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.

What I'm Thankful For

 

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.

Big Question: Why Did Rep. Ray Pickett Vote for S 382?

 

Rep. Ray Pickett

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.

Ray Pickett's office: 919-733-7727

Ray Pickett's email: Ray.Pickett@ncleg.gov

The Silly Spectacle of Thom Tillis, Suck-Up

 

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.

3 Mountain Republicans Could Stop the Newest Power Grab

 

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.

The Horse's Ass in Charge of the Bastards in Raleigh

 

Berger told reporters that he doesn’t think swapping political control of the elections board from Democrats to Republicans is about politics.

--Will Doran, WRAL 

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. 

Is Political Social Media a Paper Tiger?

“Digital spaces are not your friend anymore.”

--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.