These Mtn Republicans Abandoned Their Constituents

 

There have been three pieces of law aimed (more or less) at hurricane recovery passed by the Republican super-majorities in the NC state Senate and House. 

1. A “first step” relief bill passed the General Assembly just two weeks after Hurricane Helene devastated much of Western North Carolina. It provided around $270 million in aid, mostly to state agencies.

2. Two weeks after that, a second relief bill added around $600 million in new aid. Notably, "the bill did not include any direct grants to affected businesses that were underwater with COVID-era SBA loans" -- businesses unable to raise cash because of property loss and the cancellation of the Fall tourist season. (Cory Vaillancourt)

l to r, Gillespie, Clampitt, Pless

The pressure for more relief from the state's House and Senate quickly built. The state’s budget director Kristin Walker estimated $53.6 billion in damages across 39 federally declared disaster counties. Gov. Cooper proposed taking $3.9 billion from the “Rainy Day Fund,” including $475 million in grants for small businesses that were (and still are) drowning. Cooper was ignored. 

Instead, the bosses in the General Assembly came up with the massive garbage of S 382, "Disaster Relief 3/Budget/Various Law Changes," which contained only a promise of future appropriations for hurricane relief but no actual money, while its real purpose was to take away power from the governor and other state-wide Council of State members after they were elected but not yet in office. The rainy day fund stayed sacrosanct and very dry. So Gov. Cooper vetoed the monstrocity. Budget Director Kristin Walker had testified in a House hearing just prior to the veto-override vote in the House that the state had $9.1 billion "unappropriated in reserves across a variety of accounts," and that Gov. Cooper's suggestion of $3.9 billion for hurricane relief would still leave a very comfortable $5.5 billion in reserve.

No dice. The NCGOP wanted to cripple Democrats more than it wanted to help its own citizens.

We've written here about the three Republican House members who initially defied their caucus and voted against S 382 and who almost immediately a few days later reversed themselves and voted to ignore the pleas of their constituents. Reps. Mike Clampitt, Karl Gillespie, and Mark Pless abandoned their supposed principles and voted to make the sham disaster relief bill an official slap in the face for their drowned counties.

They're not the only Republicans representing Western North Carolina in the House. At least three other of those guys happily voted yes on the first passage of S 382, for whatever self-serving rationalizations they made for not actually appropriating any new direct aid for their counties:

Jake Johnson (Dist. 113). Youngest Republican in Raleigh and Majority Deputy Whip. Rather than working to get more direct money appropriated for Helene relief, whippersnapper Johnson took the opportunity to criticize the Cooper admin's Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) for -- get this -- enforcing river set-backs for rebuilding disappeared infrastructure: "Where a lot of the rebuilding is going to have to be done — and a lot of the cleanup, obviously, is near the river — one thing we need to look at is, you know, at least temporarily suspending some of the [regulations], how close you can work to a river and making sure that, you know, they're not cracking down on that," Johnson told Fox News Digital.

Ray Pickett

Ray Pickett (Dist. 93). Putting his "followship" skills on full display, Pickett echoed Johnson, tagged along with Johnson's opportunistic attack on DEQ, though his "me too" and "I was just going to say that too" came without any mention of "a specific policy he was most concerned about but said he was [vaguely] worried about DEQ's permitting and approvals process in general .... I absolutely share those concerns," Pickett told Fox News Digital. "I see it with some of our infrastructure that's going to have to be replaced. DEQ … has not always been the quickest agency we have." This was all tough-guy posturing against an environmental agency that had not, in fact, been any impediment at all to recovery but had rather been on the scene in the West since the middle of the flood.

Dudley Greene (Dist. 85). New in the House, representing hard-hit Avery, Mitchell, Yancey, and McDowell counties. He's mere furniture and does as he's told by the bosses.

The Real, Fulminating Threat to Democracy in NC

 

Paul Newby,
"His Benevolence"

In Sunday's News&Observer, UNC Law School Professor Gene Nichol had a stark round-up of the "Six Factors That Brought Down NC Democracy in 2024." Nichol lays much of the blame for the precarious condition of democracy in North Carolina at the doorstep of the state Supreme Court, "transformed into the most partisan appellate tribunal in the United States" under the ascendancy of Chief Justice Paul Newby (a.k.a., "The Smiling Eff You") who thinks the General Assembly under Republican super-majorities is the “sacrosanct fulfillment of the people’s will.” In other words, the hand of the Almighty has bestowed its blessings on Phil Berger, and we all must do as he wishes.

Nichol:

Broadly speaking, state separation of powers issues are left in the hands of state supreme courts, unreviewable by the federal judiciary. So when the state Supreme Court says the General Assembly can do whatever it wants — including cheating on redistricting and overriding the results of elections through sore loser laws — regardless of the clear limits of the North Carolina constitution, the people of the state have no legal or effective political recourse. Such are the wages of a Supreme Court refusing to carry out its prescribed duty of independent judicial review.

The other four partisan Republicans who follow the leadership of Paul Newby:

1. Phil Berger Jr., "Baby Berger," whose very presence on the Court owes much to the power of his big daddy, Phil Senior. Junior is a "nepo baby." We wrote about his rise in January 2019. His term isn't up until 2028.

2. Tamara Barringer, the former Republican state senator until she was defeated in the 2018 Blue Wave by Democrat Sam Searcy, ran for and won her associate justice seat in 2020. She's next up for reelection in 2028.

3. Richard Dietz, whose term runs out in 2030, was originally appointed to the Court of Appeals in 2014 by Gov. Pat McCrory. 

4. Trey Allen, who clerked for Paul Newby (a.k.a., "Rumpelstiltskin"), was elected in 2022, so he's safe until 2030. 

We have a lot of years of suffering ahead of us before any potential break in the clouds.

Rumplestiltskin

Sometimes You Gotta Love a Big Corporation

 

Store in Winston-Salem

CostCo, famous for its $1.50 hotdogs (Kirkland brand weiners) and its $4.99 whole rotisserie chickens, has an earned reputation for progressive corporate leadership -- reportedly excellent salaries and benefits for workers -- and other attitudes and policies that might be legitimately labeled "leans Democratic." The bulk of the $1,143,512 the company spent on politics in 2024 went to Dem subsidiaries and specific Dem candidates, including Sherrod Brown in Ohio. Among revelations (and contradictions) revealed via Open Secrets, CostCo Wholesalers gave slightly over $100,000 to Donald Trump in 2024. (Kamala Harris got slightly more, $135,000.) Tribute to Trump for "just in case"? The just-in-case has become the irrefutable fact. One wonders whether the Plunderer In Chief will think one-hundred thou is adequate for a pass. Don't you expect a shake-down, Trump always demanding additional protection money?

So it's a special pleasure to see my favorite big box paradise sticking its big fat neck out against what has become MAGA doctrine:

Costco shuts down shareholders demand to ditch DEI hiring practices

Source: The Independent

Friday 27 December 2024 23:08 GMT 


The Costco board has rejected a request from shareholders to drop its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies. The shareholders urged the board to get rid of its “illegal discrimination” program. The Costco board replied to a number of shareholders, recommending a vote against a proposal to “report on the risks of maintaining DEI efforts,” Newsweek reported....

“Our Board has considered this proposal and believes that our commitment to an enterprise rooted in respect and inclusion is appropriate and necessary,” said a statement issued by the board.. “Our success at Costco Wholesale has been built on service to our critical stakeholders: employees, members and suppliers. Our efforts around diversity, equity and inclusion follow our code of ethics.” 

The board added that it wants to make sure all of its more than 300,000 employees "feel valued and respected,” and that by having a diverse workforce, Costco can have more insight and creativity when it comes to what the company offers at stores. The board went on to note that customers will be able to “see themselves reflected in the people in our warehouses with whom they interact.”

Bo Hines Gets His Consolation Prize

 

Remember Bo Hines, the right-wing football thrower who shopped himself all over North Carolina Congressional districts, starting in 2022, looking for one he could win -- which he never did. First, he was going to primary Virginia Foxx. Then he finally settled on a race in the new 13th Congressional District, and Trump endorsed him in the 8-candidate Republican primary, which Bo won but then lost that November to Democrat Wiley Nickel. In 2024, Bo tried again in the 6th Congressional District, so gerrymandered that no Democrat was running, but this time Trump endorsed nebbish Addison McDowell because of his friendship with Don Junior.

"Poor Bo Hines" no more! Trump has appointed him (gird yourself) as executive director of the Presidential Council of Advisers for Digital Assets. The short version for that mouthful is Crypto Council.

“In his new role,” someone wrote in a Trump admin press release, “Bo will work with the White House czar for artificial intelligence and crypto [there is such a thing] to foster innovation and growth in the digital assets space, while ensuring industry leaders have the resources they need to succeed. Together, they will create an environment where this industry can flourish and remain a cornerstone of our nation’s technological advancement.”

Whatever. At least Bo's history of Congressional district shopping may be over for awhile.

Jeff Jackson's Christmas Gift

 

I'm going to miss Jeff Jackson in the U.S. House, but I'm going to celebrate Jeff Jackson as North Carolina's new attorney general. Jackson's dispatches from Washington, explaining in plain language what all the sturm und drang added up to, was an education in itself for a populace that needed educating about the habits in Mugstomp-on-the-Potomac.

His last email message came on December 23rd, as he waited for his last flight out of Reagan National Airport in DeeCee back to NC, a summing up of the furious intervention in the passage of a Continuing Resolution and what lies ahead for Speaker Mike Johnson, who has an even smaller governing majority in the House for 2025. I'm happy to excerpt some of it here:

Looking beyond the details, last week fit the same pattern we’ve seen all year:

1. The right-flank opposes a major bill.

2. This forces the Speaker to go to the minority party for votes, which involves making concessions.

3. The right-flank becomes furious over the concessions, neglecting to mention that their initial opposition to the more conservative bill is what forced the Speaker to go to the minority party in the first place.

4. The Speaker allows himself to get torched on TV by his right-flank, knowing that most of what they want from being in Congress is just to elicit anger from a national audience. He doesn’t hit back; he’s a willing punching bag.

5. The right-flank appreciates that he doesn’t hit back, and everyone moves on.

All of which means:

There’s going to be another Speaker fight when the new Congress convenes in a couple weeks, but no matter who the next Speaker is -- and my bet is it remains Mike Johnson -- the defining legislative feature of the next Congress will be the same as the last one: the right-flank’s willingness to deny their Speaker party-line wins and force him to work with the minority party to get big stuff done.

 

The Musk Perplex

 

Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) in a Twitter ramp-up Dec. 22nd:

I know a lot of people in the technology industry have deep admiration for @elonmusk and find it baffling that many others have a negative reaction to him despite his lofty ideals and undeniable achievements. I have a theory about why some see him negatively. I think that when Musk makes these very concise interventions into public debates without explaining fully what he means or how his statements cohere with each other, it leads people who don’t know him or his industry personally to think he’s not on the level.

I’m sure he has good reasons for everything he says, including the things that appear to be hypocritical or false or just overstated. But a good way to secure more support would be to try not to say those things, unless he has time and inclination to fully explain himself.

 

Elon Musk To Western NC: "Drop Dead!"

 

One oligarch to rule them all

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]

 

Why Is This Man Smiling?

 

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.

 [N and O]

The Limping Rep in the NC House

 

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.

The Autocracy of Phil Berger

 

The Comedy Stylings of Berger/Moore

 

Berger and Moore ... said the governor has berated them for attacking the separation of powers doctrine when they are instead "seeking to preserve it."

--Haley Fowler, Law360

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.

Stein and Cooper Sue To Block S 382

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.”

The Head Bastard in the NC House Admits It

 

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.

 

Tillis Declares Candidacy, Sucks Up to MAGA

 

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. 

BREAKING: The Bastards in the NC House Voted to Override Cooper's Veto on S 382

 

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.

  
  

Anderson Clayton, Turning Up the Thermostat on NCGOP

 

AP News/Gary Robertson

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. 

Thom Tillis Gets Fingered for Possible Elimination as a "Squish" Senator

 

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.

Let's Draft Roy Cooper for Senate in '26

 

"Everything is on the table right now."

--Gov. Roy Cooper, to WSOC, about whether he is considering a Senate run in 2026 against Sen. Thom Tillis

Smart money in North Carolina bets he runs. The smartest money bets he wins.

Meanwhile, Sen. Tillis has to worry that he might not make it through a primary, as the MAGA wing of the NCGOP can't tolerate him.

Tillis as Chameleon

 

With murky core values, compromise became his guiding principle.

--Thomas Mills, commenting on Sen. Thom Tillis

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.

 

The After Life of Kirk deViere

 

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. 

Democrats Choose a New Minority Leader in the NC Senate

 

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.

The Race for DNC Chair

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.

The New Watauga CoCommish A House of Cards?

 

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.

The Braxton Eggers Era In Watauga Gets Worse

 

Nathan Miller, 
County Attorney to be

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?

Braxton Eggers Will Be the Next Chair of the Watauga County Commission

 

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.