Who Will Be the Next Speaker of the NC House?

 

Slick and Aw, Shucks

At the moment, the struggle to succeed Tim Moore as Republican Speaker of the NC House comes down to a contest between "slick" and "aw, shucks" -- that is, a rivalry for the job between current Majority Leader John Bell ("aw, shucks!" from Wayne Co.) and slick Caldwell County lawyer Destin Hall, chair of the all-important House Rules Committee and the also very important Redistricting Committee. I profiled Bell not so long ago; Hall is better known up here because of his redistricting shenanigans, which included his snatching Blue Ridge precinct, Watauga's biggest precinct which has trended "blue," for his own Caldwell County House district, thus safely diluting the Democratic vote -- no threat to himself -- while strengthening Ray Pickett's hold on Dist. 93.

Hall is like a walking knife blade, as sleek and polished as rival John Bell is rumpled and scruffy. Hall cuts, too, is willing to draw blood. He was once caught in the act:

RALEIGH A political trial that has mostly been dominated by math and academic research erupted in drama late Wednesday [Jan. 5, 2022] , when a top Republican redistricting leader said on the witness stand that he had used secret maps, drawn by someone else, to guide his work.

That statement, made under oath, appears to directly contradict what he told Democratic lawmakers at the legislature in November, shortly before the Republican-led legislature passed those maps into law over Democrats’ objections.

More recently, Carolina Forward outed two video messages that Hall had posted to his Twitter account, one accusing North Carolina sheriffs of being "woke" because they don't persecute enough brown people. Those videos do not appear to be on Hall's Twitter feed any more.

Back after the terrible redistricting of 2018, Hall had the gall (I made a rhyme!) to tell an audience at the Caldwell County Public Library that “I can tell you that the way the maps are drawn now are much, much, much more fair than they ever were.” That comment elicited prolonged laughter from the crowd. It was not complimentary laughter. It was derisive. Which appeared to stun Hall (sometimes slickness backfires). You can see the footage here.

Lucille Sherman, reporter for Axios Raleigh, has written a good primer on why House Spkr is so important, and notes details about these first two announced candidates. Undoubtedly there'll be at least one more, possibly grinning Jason Saine, who got exposed recently as Tim Moore's bitch.

Who Is John Bell?

 

I watched all of Dawn Vaughan's interview with NC House Majority Leader John Bell because he's a Republican lawmaker -- and a powerful one -- about whom I have known very little. And it's time we got to know these cats who are imposing so much bullshit on us, now that they can override the governor's veto.

From the "Under the Dome" podcast, you might want to peg John Bell as 100% pure-Dee good-ole-boy -- aw-shucksing and never meaning any harm -- someone you would want with you on a cold morning in a duck blind. But there's obviously intelligence and cunning in that country boy, because though he doesn't seek the camera nor preach, he has made sure the bullet trains run on time ... to achieve all the regressive, hard-right laws the General Assembly has passed already this session (not to mention previous sessions, going all the way back to Bell's election as Majority Leader in 2016). I'm not going to name them all, but the harsh rules affecting women and children who don't conform, and the power grabs aimed at the guv, and the targeting of the freedom to vote -- that's more than enough to settle his tea!

Bell was elected to the House in 2012. First, he had to get through a primary with a very powerful lawmaker named Stephen LaRoque (who was about to be indicted for stealing Federal money and attempting to launder it), beating LaRoque by only 39 votes. That's a measure of how much the Republican voters of House District 10 liked their lawmakers a little bit shady, or adept at skimming. Two months after losing so barely that May primary, LaRoque was under indictment and would eventually do time. (Because he had better lawyers than you do, he ended up only being convicted of "aiding and abetting theft.")

So that's the guy that John Bell went on to easily outshine in the House. Quickly, by 2014, in his first term, Bell won an election to be Majority Whip, and then two years after that, he got elected by his caucus to be Majority Leader. He has skills. And some troubling ideas. He's a big opponent of wind energy, because someone once told him that low-flying military aircraft might hit a windmill, and Bell is religiously protective of the Seymour Johnson AFB outside Goldsboro (in Bell's district). He supports Ron DeSantis for president because he likes what DeSantis has done to Florida. (No kidding! That's what Bell told Dawn Vaughan.) Bell opposes expanding Medicaid coverage. But -- did we say "good-ole-boy"? -- he voted to allow state universities to sell beer on game days.