Got a Signed Lease? That Means Nothing To the GOP in the General Assembly

During her last days in office, Governor Bev Perdue inked a deal with the city of Raleigh to turn the 325-acre Dorothea Dix property, a former mental asylum, into a "destination park" in the heart of Raleigh and for all the people of North Carolina.

"A group of local business leaders and civic boosters known as Dix Visionaries had lobbied for years for Raleigh to gain control of the Dix property for an urban park, and the group recently pledged $3 million to help the city create a master plan for the site," wrote WRAL.

But with our new over-lords in the General Assembly, a signed contract isn't worth the paper it was printed on. Dual bills were introduced yesterday in both the NC House and the NC Senate to simply eliminate that contract and, we assume, sell the property to the highest bidders for condos, strip malls, megaplexes, and big car dealerships.

"Words cannot express how disappointed we are with the introduction of a bill that would put the preservation of the Dorothea Dix land in jeopardy," Dix Visionaries said in a statement. "This lease was not a politically partisan act. Dorothea Dix Park was created by support from the Council of State, mayors, elected officials, business leaders, community groups and an overwhelming majority of citizens across North Carolina."

"It's almost heartbreaking," Raleigh Mayor Nancy McFarlane said. "The city went into this in good faith, and we expect the state of North Carolina to honor their contractual obligation."

"Good faith"? It would be nice if this bunch in power had any.

Someone influencial in Raleigh tweeted yesterday that this is really a big "F You" directed at Bev Perdue as her parting gift from a congregation of selfish children prone to tantrums.

Corporate Welfare & Cronyism, McCrory-Style

Back during  his campaign for governor, Pat McCrory talked much about his dislike for corporate welfare ("economic development incentives"), and criticized his Democratic opponent for considering them necessary.

But last week, McCrory proudly announced that North Carolina would be awarding some $94 million in tax breaks ("and other incentives") to MetLife to relocate part of its operation to Charlotte and Cary. (More was promised by the local governments involved.)

Wait! That reversal of a campaign promise has a back-story. The MetLife deal for tax breaks was "brokered" by blue chip Charlotte law firm of Moore & Van Allen, for whom McCrory worked until about 30 minutes before he was sworn in as governor. Believe me, Moore & Van Allen is raking in plenty on this deal. About everyone is, except the taxpayers of North Carolina and the taxpayers of Mecklenburg and Wake counties.

According to some eye witnesses, McCrory literally ran away from reporters rather than answer their questions about his own involvement in this particularly rank example of "incentives":

McCrory refused to answer any questions about the deal, ignoring reporters' questions as he followed his aides to a waiting car. He took no questions during a similar event Thursday in Raleigh. 

The big jobs announcement resurrects questions about McCrory and his work for Charlotte-based law and lobbying firm Moore & Van Allen. McCrory said last year he performed "client development work" at the firm, but is not a lawyer and had no specific clients. [WTVD]

But wait! There's now a question about ethics and "Executive Order 17," issued by Gov. Beverly Perdue in 2009 after her son took a high-profile lobbying job. Perdue was bending over backward to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest. John Frank, in Under the Dome:

The order, which remains in effect, said the governor shall "take appropriate steps, considering the nature of the project and the level of involvement of the consultant, to limit her or his involvement in the project to the extent necessary to protect the public interest." That was especially important "when the impartiality of the governor ... might reasonably be questioned due to a financial, personal, or familial relationship with a consultant or that consultant's employees or agents." 

McCrory and his aides did not consult the State Ethics Commission about whether he faced any conflict of interest because his ex-employer helped negotiate MetLife's incentives offer, spokeswoman Kim Genardo said. The governor's involvement in those incentives "was limited, extremely limited," Genardo said.

(And incidentally, O my brethren, did McCrory even mention, while he was bragging about bringing a mega-corp insurance company to our state, that the MetLife negotiation got started under Gov. Perdue's administration, and at least part of the credit, if any credit whatsoever is due, belongs to her?)

We have a corporate shill for governor who went back on his "no corporate welfare" stance in precisely a New York minute.

How the GOP in Raleigh Operates

In 2012, and under the management of the new Republican majority in the General Assembly, North Carolina passed S820, which opened the state to fracking. Gov. Perdue vetoed the bill. The Republicans in the General Assembly, with some help from a few Democrats, over-rode the veto.

S820 contained some "safeguards" to protect the air and water of the state as well as the process, safeguards that were probably necessary to get the required votes to override the governor's veto.

That was then. This is now.

The NC Senate is busily doing away with those safeguards. Yesterday the Senate Commerce Committee held discussion on S76, which simply throws out the safeguards in the original fracking bill, to wit:

1. Removes the requirement that state lawmakers must approve rules before the first well can be drilled. 

2. Gives the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (now under the direction of John Skvarla, a climate change denier and notorious science skeptic) the authority to start issuing permits on March 1, 2015, without the legislature's say-so. 

3. Removes the state geologist and water and air experts from the state Mining and Energy Commission. 

4. Allows drillers to inject production waste fluids back into the ground. 

5. Hands the Energy Policy Council to the "Energy Jobs Council," which involves firing and replacing everyone currently serving on that commission. 

6. Encourages offshore drilling exploration.

7. Repeals the law requiring "land men" to register with the state. 

8. Streamlines the permitting process to a single permit, removing checkpoints at which DENR could look for problems.

The fast-tracking of this destructive and highly risky form of gas drilling is one thing. Removing from the review process any scientific expertise for monitoring its effects is far worse. Worst of all is allowing "production waste fluids" to be injected back into the ground. That's been the source of water well pollution in Pennsylvania and other states.

Clearly, the new Republican majority in the North Carolina General Assembly, with the consent of their patsy, Gov. McCrory, can do any damn thing to the environment of the state that they damn well please. And this fracking risk pleases them very much. Sen. Buck Newton, R-Nash, told the Commerce Committee yesterday: "This bill is an effort to make sure that the industry understands that North Carolina is ready to do business – that we're moving forward, we want them here, we want their investment and we want them to create jobs."

When water wells are destroyed, they won't be saying that they wanted that, but clearly, at the moment, they don't give a good goddamn.

The Senate Commerce Committee is expected to vote on this abomination tomorrow. Then it will be on the schedule for full Senate approval anon. Senate member Dan Soucek's telephone number is (919) 733-5742.

Whaaa? McCrory Going All Squishily Moderate

Gov.-Elect Pat McCrory, in Raleigh to measure the curtains, held a press conference today and pointedly took a very different tone about the newly created Dix Park. NC Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger and what Rob Schofield calls "the conservative shock troops at Americans for Prosperity" had lambasted Bev Perdue for striking the deal with the City of Raleigh for the Dorothea Dix acreage to become a public park, which Berger and Americans for Prosperity had labeled a travesty of Everything Holy = private profit off public lands. Changing his tune considerably from last week, when he was singing from the same free market hymnal with Berger and the Rich Guys, McCrory said he was "all for" the park.

He didn't mean it, probably, but he said it, and these days that gets marked down in the "moderation" column.

Schofield summed up what was striking about the whole scene:

No silly name-calling or manufactured outrage; nothing akin to Berger’s absurd and inflammatory statement on Twitter that "Having failed for years to advance her agenda, Gov Perdue is desperately trying to craft a last-minute legacy at NC taxpayers’ expense” or AFP’s claim that the deal is “a billion-dollar giveaway of taxpayer resources.” 

So, Republicans, how ya gonna handle your RINO governor?

Score One for Bev!

Bev Perdue won one this a.m., and good for her. The NC Council of State approved her plan to lease the 306-acre Dorothea Dix Hospital tract of land in downtown Raleigh to the City of Raleigh for preservation as a park for the people. The deal will cost the City of Raleigh about $68 million over 75 years. Republicans on the Council of State (principally Secretary of Labor Cherie Berry) had their noses out of joint because they were flakking for big-money interests, said they wanted more cash for the land, but more than wanting more, they wanted to deny Bev Perdue a victory. They lost.

Another Council of State member, Attorney General Roy Cooper, said, "This is an extraordinary opportunity that will improve the quality of life for generations to come. I think it’s shortsighted to analyze this as a pure economic transaction for the state.” (Why didn't Roy Cooper run for governor?)

Cherie Berry: "More money!"

Roy Cooper: "More value."

The site contains much open park land already, some 200-year-old specimen oaks and other mature hardwoods, and was lusted after by a rapacious crowd of commercial developers. Bev Perdue has saved that historic jewel from development. For that she gets a star in her crown.

Her chief opponents, who've been raging publicly since she announced the plan: The Koch Brothers/Art Pope group known as Americans for Prosperity, along with their puppets in the NC General Assembly, Thom Tillis and Phil  Berger. And, of course, old Me-Too Pat McCrory, Squishy Pat, who's learned fast whose palm to eat out of.

Will NC Be a National Laughing Stock, Come Friday?

The Guv has until midnight on Thursday to decide what to do about H819, the controversial Coastal Management Policies Act, wherein the new Republican majority in the NC General Assembly commanded the Atlantic not to rise, or at least commanded state government not to talk about it in anything approaching scientific terms or backed up with scientific research.

Kirk Ross has written an interesting update on "Will She Or Won't She?"

Perdue Says No to Fracking in NC

Gov. Perdue's second veto of the 2012 "short session" of the NC General Assembly came on Senate Bill 820, the so-called "fracking" law which would open North Carolina to horizontal drilling and the fracturing of deep rock to release trapped natural gas. "Fracking" has been highly controversial. There's plenty of evidence that it endangers ground water, among other side effects.

Laura Leslie and Mark Binker have a good post up about the likelihood of a veto override.

Only two Republicans in the NC House voted against the original bill. One of them, Rep. Bryan Holloway of Stokes County, was obviously reflecting the majority opinion in his home county, which would be one of the few counties in the state with enough rock-trapped gas to be targeted by the big fracking companies. The Stokes Board of County Commissioners unanimously passed a resolution recently calling on the governor to veto the fracking bill. That Board, incidentally, is 100% Republican.

The threat that fracking represents to our water supply does not have to be a partisan issue.

Gov Perdue To Veto Republican Budget

That's good news.

It'll now come down to the veto-override vote in the NC House. One of the Five Goobers who voted last year to override Perdue's veto of the last Republican budget told the News&Observer, “They don’t have the votes to override, and they know it,” without enunciating, by the way, exactly how he might vote.

WRAL is running a "veto override watch," paying particular attention to the Five Goobers and other Dems who voted for this budget before it went to Perdue.

McCrory: "Gimme My Perdue Back!"

You think Gov. Beverly Perdue didn't throw a clod into the Republican churn with her sudden departure from the governor's race?

Behold the fumbling, stumbling, can't-get-his-bearings political stylings of Pat McCrory.

Can't Win 'Em All

Sometimes we agree with Gary Pearce.

Sometimes we don't.

The Guv Floods the Lido Deck

 Coming completely out of the blue, right at 9 a.m. this morning, was the rumor of an announcement that Gov. Beverly Perdue would not be running for reelection. That rumor was confirmed as fact about an hour or so later.

The scramble among Democrats with state-wide ambitions was palpable, and we could hear through our Twitter feed the scraping of chairs on hardwood, the slamming of doors, the crashing of china all the way up here in Boone. And smell the sweat of ambition.

The downside is pretty obvious: we're two weeks away from candidate filing with the top job in the state suddenly an open seat. Who gets trampled in the stampede?

The upside is also perhaps pretty obvious: with a consistently unpopular governor out of the picture, the fall elections become a referendum on the Republican-dominated General Assembly rather than a referendum on Perdue, a shift in focus that might give Pat McCrory a pause or a little acid reflux, depending on how self-aware he is.

Several strong Democrats will emerge to challenge one another in a primary. Several weak Democrats will also probably jump in. A hot primary is guaranteed, which produces another obvious upside: the passage of North Carolina's notorious, unnecessary, and wholly discriminatory anti-gay Amendment One becomes a lot less certain. (There was even a suggestion on Twitter this morning that Perdue had deliberately out-foxed the Republicans by making a deal to put the amendment on the primary ballot, knowing that there would be a hot race to replace her. Not likely, but cool if true.)

There has to be some sort of Prophet of the Year plaque made up for presentation to Rep. Bill Faison, who's been saying for months that The Guv would step aside rather than run for reelection. Most people poo-pooed that prediction, including Yours Truly, for which I now repent, apologize, and ask for forgiveness.

Conspiracy Theory of the Day: Floating out there in Punditstan is the suggestion that it was the Obama White House that showed Gov. Perdue the door and that her exit from the scene increases Obama's chances of taking North Carolina again. That's clear-thinking, IMO. But the theory goes on to suggest that Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx has been groomed by the same White House to now run for governor, a theory that will have a mercifully short shelf-life, given that candidate filing starts on February 13.

Berger Admits He Has Cooties

Phil Berger, President Pro Tempore of the NC Senate

1. So Gov. Bev Perdue takes the gutsy action of calling on the NC General Assembly to raise sales taxes three-quarters of a penny to restore some of the teaching jobs lost under the budget rammed through by the new Republican majority, a budget which included letting a temporary 1-cent sales tax increase expire.

2. Republican Senate Pooh-bah Phil Berger has a conniption, partly, we suspect, over the fact that The Guv was gutsy. Who saw that coming? He challenges Perdue to a debate. Which she declined.

But here's the funny part, the seemingly unconscious acknowledgement on Berger's part that the politics that he and his boyz in the General Assembly have created are not working to the benefit of Republicans. Via Laura Leslie:

Asked how much of this is about election-year politics, Berger said he’d been told by consultants that “The governor’s path to re-election is most likely going to be successful if she can pick a fight with the legislature. In my opinion, I think what you’re seeing, particularly over the last week or so, is her picking that fight."

Let that sink in. Republican consultants have been telling Berger (and Thom Tillis, we would guess) that their long-awaited assumption of power in the state has made them very unpopular. More than just telling Berger, they were apparently warning him that The Guv could put herself on a track to reelection if she "picks a fight" with the unpopular Republican-dominated General Assembly.

She does it, and Berger spills the beans. There are some Republican consultants experiencing face-palm time right now in Raleigh.

Under Cover of Night

Approaching 1 a.m. this morning, the new Republican leadership in the NC House rammed through an override of a Bev Perdue veto in order to single out and punish the North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE). Two House Democrats helped the Republicans in their project.

Associations of state workers routinely have their dues deducted from their state pay checks. The State Employees Association (SEANC) operates this way. So does the NCAE, at least they did until the dead-of-night vendetta against them played out in Raleigh early this morning.

The bad blood goes back to the passage last summer of the state budget which severely cut education funding. Teachers fought back, yes they did, by the means afforded them in their advocacy group, the NCAE, which mailed flyers blasting the five House Democrats who played traitor in voting for the Republican budget. At the time, the Republican Speaker Thom Tillis accidentally left a microphone on which broadcast to the entire legislative building that Republicans intended to punish the NCAE by eliminating their “check off” privileges: “The reason we’ve decided to do that is the NCAE has gone into all five districts [of the traitor Dems] with mailers hammering these Democrats,” Tillis said. “We just want to give them a little taste about what’s to come.”

Ah, the high-minded statesmanship of the morally superior!

Mark Binker today has written the best and most complete accounting of the midnight shenanigans in Raleigh.

The reason Gov. Perdue is calling the House’s action “unconstitutional” this morning is because the state’s founding document says that a veto-override session can only take up the veto in question, and Gov. Perdue called the Honorables back to Raleigh to consider only her veto of their repeal of the Racial Justice Act ... which, incidentally, they failed to achieve, throwing in the towel around 7 p.m. last night. The Republicans adjourned the session but called for a whole new session to convene at 12:45 a.m. this morning to take up new items. They clearly also intended to override the governor’s veto of the fracking bill and the voter photo ID law, but they couldn’t gather the votes. They had to settle for just crippling the teachers’ association. So ... it could have been worse, O my brethren.

Incidentally, the two Democrats who helped the Republicans out in attacking the teachers:  Reps. William Brisson of Dublin and Jim Crawford of Oxford, both members in good standing of The Five Goobers.

Wha's Up With This?

NC House Rep. Bill Faison made some show of announcing today that he had loaned his campaign $500,000, considerably more than he would need for a successful reelection campaign for his House seat.

Refuses to say what he plans to do with that pile, though he's already promised he wouldn't run a primary against Bev Perdue. He's also been less than polite in calling on Perdue to step aside, so we've gotten some mixed messages.

Exile on Jones St. ventures that a gubernatorial primary is "looking more likely." Which perhaps only proves that it's not just a quarter of Republican voters in Iowa who have a death wish.

GOP-Dominated General Assembly ... Very Unpopular

Sometimes polling gives you the willies; sometimes it gives you ideas. From PPP:

One thing that's been true all year is that whenever the GOP legislature comes back to town, it gets less popular. That's the case once again after their late November return to Raleigh. Only 29% of voters now have a favorable opinion of the Republicans in the legislature, a new record low. The previous worst had been 33%. 48% of voters have an unfavorable opinion of them. The biggest issue for the Republicans is that independents, after voting for the GOP by a huge margin in legislative contests last year, now give them a 22/44 favorability rating.

Contained in such dismal numbers may be the key to the path forward for Gov. Perdue, who has her own bad polling to deal with:

Finally one finding in this poll points to a potential path to victory for Bev Perdue. 44% of voters in the state trust her more compared to 40% who put a greater deal of faith in the Republican legislature. Pat McCrory has tied himself closely to the unpopular new legislative majority so if Perdue can run against their agenda and McCrory's support of it, that might just be the way she pulls out a second term. It won't be easy, but it's something.

Over-Caffeinated?

Hard to figger Rep. Bill Faison's interview with WRAL's Laura Leslie as anything less than an admission that he's dying to take on Gov. Bev Perdue in a primary next year.

"...I think ultimately Governor Perdue will do the right thing and decide not to run. I don’t believe you’ll ever see her file [to run for reelection],” Faison said.

Faison had already caused a bit of a ruckus about the failings of the Guv but then surprised many by announcing that he would not run against her.

He seems to be backsliding rapidly. When Leslie asked if he's still interested in running against Perdue, he replied, "Well, I certainly think we need strong leadership at the top of the ticket, and I’m certainly giving consideration to it. That’s a decision for some time in the future."

The future is pretty much standing on the door-stoop, with filing for office scheduled by the state Board of Elections for the first week of February.

A warning shot by Faison or just an unwise flapping of the lip to the best political reporter in the state? Hard to figger. It's clear enough that the indictment yesterday of two Perdue aides and a close friend for campaign violations in 2008 -- even though the prosecutor took pains to say that Perdue was not a target -- is the proximate cause for Faison's fantasy-talk. Faison has been public and loud in challenging the Republican leadership over jobs, and doing it all over the place, which is welcome, especially at a time when state Democratic leaders seem tongue-tied too often (including the governor -- recall her hemming and hawing over the anti-gay equality amendment).

Faison might have some trouble drawing disaffected Dem progressives to his insurgency, should one develop. Just yesterday, the Art Pope org Civitas Action rated Faison as one of the more conservative Dems in the NC House.

An Obvious Political Stunt

The signature legislative ambition for the new Republican majority in the NC General Assembly? Limiting ballot access for the state's black citizens and for the young, two demographic groups that voted heavily for Barack Obama in 2008 and are likely to do so again in 2012.

The Republicans' wet dream for a voter photo ID bill would hamper the voting rights of several thousand of those two groups.

Gov. Perdue vetoed that bill. When the Republicans attempted to override it in the General Assembly, the Democrats in the NC Senate held firm, and the override failed.

Now, in a transparent attempt to build public pressure on Democrats in the state Senate and on the governor, the Republican-dominated county commissions in four NC counties have passed resolutions requesting that the General Assembly pass "local bills" to require photo IDs of voters in just those counties.

That would be patently unconstitutional, but never mind that. One of those four counties, Craven, is considered Gov. Perdue's home county, so the opportunity for public embarrassment of the governor was just too delicious to pass up. Five Republican commissioners in Craven trumped the two Democratic commissioners.

And by the way, in those four counties pushing for local photo ID laws -- Craven, Gaston, Davidson, and Rowan -- there are 22 total Republican commissioners, to 3 total Democratic commissioners. Yeah, they need a photo ID law because, obviously, those 3 Democrats could not have won office without fraud, right?

This is all a put-up job, a clumsy (not to say ridiculous) attempt to steam-roll the public and cower the Senate Democrats.

Renee Ellmers Will Vote Against Gay Marriage Amendment

Apparently, a few dozen jaws dropped at Campbell University School of Law last Thursday when Tea Party conservative Renee Ellmers (NC-2) said in answer to a question that she would be voting AGAINST the anti-gay marriage amendment on May 8th.

Whaaa?

"Under the Dome" confirmed that Ellmers had indeed said that she thought the Republican-written amendment was "too broadly drawn."

Maybe this means that Gov. Beverly Perdue can take a stand too? The Guv has been rather noticeably MIA on the issue.

The Tea Party, if it actually believes what it preaches, ought to be deeply, deeply opposed to the discriminatory nature of this Republican/religious attempt to rewrite the state's foundational document. But until Ellmers spoke up at Campbell University, we had not noticed any Tea Partiers taking a stand for other people's freedoms.

Cave-Ins and Pay-Backs

The spectacle of Democratic members of the NC House lying down with dogs in order to override a string of the governor's vetoes -- with one notable exception -- is now matched by the spectacle of a couple of those Democrats being evidently awarded by having their districts redrawn in a way that might save their sorry behinds in the next election.

The only possible bright spot in the whole Raleigh debacle is being provided by two Republican senators, both of whom are not promising at the moment to override the governor on the passage of the insulting and intrusive abortion restriction bill. If one of them caves, Perdue's veto will be overridden. At least one of the two, Sen. Stan Bingham, R-Davidson, is holding firm: "I really don't intend on changing my position," he said today. "I still feel strongly it's not a decision government should be involved in."

Republicans in Raleigh have provided the road map for setting this state back a generation and for worsening the environment and the economy, but it's been Democrats down there who've actually allowed them to do the worst of it ... and to weaken our governor in incalculable ways for 2012.

The anger in this state could spark a #FuckYouRaleigh movement to rival the #FuckYouWashington phenom.

One of the Five Goobers Strikes Again

NC House member Bill Owens gives new meaning to the phrase "destructively befuddled."

He just voted to override the governor's veto of the Gutting of Environmental Regulations Act of 2011 (S781), a.k.a., Regulatory Reform Act, apparently because he saw that the override was going to fail 75-43 ... because

1. Two minutes -- literally, two minutes! -- after he voted with Gov. Perdue to uphold the veto, he changed his vote to go with the Republicans, making the final vote enough for the override (76-42), and

2. A few minutes before that he had said in debate that he would vote to sustain the governor's veto, yessiree-Bob.

Befuddlement? Wrong word, probably, as it appears much more calculating, since Mr. Owens apparently (and quite obviously) changed his vote on the veto because four Republicans are absent today, and Speaker Thom Tillis had to call in his chit.

This prize of a Democratic legislator announced on June 3rd that he would not be running for reelection, so perhaps he feels perfectly free to make a perfect spectacle of his so-called "principles."