DINOs for McCrory

Apparently never satisfied with how much they can stab the Democratic Party in the back (and in the front, the side, the hands, the feet, the pancreas), a couple of General Assembly Democrats (members of the Five Goobers, who notoriously gave the Republican majority their veto override margins to defeat Gov. Perdue during the last two years) are bragging today about being "Democrats for McCrory."

Whatever. These guys haven't been actual Democrats for many years and presumably only hang on to the label because great-granddaddy would roll over and start barfing up cotton bolls if they changed their party affiliation to reflect both their philosophy and their voting histories.

Go in peace. Or go to pieces. We really don't care.

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.

A Courageous Citizen And the Double-Talking Member of the General Assembly

Defeat or Defection?

Jim Crawford

NC House member James W. Crawford was one of the Five Democratic Goobers who voted to override Gov. Perdue's veto of the education-killing Republican budget last year ... among other defections from the Democratic cause.

House Republicans rewarded Crawford for his treasons by making him the only Democrat among the key budget-writers in the House. They also "double-bunked" him in their redistricting plan with another incumbent Democratic House member in House Dist. 2, Winkie Wilkins, so there will probably be a primary between the two of them (and perhaps one or two other Democrats).

At the moment, polling in that district shows Wilkins easily beating Crawford.

What's up next? You might expect Crawford to switch to Republican, especially as there is as yet no declared Republican candidate in Dist. 2. It's almost as though the Republican Party were keeping the slot open specifically for Crawford.

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.

Payoff

NC House "Democratic" Rep. James Crawford, one of the Five Goobers who voted for both the Republican budget plan and for the constitutional amendment to write discrimination against gays into our governing document, has been appointed by Republican Speaker of the House Thom Tillis to be the only "Democrat" among the five chief budget-writers in the NC House.

If you're a "Democrat," nothing will get you rewarded in the Raleigh Clown College faster than always voting like a Republican.

Let the Primary Challenges Begin!

With all eyes on The Five Goobers from Demsville, those five Democrats in the NC House who apparently promised the Republicans that they would vote to override Gov. Perdue's veto of the budget, it was bound to happen: among the disapproving gazes are some from rivals willing to challenge them in primary elections next year.

The first such (possible) primary challenger: Dr. Benjamin Chavis, a nationally recognized Civil Rights leader who also happens to be from Oxford, N.C., in Goober Jim Crawford's House district. (Crawford is 2nd from left in the photo array above.)

Laura Leslie has additional biographical info on Chavis, along with a statement about what he's contemplating and why: "I am very concerned that some of my fellow Democrats are now supporting a regressive and terrible state budget proposal. I hope that Representative Crawford and other Democrats in the legislature will represent the will of all the people of NC more effectively."

All Eyes Now on the Five Goobers

Gov. Beverly Perdue has vetoed the Republican budget. Laura Leslie's reporting:

Perdue said the state budget "is more than a roadmap. It’s a reflection of our values. It’s a reflection of what we believe in."

"For the first time, NC has a legislature that’s turning its back on our schools, our children, our longstanding investments in education."

Perdue said the cuts in the GOP's "ideologically driven" $19.7 billion dollar plan would harm classrooms, turn kids away from preschools, and close college programs, causing "generational damage" to the state's schools.

And she stressed that cuts in other areas would be damaging, too, from emergency response to law enforcement to the courts - "not just education, but our communities, our environment, our public safety system, and our ability to care for those that need us the most.” ...

All eyes now turn to the five House Democrats who voted for the Republican budget when it first passed. They're pictured above, and perhaps their own constituents know them as sterling gentlemen. We know them only as ... well, Republican chumps, not to put too fine a point on it.

They are, left to right:

William D. Brisson, who represents Cumberland and Bladen counties
James W. Crawford, Granville & Nash counties
Dewey L. Hill, Brunswick & Columbus counties
Bill Owens, Camden, Currituck, Pasquotank, & Tyrrell counties
Timothy L. Spear, Chowan, Dare, Hyde, & Washington counties

Defectors

The two NC House Dems who voted with 64 Republicans on Wednesday on the Republican bill that seeks to nullify the federal Affordable Care Act:

William D. Brisson (House Dist. 22, Bladen & Cumberland cos.)

James W. Crawford Jr. (House Dist. 32, Granville & Vance cos.)

Way to dance with them what brought you, guys.

Based on the vote totals here, the Republicans don't have the votes to over-ride Gov. Perdue's veto.