom, you are funny as hell this morning! You know we’re all laughing at your RINO ass!!!"
We chalk up Tillis's transparent attempt to impersonate MAGA to the fact he's already running for his seat in the 2026 Republican primary. I enjoyed Alexander H. Jones's take on Tillis's chances in that primary, published on his New Branchhead substack, titled "Thom Tillis Doesn't Stand a Chance in a Primary":
Thom Tillis’s political career has been built upon sheer serendipity. Hobbling into his first election with a severely battered image, he reaped the electoral windfall of an imaginary Ebola epidemic to upset Democrat Kay Hagan. He won reelection because his opponent was a cad. For the last ten years, the fates have compensated this unimpressive man for his complete lack of political talent.
It may be that Tillis’s best—or perhaps even only—hope to remain in the US Senate after 2026 will be for this long string of fortunate events to continue. That’s because he will face a primary from Mark Robinson or another MAGA fire-eater that the lackluster incumbent has minimal chance of surviving. Republican voters, always unsatisfied with Tillis, will have their first real chance to eject the man from office. In a Republican primary, Tillis won’t stand a chance.
You know what power grab we're referencing in the title, right?
Reps. Gillespie, Clampitt, and Pless (l to r)
Three mountain Republican Reps in the NC House voted with all the Democrats against the so-called "Disaster Relief Bill" last Wednesday -- Mike Clampitt (Dist. 119, Jackson, Swain, Transylvania), Karl Gillespie (Dist. 120, Cherokee, Clay, Graham, Macon), and Mark Pless (Dist. 118, Haywood, Madison). The bill in question, S 382, "Disaster Relief and Various Law Changes," passed any way, of course, without these three, but the kicker is that any one of them could provide the veto-affirming vote when S 382 inevitably comes back with Cooper's VETO stamped on it, as it surely will.
Why would Clampitt, Gillespie, and Pless go against their caucas? It's largely speculation, but the reason for those noes seems logical: S 382 offered almost nothing in the way of actual hurricane relief. It was just cover for sneaking in a sweeping power grab, reducing the powers of newly elected Democrats just before they take office. The bill is actually kind of an insult to hurricane victims since it offers little or no cash relief to devastated businesses and homes. Only 20 pages of the 130-page bill even touched on Hurricane Helene, while the rest accomplished the most callous and naked overturning of election results by depriving newly elected Democrats to statewide Council of States offices the duties they ran for and were elected to perform. Phil Berger was in a big hurry to pass S 382 because he's about to lose his super-majority in the House for overturning vetoes.
In other words, Phil Berger and Ralph Hise (who's lead author on S 382) and the rest of the bastards are using the plight of disaster-stunned citizens as a stalking horse for doing real damage to constitutional norms and the separation of powers.
So it's an effing big deal that Reps. Clampitt, Gillespie, and Pless bucked their caucus. And shouldn't they, for the insult this bill represents to their districts? And come to think of it, where the hell was Ray Pickett? Pickett was quite visible in Watauga and Ashe during the immediate aftermath of Helene, a helpful (or at least helpful-seeming) high elected official who had contacts up the ladder to get help. He surely knows that S 382 does not come close to helping right now the unresolved disaster in the western counties.
If even one of the three reps. votes to uphold the Cooper veto, then this power grab dies a stumbling death.
Prediction: The three will have their arms twisted sufficiently or be bought off somehow, someway. The newly elevated Speaker-to-be Destin Hall of Lenoir has too much riding on his first legislative crisis of leadership. He can't seem weak.
Yeah, politics is disavowed. While naked power is in. And if you didn't give the horse laugh to the statement above by the chief horse's ass, then you've not been paying attention.
After the Republican-dominated General Assembly passed its newest power grab (details of which are here), Berger felt it necessary to cover his raw greed for autocracy with some wholly fictional rationalization, as reported by Will Doran:
Berger told reporters Wednesday he was concerned about the vote-counting process in North Carolina being rigged for Democrats .... Berger indicated Wednesday that he was concerned with how Riggs won. Griffin was leading on election night by about 10,000 votes when roughly 98% of the state's ballots had been counted .... Berger suggested not all the votes should’ve been counted, alleging the process was somehow rigged in favor of Democrats. He didn’t explain how .... "We're seeing played out, at this point, another episode of ‘count until somebody you want to win wins,’ ” Berger told reporters at the state legislature Wednesday.
The allegations of fraud certainly caught the attention of Karen Brinson Bell, the executive director of the State Board of Elections. (Berger's cynical lying ought to infuriate all 500 members of the 100 county boards of election, including the 200 Republicans who sit on them, who participated in all meetings where votes were counted and who signed off on the process and on the final numbers.) Brinson Bell wasn't having it. She wrote an outraged letter to Berger, calling him out for his potentially dangerous stirring of the (cracked) pot, offered to give him a refresher course in how NC elections actually take place, and she made the letter public. According to Doran:
“When you tell your fellow citizens that an election is being conducted fraudulently, they listen,” Brinson Bell wrote to Berger. "I fear for the people running elections in this state, including in your own community, that some misguided people will conclude from your statements that actions must be taken, perhaps through the use of threats or violence.” ...
...she reminded Berger that many people believe what he says and asked him to take back those remarks. “This is an accusation of wrongdoing that has absolutely no basis in fact,” Brinson Bell wrote. “You are a top leader of our state government. What you say matters.”
She used the 2020 elections as a cautionary tale, alluding to disproven accusations of rigged elections that fueled an exodus of seasoned elections workers.
Brinson Bell also told Berger she’d be happy to explain to him how elections work, if he’s feeling confused.
But of course the horse's ass leaders of the GOP in the Age of Trump do not take back anything, nor apologize, nor lose a scintilla of a half-step in their march toward total control over who gets to vote.
--Leslie Mac, digital strategist and communications expert who works with grass-roots organizations
Political organizing on both Left and Right began to move online immediately after Facebook went live. Twitter, Instagram, Tik-Tok, and a host of other influencer networks soon followed. Came to pass quickly that no national party could survive without all brands of social media. We used it to raise awareness. Howard Dean taught us how to use it to raise money. Quickly. It was all about the speed of communication, the new efficiency of being in touch with dozens, then hundreds, then thousands, delivering intel, staging events, asking for money, recruiting volunteers -- people willing and wanting to do stuff to help. No individual candidate of either major party would dream of mounting a campaign today without social media. Why, our about-to-be President is wholly the creature of it.
But I'm hearing more and more from people smarter than me, that there is, however and of course, a big, fat, munching worm inside that digital cabbage.
I'm a believer in the usefulness of social media (though I'm aware that its usefulness gets over-hyped). I experienced its rise and influence in political organizing as an incredible new tool to link the like-minded. to raise money, to raise a crowd, to get the attention of potential recruits who might recruit more people. Social media transformed all brands of community organizing -- and the old, antiquated, but totally effective drudgery of door-knocking, phone calling, elbow bumping began to atrophy. For too many of the new social media warriors, boots-on-the-ground activities became too much trouble, too time-consuming, too sweaty. So much easier to sit at our computers and move the world.
Social media -- or rather the practice and habits of social media -- can exert a negative counterforce on mass movements because social media flatters the user, tickles their pleasure centers and ultimately creates the illusion that typing amounts to action. Hell! I do it too, press the "DONATE" button to seem like I'm doing something, and it is doing something. But money alone won't win it. It takes those boots-on-the-ground (a tired phrase, but I can't think of a more descriptive one) -- that old, antiquated, but totally effective drudgery of door-knocking, phone calling, elbow bumping.
Fewer person-to-person interactions. More keyboard. It's a trap, warns Leslie Mac (quoted above). Mac was speaking specifically of certain social media oligarchs like Zuckerberg and Musk, who own many of the most influential social media sites and whose druthers might not be advantageous to the rest of us. Mac also points out that “social media turned activism organizing into a kind of public relations job, where your follower count and where you were quoted mattered as much as the tangible work that was being done.”
More than two years ago we published an essay here by Jon-Dalton George, the 23-year-old (at the time) Mayor Pro-Tem of Boone, "Twitter Ain't Real," which offered pretty concrete proof that social media activity does not match up necessarily to winning a race. It's wise to be reminded of that from time to time. I say that as an 80-year-old hanger-on whose activism is pretty much limited these days to a keyboard. Just saying.
The elections which Republicans did not win in North Carolina -- governor, lieutenant gov, attorney gen'l, superintendent of public instruction -- have hardly been settled, including the one that broke the Republican veto-override super majority in the NC House, when Phil Berger & Co. realized they only had a month to pass a new law limiting what newly elected Democrats can do in office. They cleverly called the bill "Hurricane Relief," but those provisions aimed at recovering Western NC amount to less than 20 pages, while the bulk of the 130-page bill is blatant and unashamed power-grabs.
The most egregious of the power grabs applies to the governor's power to appoint the State Board of Elections, the agency which the GOP has been trying to take full control of for years. The new law, which passed the House last night and now goes to the Senate today -- fast-tracked, you betcha! -- takes the appointment power away from Governor Josh Stein and gives it to the newly elected Republican Auditor Dave Boliek, who's all too eager to carry partisan water for the bosses.
The new law also makes a project of dismantling the independence of our new Attorney General Jeff Jackson:
Republican lawmakers want to prevent the attorney general, an office that the GOP hasn’t won in an election for more than a century, from taking positions on state laws being challenged in court that are different from the position maintained by GOP legislative leaders.
The bill also specifies that the attorney general can’t take positions in court that would lead to a state law being struck down.
This proposal comes as outgoing Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein, who voters chose to serve as the state’s next governor in this month’s election, has recused himself or refused to defend the state against a number of high-profile political lawsuits involving abortion, elections, gerrymandering and other issues.
Stein, who has served two terms as attorney general, has defended his decisions to refuse to defend laws passed by the Republican-controlled legislature that he believes are unconstitutional.
GOP leaders have criticized Stein in those instances, and accused him of refusing “to do his job.” They have frequently intervened in lawsuits challenging the laws they’ve passed, and defended them in court.
Liz Barber, the director of policy and advocacy at the ACLU of North Carolina, said in an interview Tuesday morning that the changes were an “unconstitutional, undemocratic power grab.” [NewsObserver]
In what crazy universe is it all right for the Republicans to be doing this? Reducing the dimensions of a public office only after they fail to win an election to that office?
RALEIGH Draft legislation from North Carolina lawmakers proposes stripping incoming Democratic Gov. Josh Stein of all appointments to the State Board of Elections and giving them to a newly elected Republican official.
If I were cynical enough to make this up, I would have.
North Carolina's senior senator Thom Tillis has been listed as one of six Republicans "who could sink Trump's nominations" for cabinet secretaries. Watching that play out will provide us with some tawdry entertainment and an index of just how big -- or puny -- are Tillis's balls.
After Trump nominated Matt Gaetz, Tillis told reporters, ominously, "The president deserves to put forth a nominee. [But!...] The president has an obligation to make sure that that nominee is gonna pass vetting and have the votes on the floor." He also said that the public "should not be shocked" if Gaetz is not confirmed.
"I will consider Matt Gaetz like I will anyone else, but if they don't do the homework, don't be surprised if they fail. Maybe they've already done that work," he added. "Nothing surprises me in politics, nothing. And I'm okay with this. But at the end of the day we have a process, and we'll just have to run through it."
We've seen those odd moments when Tillis has disappointed MAGA, but we believe that he, along with the other five senators who might vote against Trump's wishes, are weak reeds that will bend to the breaking point. After all, Susan Collins is a part of this doubtful cohort, and we certainly know how strongly committed to virtue she is!
A friend said about the election, "I can't afford to cry. If I start, I'll never stop."
Then the teenaged son of another friend, grinning big and slapping his knee, said, "Don't you see how funny Trump is? He's the drunken fist. Gotta love how he keeps everything unpredictable and totally superlative! Sick!"
The drunken fist. A bunch of 1970s movies explored the Kung-Fu fighter who uses a style of footwork and surprise strikes developed out of the stumbling gait of a drunken fool to confuse and trick his opponents into thinking he is incapacitated, insignificant, and unworthy of attention. Yep. I get it. Trump is the master of that. Whether it's a deliberate ploy of his or not is another question altogether.
Why can't I be like a teenaged boy and just enjoy the show?
No one is more flummoxed by Trump's drunken fist than Republican senators. Their cowardice, inanity, and fecklessness do yield abundant, albeit dark comedy, especially when they make throat-clearing sounds about the dignity and power of the U.S. Senate as a coequal branch of government. Ha.
J.W. Williamson was the founding editor in 1972 of the Appalachian Journal: A Regional Studies Review, which he edited until July of 2000. He has taught college classes in Appalachian history, cultural politics, and literature, and he has lectured widely on the pop-culture history of "Appalachia" in the American consciousness. His books include Interviewing Appalachia, Southern Mountaineers in Silent Films, and Hillbillyland: What the Mountains Did to the Movies and What the Movies Did to the Mountains. He has won the Thomas Wolfe Award given by the Western North Carolina Historical Society, the Laurel Leaves Award given by the Appalachian Consortium, a special Weatherford Award given by Berea College, and the Cratis Williams-James Brown Award given by the Appalachian Studies Association.
The views expressed on WataugaWatch are solely those of J.W. Williamson or individual contributors and are not necessarily shared nor endorsed by the Watauga County Democratic Party nor by any other adults of sound mind in this or any other universe.
