Tricia Cotham, "As Vulnerable As She's Ever Been"

 

Ken McCool

 

So said Chris Cooper about the NC House member who used to be a prominent Democrat and who deserted to the GOP to give them their veto-proof majority. I watched Tricia Cotham easily fight off Democratic challenger Nicole Sidman in 2024. Sidman was a novice at politics, had never been a candidate before. Cotham's Democratic opponent this year, Ken McCool, might be a different story. JohnLocke.org rates the district R+0 "Toss Up."

I dug into Ken McCool way back in January:  

McCool ran for Matthews Town Commission in 2019 at the age of 20, came in 7th in a very crowded scrum, but only missed snagging one of six at-large seats by some 14 votes. When a vacancy opened up in February of 2020, the Commission recognized his showing in 2019 and appointed him to fill out the term. He was reelected a couple more times, including earning himself mayor pro tem as the top vote-getter. He and his father own Ken's Sports Cards and Collectibles in Indian Trail, which is a suburb of Matthews. According to LinkedIn, he also does subcontractor painting.

He appears to have been both very active and effective as a pro-development member of the town board. He brags about bringing Acceleration Advanced Manufacturing Campus to Matthews, which plans to occupy a large site on the I-485 loop south of Charlotte. Acceleration looks to be a subdivision of Hendrick Motor Sports, which builds high-performance vehicles among other things. McCool also claims ownership for expanding affordable housing in Matthews, delivering tangibles like a new fire station, and making "the largest investment in parks in a generation."

McCool's message: lifelong Matthews resident, municipal problem-solver, supporter of parks, improver of transportation and housing, armed with small-business knowledge, and a family man (wife, two young kids). In contrast, Cotham is running on a message that she knows powerful people. She touts her insider knowledge of Raleigh and her ability to get favors from Republican leadership.

McCool's been endorsed by Carolina Forward, and Pete Buttigieg came to Matthews to campaign for him. But for a Democrat in 2026 who's in a tossup race with a highly controversial incumbent, McCool's social media presence isn't much, and his website is bare bones. I get no sense that he's got volunteers on the ground knocking doors. And he has never shown his family. I can respect his (and their) desire to stay out of the political spotlight, but the visual absence of support is noticeable. 

I hope someone will message me that the McCool campaign is a raging brushfire not at all visible to us folks up in the mountains. In his July 10th report to the State Board of Elections, his campaign had raised over $130,000 and had some $76,000 cash-on-hand. But Cotham's 2nd Quarter filing lists $153,000.00 cash-on-hand.

 

Tricia Cotham's Rap Sheet Earns Her a Republican Primary

Tricia Cotham with Dan Bishop, announcing
her party switch

She defected to the enemy in April 2023. By switching parties, she betrayed the Democratic majority that had elected her as a Democrat in her "Safe Democrat" NC House Dist. 112. She quickly became the most unpopular former Democrat in the state: 

EqualityNC: "Tricia Cotham sought ENC's endorsement in 2022 affirming that she held values consistent with our own. Since then, she has betrayed those values, voting against equality by supporting legislation that targets the rights of marginalized communities." The NC League of Conservation Voters said in a statement that Cotham's party switch was "an act of betrayal." CarolinaForward tweeted: "No matter how your morning is going, just remember that you -- unlike @triciacotham -- didn't wake up the most hated and distrusted person in #ncpol." EQV Analytics tweeted: "Big payday, I guess. In just 5 months NC-112's @triciacotham went from opposing 'attacks on our democracy,' 'inequitable funding of public schools,' 'Republican attacks on our health care' & 'Republican attacks on LGBTQ+ youth' to being a Dan Bishop GOPer. Wow."

There had been indications that she had hatched a deal with Republican Speaker Tim Moore, perhaps even before the election, that she would defect the minute Moore needed her to override a Cooper veto. For his "honor escort" to the Speaker's chair when the House reconvened in January of 2023, there was Tricia Cotham, the only Democrat chosen to be at Moore's elbow. A full ten days before making her party-switch official, she cleaned out her desk on the Democratic side and moved her stuff over to a desk on the Republican side. As a notorious defector she quickly voted with her new pals to chisel away at abortion rights and open a bigger pipeline to funnel public education money into private schools where accountability doesn't exist.

Prior to the elections of 2024, everyone knew she wouldn't survive another go in Dist. 112, so redistricting honcho Destin Hall and his committee obligingly drew Cotham's home into a new District 105, which was said in 2024 to be 51.3% Republican vs. 46.5% Democratic and 2.2% "Other" (Dave's Redistricting). Those numbers indicated a close contest. She beat the Democrat by only 213 votes that November. Currently, the Civitas Partisan Index rates Dist. 105 as R+0 or "Toss Up." 

Cotham's Primary Challenger

Kelly VanHorn was recruited as a member of North Carolina Educators on the Ballot (NCEOB) to give Cotham a Republican primary. I'm indebted to Carli Brosseau's September 2025 article in The Assembly for clueing me into NCEOB's project of convincing stand-out educators, most of whom were former Democrats, to infiltrate and subvert the NCGOP -- changing from Democrat or Unaffiliated to Republican on the ballot. Such a tactic I take to be the logical reaction to the continued abuses of power by the Republican hegemony in the General Assembly. When one political party gets too entrenched and self-serving, what else to do but dress as a wolf and walk among the wolves, pretend to join them in order to reform them. The NCEOB might look like wedge-driving, a campaign of disruption. But I consider it a wake-up call to moderate Republicans who've let their party dismantle public education.

Patricia Saylor, the founder of NCEOB, a Democrat, and the person who recruited six NCHouse candidates including Kelly VanHorn, is realistic about overcoming the gerrymanders that Republican members of the General Assembly have drawn for themselves. You don't get anywhere running as a Democrat in most districts. Saylor saw that the only path to influencing education policy would have to be done under the GOP banner. "Running in Republican primaries is the strategy of playing the ball where it lies," said Saylor. She recruited mainly registered Democrats to change their registrations to Republican and to run with a unified pro-public education message.

VanHorn issued a statement pleading with Tricia Cotham to sustain Gov. Stein's veto of H 87, a bill that would "sign North Carolina up for the new federal school voucher program authorized by President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill." Stein vetoed it as just more "hollowing out" of public education, and VanHorn publicly praised Stein's veto: "As a fiscal conservative and a math teacher," she said, "I look at the numbers, not the political narrative. Siphoning millions from our public schools to subsidize private tuition for families already paying it—without reducing our fixed operating costs—is bad math. It inevitably forces local property taxes up to fill the gap. We cannot claim to be the party of fiscal responsibility while funding unaccountable private vendors at the expense of the taxpayer." Sounds like what ought to be Republican gospel.

Despite my hard-headed doubt about the ultimate success of NCEOB candidates, I can't wait to hear Cotham complain about someone who used to be a Democrat changing her party affiliation for the convenience of the moment. Ha! So far, Cotham is being totally quiet about her primary challenger. She's depending on the NCGOP to make the attack, which they're doing. But if VanHorn gets enough funding to build up some steam....Katy, bar the door!

The Democrat on the Ballot

I try to be a practical political operator, so I'm immediately wondering how Democrat Ken McCool's strategists and advisors are navigating a strange world in which you might be hoping that the other Democrat in the race would win her primary against Cotham. That might ultimately pose a dilemma, but that's probably not going to happen.

McCool ran for Matthews Town Commission in 2019 at the age of 20, came in 7th in a very crowded scrum, but only missed snagging one of six at-large seats by some 14 votes. When a vacancy opened up in February of 2020, the Commission recognized his showing in 2019 and appointed him to fill out the term. He was reelected a couple more times, including earning himself mayor pro tem as the top vote-getter. He and his father own Ken's Sports Cards and Collectibles in Indian Trail, which is a suburb of Matthews. According to LinkedIn, he also does subcontractor painting.

He appears to have been both very active and effective as a pro-development member of the town board. He brags about bringing Acceleration Advanced Manufacturing Campus to Matthews, which plans to occupy a large site on the I-485 loop south of Charlotte. Acceleration looks to be a subdivision of Hendrick Motor Sports, which builds high-performance vehicles among other things. McCool also claims ownership for expanding affordable housing in Matthews, delivering tangibles like a new fire station, and making "the largest investment in parks in a generation."

McCool needs an army of volunteers to start doing canvassing all over the district as soon as the weather allows, and his service to Matthews might actually produce the boots on the ground he needs. Cotham ain't gonna be a pushover. She's proven to be a survivor so far.

The Action in HD 105: Cotham v. Sidwell

 

A 501.c.4., Majority Rising North Carolina, put out a smart mailer hitting turncoat House member Tricia Cotham as a Judas, whose 30 pieces of silver came in a tiny poke of power. Republican Speaker of the House Tim Moore, totally smitten with her, killed a fatted calf to welcome Cotham into his fold.

Majority Rising has obvious strong ties to the progressive side of the North Carolina Democratic Party, listing former Wake County DemsParty Chair Mack Paul, House member and progressive lion Rick Glazier, and Obama's former body man and native of Charlotte Reggie Love among its board members.

Tricia Cotham's rap sheet

She defected to the enemy. She gave the Republicans their veto-proof super-majority in the House, and quickly voted with her new pals to chisel away at abortion rights and open a bigger pipeline to funnel public education money into private schooling where accountability doesn't matter.

She was serving -- still is until people vote on Nov. 5th -- HD 112, a majority Democratic Mecklenburg district which she was never going to win again as a Republican. So Destin Hall and his committee obligingly drew Cotham's home into a new District 105, which is said to be 51.3% Republican vs. 46.5% Democratic and 2.2% "Other" (Dave's Redistricting). 

Sometimes a newly adopted political party doesn't trust the turncoat any more than her old political party, and the flyer above does a pretty good job of raising the issue of trustworthiness.

Democratic candidate Nicole Sidman is said to be outraising Cotham, so she's got the money to pile on against Cotham with the same message aimed at the 2.2% Other group, and at those suburban "soft" Republican women. The Sidman campaign is low-key so far, though I see that her team has been holding weekly canvasses, and she's got vols. on the phones. She's teamed up for boots on the ground with overlapping NC Senate candidate Woodson Bradley, and the energy seems as pumped there as it is everywhere else. I'm feeling more confident about Democratic prospects in HD 105.

Money Isn't Everything, But It's Better Than Nothing

 

Article in yesterday's News and Observer highlights fundraising reports in the marquee NC House race between Democrat Nicole Sidman and turncoat Tricia Cotham:

Sidman, a congregational life director at Temple Beth El in Charlotte and the Democratic nominee for the southeast Mecklenburg County House District 105 seat, faces Cotham in November. From Feb. 18 to June 30, Sidman’s campaign raised $264,489.33 — more than four times as much as Cotham during the same period. 

Sidman has raised $317,597.60 this election season, compared to $151,230.49 for Cotham. Contributors to Sidman’s campaign were largely individual donors, while most of Cotham’s money during the period came from political action committees.

Money's not the end-all, be-all of political campaigns, but it's very often a sign of energy, and looking at Nicole Sidman's Facebook page reassures me that she does have boots on the ground because of a large and enthusiastic volunteer base. Meanwhile, Cotham has sugar-daddies whose pudge would preclude any hiking and door-knocking.

Who Will Take On Tricia Cotham? Does It Even Matter?

Two novice Dems and one who's run before but lost (to Tricia Cotham, incidentally) are running now in the HD 105 primary to take on Tricia Cotham this fall: Nicole Sidman, Terry Lansdell, and Yolonda Holmes, all of whom I first profiled here last December 18, 2023, noting at the time that Sidman had high-level connections in the Party for fundraising (from when she ran Christy Clark's successful upset of Republican John Bradford in 2018). She has indeed raised the most money. According to the Charlotte Ledger, prominent local Democrats "seem to be rallying around Sidman," and the Charlotte Observer endorsed her. She's fairly active on Facebook and she's done at least some canvassing for support. Sidman is a lawyer and outreach director at Temple Beth El in Charlotte.

Yolonda Holmes 

N.C. House District 105 contains Matthews, Mint Hill, and parts of south Charlotte. Sidman's chief rival for the nomination appears to be Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools community engagement employee Yolonda Holmes. (The mainstream media spells her first name Yolanda, but it's Yolonda on the candidate's social media.)

Back last December I couldn't find a website or any social media presence for the third candidate in the primary, nonprofit executive Terry Lansdell, and still can't as of today.

The Democrats are hot to get revenge on Tricia Cotham for her treachery, but can any of these three rally the base and win the Unaffiliated?

Yolonda Holmes is quite active on Twitter (where Sidman isn't), likes to be called "Dr. Yo" ("on the GLOW with Dr. Yo!"), and is a "featured" and "targeted" primary candidate for Lillian's List of North Carolina. That gives one pause. So much for the "establishment" support Sidman supposedly enjoys. Why did Lillian's List endorse Yolonda over Nicole?

Holmes has also been endorsed by the Progressive Caucus of NC.

She told the audience at a candidate forum recently that her campaign strategy "is a secret." “Our campaign has been very diligent and strategic, and we have been very secretive in our strategy and will remain that as much,” Holmes said.

The last time we heard about high-level "secret strategies," Richard M. Nixon was president.

The Democrats Vying To Take on Tricia Cotham

 

The Democrats in the primary for HD 105:
Nicole Sidman, Yolanda Holmes, and Terry Lansdell

Short story: There's no seasoned Democratic star running to take Cotham's purloined House seat away from her. But one of these three will have to emerge and catch fire in a big way. Because Cotham's new gerrymandered district leans Republican. Trump won it in 2020, but so did Roy Cooper.

They predict it'll be the most expensive race for a General Assembly seat in all of North Carolina. The uber-notorious Tricia Cotham will face one of these three Democrats come November, depending on the outcome of the March primary.

I'll be following this race avidly. So far, info on the three is currently rather sparse. As they crank up their campaigns -- i.e., raise money -- we'll see more of their personalities and their plans.

Yolanda Holmes

Yolanda Holmes was first to file, and her name will appear first on the March primary ballot. She spells the first name with two o's -- "Yolonda" -- on Twitter (an account that hasn't been active since May 2022), but everywhere else in the press and on the State Board of Elections site, she's "Yolanda," so I'm confused. The differences in spelling may account for her relative invisibility on-line. So far, I can't find active social media nor a website for her under either spelling.

Holmes ran before in the 2022 primary against Tricia Cotham, who was still a putative Democrat at the time. Holmes came in second to Cotham in a 4-way contest. Cotham, who was making a return to the House as a progressive in a very progressive district, got almost 48% of the vote to Holmes's 31%. (This race was in what was then HD 112, which has been very studiously gerrymandered to help Cotham in 2024.) 

This is what I could find out about Holmes in March of 2022:

Yolanda Holmes is elusive on social media. She has a Facebook page which provides a link to a website, which is locked. The Facebook page is singularly uninformative. Found on the Internet: "The Rev. Dr. Yolanda Holmes, who grew up in the Charleston public schools and is a retired Department of Defense employee, is employed as Family and Community Engagement Coordinator with the CMS Family and Community Engagement office. She is associate pastor of New St. John Missionary Baptist Church in Charlotte. She earned a BS degree at Voorhees College, an MS in criminology at Indiana State, another MA in management, then a Ph.D. from Capella University." She works for the Charlotte Meck school system. She's a member of the long-running Mecklenburg County Women’s Advisory Board, an official county-appointed office.

Terry Lansdell

Lansdell didn't file for the seat until Friday morning, sort of at the last minute. "He’s a member of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Commission and executive director of BikeWalkNC" (Steve Harrison, WFAE). His Linked In page lists a long history of civic volunteerism with service on numerous boards and commissions invested in clean air, public transportation, and recreation.

When Lansdell was named executive director of BikeWalkNC in 2018, the org. itself published this profile:

In addition to his work with Clean Air Carolina, Terry has extensive experience with non-profits, including work with both Trips for Kids and the Safe Routes to School National Partnership. Terry’s work to advance sustainability is well known and was recognized by Sustain Charlotte in 2015 when he received their Outstanding Leader Award. His experience with large-scale event planning as well as grant writing will be invaluable to BikeWalk NC as we continue to grow as an organization. Terry’s background with bicycle advocacy is substantial, and his passion for both sustainable transportation and a cleaner environment made him the ideal person for the job. Terry is also an accomplished distance cyclist who has competed in four solo Race Across America events (RAAM), the Race Across the West on a fixed gear bicycle and holds the UMCA state record for North Carolina.

So far as I can discover, Lansdell has no social media nor a website (as of yet).

Nicole Sidman

Sidman beat Lansdell to filing but only by a day. According to Steve Harrison, "She hasn’t run for office before, though she ran Christy Clark’s successful 2018 state House race against Republican John Bradford. Originally from New York, she has been in Charlotte since 2017. She is the director of congregational life at Temple Beth El."

“I saw somebody who had promised her constituents one thing and then within a number of months completely flipped and it was not a decision she made without consequences,” Sidman said. “It was not just a political choice she made. By doing that she has really impacted people’s lives in so many ways.”

Sidman added: “I just felt like this was the opposite of what democracy is supposed to look like. You are supposed to be able to count on the people you voted for.”

Reporter Harrison: Sidman "does have connections, having hosted a fundraiser for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Josh Stein earlier this year. Will he respond in kind?"

No social media infrastructure for Sidman yet. As she's a veteran operative (the Christy Clark campaign in 2018), she'll surely roll out a whole panoply soon.

What Tricia Cotham's House District Will Look Like

Below, the new proposed Republican map for redistricting NCHouse seats in Mecklenburg County. Tricia Cotham's House district is currently 112, but Carolina Forward tweeted the map below yesterday, with this comment:

Check out Mecklenburg's new House District 105. Custom-drawn for @triciacotham, it still leans Democratic (as does all of Meck), but - wow. #ncpol

 

Now that's some gerrymandering! Will it save Cotham's seat? Or will she run for Dan Bishop's 9th CD House seat? If she wants to do that, they better pass the maps in S 756, where the map for the 9th Dist. includes Cotham's Mecklenburg abode, and not the alternate maps in S 757, which will throw CD9 northward and well away from Meck.

Incidentally, NCHouse Dist. 105 is currently held by Democrat Wesley Harris who is giving up the seat to run for Treasurer in 2024.

Defections -- As Well As Elections -- Have Consequences

 

Danielle Battaglia in the NandO last Wednesday:

Rep. Jeff Jackson said Wednesday morning he requested a campaign donation refund from N.C. Rep. Tricia Cotham after she “misrepresented herself” during the 2022 election. 

“I took her at her word,” Jackson said about why he donated to her campaign. “That turned out to be a mistake.” 

His campaign was among seven people or groups receiving refunds of their donations to Cotham’s campaign during the last six months.

Refunds totaling $8,500 (according to Cotham's mid-year finance report) have been returned to donors and are itemized by Battaglia. They range from a major California pro-women's rights fundraiser to an Elizabeth City school teacher and a Southport lawyer.

Republicans Are Better at Seduction

At 5 a.m. Sunday morning, Kate Kelly and David Perlmutt posted a long piece in the NYTimes (in the Business section, of all places, which is why I didn't see it until Carolina Forward tweeted it out) -- about how the Republicans wooed and won the tragic defection of Tricia Cotham. It was Republican bigwigs Speaker Tim Moore and Majority Leader John Bell who reached out and encouraged her into her "comeback" campaign last year, without expecting -- they ludicrously claim -- that she would in fact change parties. Moore and Bell said they wanted Cotham back because she had been an excellent member of the House from 2007 to 2016, but we know the predator in Moore detected a weakness for flattery. He poured it on.

Meanwhile (back story), Cotham had been very publicly sick with COVID. In February 2022, Cotham put out a TikTok confession (“This is my third time battling COVID. Yes, the third time. And before you jump to conclusions, yes, I’m fully vaccinated and boosted,” she said. “I’m in a lot of pain. My lungs hurt. I’m mentally drained”). That went viral in her district, especially after WSOC reporter Joe Bruno interviewed her on camera.

So partly (largely?) because of that plague narrative, when it came time for the Dist. 112 Democratic candidate recruitment committee to begin approaching prospective candidates for what was sure to be a Democratic pickup in a newly drawn House district with a distinct Democratic majority, they did not automatically think of Tricia Cotham. Three other Democrats had filed for the 2022 primary when Cotham arrived on the last day of filing and put her name in too, which ought to have been and probably was a clear warning to Democrats that she was a gathering thunderstorm of raw feelings.

"She fumed that Lillian’s List, an abortion rights organization, had 'really screwed' her by endorsing another Democrat in the primary," and Jonathan Coby, her former campaign consultant, said she had already developed a bunker mentality, an "us-versus-them" defensiveness toward Democratic interest groups. A former advocacy director at the Charlotte-based Latin American Coalition -- who had been a friend of Cotham's for years -- said Cotham “felt she did not get the gratitude or spotlight that she felt she deserved,” and added, “she was jealous that other Democrats were getting the adulation from the party.”

Ms. Cotham told Mr. Coby and her mother [Mecklenburg Co. commish Pat Cotham] that she was put off that Democrats treated her as a newcomer when she returned to the House, inviting her to freshman orientation and offering her a mentor. She declined both.

Instead, that charmer Tim Moore designated Cotham as a part of his "honor escort," "a small group of lawmakers who escorted Mr. Moore to the dais to be sworn in as speaker." Her seduction was pretty much a done deal.

Tricia Cotham's Welcome Wagon Runs on Delusion

 

Tricia Cotham, now subbing for Welcome Wagon:

State Rep. Tricia Cotham (R-Mecklenburg) didn’t waste much time welcoming Georgia lawmaker Mesha Mainor into the Republican Party.

Mainor announced Tuesday that she is leaving the Democratic Party after falling out with state party leaders over a recent vote she cast in support of a school voucher bill.

Cotham quickly tweeted this note: “Welcome to the Republican Party!”

Mainor’s decision to break with Democrats no doubt made an impression on Cotham who broke with North Carolina Democrats in April. Cotham called the party she’d been a member of for decades “unrecognizable” and quick to “villainize anyone who has free thought.”

So both parties expect compliance, if not outright unity. Big deal! Everybody knows that. And they can put heavy pressure on their elected members. Tricia Cotham only wants to make something unique-to-Democrats out of it to cover her own sense of shame for being the Turncoat of the Decade. 

The Trumpist GOP and "free thought" are not words that should ever appear in the same sentence, else we've learned nothing from the examples of Liz Chaney and Thom Tillis.

Tricia Cotham Pulls a Muscle While Forswearing

 

Tricia Cotham is now denying that she ever said she had an abortion. But there's tape.

Steve Harrison reported the 2015 Cotham speech on the NC House floor, for WFAE:

When she gave that speech, she was a member of the Democratic Party and had been in the state House since 2007. She made it clear that she and her doctor decided to terminate her pregnancy because her life and the life of her child were in danger.

“My first pregnancy ended in an induced physician-assisted miscarriage, while I served in this chamber,” she said.

Cotham emphasized again that it was not a natural miscarriage.

“It’s not the type of miscarriage that we often think of where you lose the baby completely and it’s over,” Cotham said. “That’s not what happened. My doctor told me that my pregnancy would likely not be viable and that if I did not take swift medical action my life and any hope of future babies would be in severe danger. I trusted my doctor and her medical expertise.”

She then went into detail about how painful the procedure was. She finished her speech by saying that lawmakers should have no place in such decisions.

“This decision was up to me,” she said. “My husband. My doctor. And my God. It was not up to any of you in this chamber.”

Her passionate speech drew national attention. Time magazine featured it in a story about women lawmakers discussing their own abortions. It quoted Cotham as saying she wrote the speech so “somebody out there could maybe not feel shamed.”

Tricia Cotham, Now

In an interview last weekend at the North Carolina Republican Party convention in Greensboro with WBT radio’s Brett Jensen, Cotham said it was false that she had an abortion. In a 30-second comment on the issue, she characterized what happened to her as a natural miscarriage.

“I think the hardest thing and the most unfortunate — deeply personal — and this is deeply wrong,” Cotham said. “I had a miscarriage, and a miscarriage in medical terms is called a spontaneous abortion. And instead of saying — first of all — they should not be talking about my miscarriage, that is just very painful and wrong — but they are repeating this message that I had an abortion. And that is false. And that is completely frustrating and they keep on doing it and that’s below the belt.”

Boy howdy! Her new teammates demand she deny the truth. Or ... it's a live possibility ... she was lying in 2015 to impress both her Democratic friends and her Republican antagonists. Either way, it ain't a good look for her.

Backstabber Tricia Cotham Rewrites History

 

"I'm still the same person," said Tricia Cotham on the floor of the NC House Tuesday, in an apparent impromptu interview with a few reporters including Kyle Ingram of the News and Observer.

Make that "the same person" so long as that person is clinically schizophrenic. Last year she told Planned Parenthood in a questionnaire that she would “oppose any legislation that seeks to restrict abortion access” and then, a few months later, proudly voted for new abortion restrictions as a newly minted Republican.

Her previous strong support for abortion rights has been documented extensively, but on Tuesday in her rare moment of speaking to the press, she claimed that she's not changed her mind at all, that the new abortion law is really a generous favor for women, and that the criticisms of her actions are just the manipulations of Democrats needing to raise campaign money.

Meanwhile, Democrats in the NC Senate filed a symbolic bill ("symbolic" because it has no chance of passing) that would mandate a special election in a district where the incumbent suddenly switched parties. They titled the proposed law “The Voter Fraud Protection Act.” Because if there was ever a political fraud perpetrated on voters, it was Cotham's abandonment of all her stated values, surpassed only by the prevarication she's capable of when talking to the press.

We Will Remember

 

The quartet of Republican lawmakers who traded their consciences for their caucuses last night:

Michael Lee in the Senate (New Hanover); John Ray Bradford III in the House (Mecklenburg); Tricia Cotham in the House (Mecklenburg); and Ted Davis in the House (New Hanover).

The veto overrides in both House and Senate passed by one vote. 

Gov. Cooper Names Names, and They Don't Like It

 

Rep. John Bradford

Last Thursday, Governor Roy Cooper called out the hypocrisy of four Republican members of the NC General Assembly who campaigned last year on keeping the 20-week abortion ban and who now are supporting the new 12-week ban: Ted Davis in the House, Michael Lee in the Senate, and John Bradford and Tricia Cotham in the House. Only one of those House members might vote to uphold Cooper's veto and thus end this latest chapter in depriving women of their rights.

The fact that all four represent counties that are trending Democratic might have a lot to do with their promises, now broken. Davis and Lee represent New Hanover (Wilmington) and Bradford and Cotham represent Mecklenburg.

John Bradford, especially, took Cooper's calling him out badly, citing the Republican favorite excuse of victimhood and hurt feelings (a la Tricia Cotham). Bradford told WSOC, “In March [the governor] hosted a Down syndrome advocacy event and despite being the leading advocate for Down syndrome in the state legislature, I was excluded. Last session I was the primary bill sponsor for an organ donor transplant discrimination bill. He held a public bill signing event but chose not to invite me, the number one primary sponsor and Republican, and instead invited a Democrat [sic] legislator.”

Poor snowflake! "And how dare the governor reminding me of my campaign promises!" Bradford told WSOC last October that he supported current state law that allows abortions up until 20 weeks.

The other four have their own promises to rationalize, especially Cotham, who while campaigning for another term in the House last year, said lawmakers “should act now to codify Roe v. Wade to affirm the right to an abortion without interference.”

Rep. Davis actually missed the vote on passage of the 12-week ban, but said during an October town hall that he supported maintaining the 20-week law currently in place. He also said there were times when he disagreed with House Speaker Tim Moore on a bill, and told him he would vote for what he thought was “best for the people I represent.” Davis didn’t respond to a request for comment from The N&O on Friday, but Speaker Tim Moore told reporters on Thursday that Davis is “a ‘yes’ vote on the override,” and that “there’s no issue there.”

No issue except the loss of any pretend rectitude with the voters.

The Slow Death of Public Schools in North Carolina

 

On April 25, Governor Roy Cooper called on the General Assembly to increase spending on public education, siting as incentive the recent report from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction showing that public schools had delivered "significant learning recovery" for students since the easing of the pandemic. North Carolina’s public schools saw an unprecedented amount of federal funding in response to the pandemic, but that extra funding runs out in 2024.

On April 26 -- the next day -- the Republican bosses in the General Assembly responded that they would be decimating public education even more, not fully funding it, but rather pumping $1.3 billion into more private school vouchers. Senate Bill 406 would create the largest expansion of the state’s private school voucher program since it was created.

Republicans say they are supporting “choice” and “students over systems,” but their job is to fund public schools — not private ones. They say that students deserve the opportunity to receive a better education than what’s provided at some public schools, but if they provided schools with adequate funding, perhaps students would not need to look elsewhere to receive a quality education.

--Editorial, Raleigh News and Observer

The bottomline: Republicans have made it gospel to attack and denigrate public education, so expanding opportunities for families to abandon their local public schools, which constitutionally state government is required to support, sets up a new indoctrination to conquer an older supposed indoctrination that committed the cardinal sin of recognizing what must never be spoken of in front of Republicans -- injustice.

Who was very visible at the Republican press conference announcing S406? Why, former Democrat Tricia Cotham, who both defended herself from implied criticism and just incidentally demonstrated Karen-level self-interest masquerading as public policy:

“I started off really anti-school choice for a while when I first entered the General Assembly,” Cotham said at the press conference.

Then, she said, she started thinking about where her own children would go to school. Eventually, she opted for her son to attend a private school.

“That’s where my policy really started to change,” she said. “Because as a policymaker and as a mom, I’m also not a hypocrite. I do believe that as policymakers and legislators, if we have the ability to send our children to a private school or to a charter, then we cannot say to others, well, you can’t.”

The "me first!" moral compass of the contemporary Republican Party! Even a former Democrat can't leaven it. 

NCGOP, Hellbent on Taking Rights From Women

 

Speaker Tim Moore recently announced that Republicans in the NC House (i.e., Tricia Cotham) have reached an agreement about a 12-week abortion ban, which will be introduced soon in Raleigh.

On the exact same day -- last Thursday -- Ronna McDaniel, the chair of the Republican National Committee, "tried to help her candidates navigate the subject, suggesting that opposing abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy was a strong position politically" (NYTimes).

In other words and according to the chair of the national Republican Party, North Carolina lawmakers are choosing an extreme position.

You could have knocked us over with a feather.

What happened to you, Tricia Cotham? I mean what really happened? Were you spooked by an apparition prophesying hellfire if you didn't change your entire political identity, betraying 60% of the electorate?

The NCGOP's "Death Dive" on Abortion

Kidwell

In the first week of April, NC House Rep. Keith Kidwell (he of the mean eyes) filed House Bill 533, "An Act to Prohibit Abortion After Conception." No one much took that total ban bill seriously, as House Speaker Tim Moore has been promising and forecasting a less apocalyptic abortion law but certainly one that will shorten the time period allowed for legal abortion.

Republican legislators have been meeting about this and arguing in private for weeks and weeks, and so far nothing concrete has emerged. Tim Moore himself has said he would prefer a six-week cutoff, otherwise known as the time when a fetal heartbeat can be detected, but President Pro Tem Phil Berger of the Senate, the biggest cock on the block, has said he's in favor of the first trimester as the marker, about 12 weeks into a pregnancy. Whatever. It seems pretty clear that the Keith Kidwell total ban is not the one the Republicans are going to move in this General Assembly, though they are duty-bound to move something, to persecute women's bodily decisions a little or probably a lot further. Currently, the law in the state allows abortions during the first 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Cotham

The very recent defection of Rep. Tricia Cotham might have changed the calculus of just how far they're willing to go -- or maybe not. Cotham has already said that she's willing to consider stricter rules on abortion, but so far no bills have appeared to compete with the Kidwell total ban. Why, it's almost as though the Republicans are frozen. Make that frozen with fear. I'm indebted to Sen. Graig Meyer for turning me onto The Editorial Board (John A. Stoehr), who published a really insightful thread on Twitter about the new politics of abortion (since the overturning of Roe) and the "Republican death dive." Sen. Meyer suggested that Stoehr's opinion "helps explain why #NCGA Republicans haven’t run an abortion restrictions bill yet …. They’re screwed."

Here's part of Stoehr's argument, contained in a long string of tweets that I've collapsed for easier reading:

The thing about antiabortion politics is there’s no going back. You can’t spend decades equating it to murder, then go soft on murder. The other thing about antiabortion politics is there’s no going forward.  Some Republicans are now seeing that the whole “abortion is murder” thing is a loser. This would appear to be a case of damned if you do, damned if you don’t. But that suggests an exit. There is no exit. Republican legislators can’t help themselves. They’re caught in their own death drive....

These Republicans can’t get more in line with where voters are, because most voters believe abortion should be legal with limits here and there. At the same time, they can’t soften their position for fear of being accused on being soft on murder. The problem isn’t doing a poor job of selling antiabortion politics. The problem is antiabortion politics. To see the problem clearly, consider a secondary theme of antiabortion politics undergirding the principal (abortion = murder). That theme is rooted in nostalgia – for the days when a man was a man, a woman was a woman, and an embryo was not sacrificed on the altar of modernity. These days never existed. Humans have experienced the full range of human sexuality and gender expression since the history of humans began. The antiabortionists believe they do exist, however, for a reason: in order to maximize the emotional trauma that comes with liberal democracy moving on from the old days. Because liberal democracy never stops moving on, neither does the antiabortionist’s trauma. The trauma is woven into their personalities. It must, given the bedrock belief in the existence of the old days. But, again, those days never existed. So the antiabortionists ensnare themselves in a vicious cycle. The more they long for the old days, the more trauma they feel. The more trauma they feel, the more they long for the old days. Victimhood is the base on which they build their group identity. They can’t help it. It’s their death drive....

The death drive is compulsive, though. The more they see themselves as victims of trauma that never happened, the more grotesque they are going to be, even in the face of growing resistance by a majority of Americans that hasn’t changed its mind about abortion in decades.The Republicans have entered a new phase. The death drive is killing off their power. They can’t help it, though. The problem of antiabortion politics isn’t messaging. It’s antiabortion politics. A majority doesn’t like it. The antiabortionists, however, will never admit it. They’re victims, after all.

Phil Berger realizes the danger of a deep dive on abortion in North Carolina. Tim Moore perhaps realizes it too, but he doesn't care, so giddy is he about his new main squeeze in the House. But whatever they do to punish women is going to energize opposition. It's going to galvanize those suburban districts where Democrats have a fighting chance, even under the extreme new gerrymandering that is also coming down the track from Berger/Moore.

Fear of the "death dive" might also influence what the US Supreme Court ultimately does with the appeal of that Amarillo judge's decision on mifepristone. Kavanaugh -- particularly that party-boy -- might think twice about the jurisprudence of denying scientific authorities for the sake of religious ideology.

The Cotham Carte Blanche

 

Photo Mary Ellen Jones

Without even waiting for her formal announcement scheduled for a press conference this afternoon, Tricia Cotham reseated herself on the Republican side of the NC House chamber yesterday, surrounded by her new best friends.

Both the chair of the Mecklenburg Democratic Party and Anderson Clayton, chair of the state Democratic Party, called on Cotham to resign immediately. So did EqualityNC: "Tricia Cotham sought ENC's endorsement in 2022 affirming that she held values consistent with our own. Since then, she has betrayed those values, voting against equality by supporting legislation that targets the rights of marginalized communities." The NC League of Conservation Voters said in a statement that Cotham's party switch was "an act of betrayal." CarolinaForward tweeted: "No matter how your morning is going, just remember that you -- unlike @triciacotham -- didn't wake up the most hated and distrusted person in #ncpol." EQV Analytics tweeted: "Big payday, I guess. In just 5 months NC-112's @triciacotham went from opposing 'attacks on our democracy,' 'inequitable funding of public schools,' 'Republican attacks on our health care' & 'Republican attacks on LGBTQ+ youth' to being a Dan Bishop goper. Wow."

I just visited Cotham's website. It still represents her as a liberal Democrat, in favor of all the stuff that the Republicans are busily doing away with -- now all the faster with her help.

Gov. Roy Cooper, whose veto of legislation eliminating the pistol permit requirement Cotham helped override last week by being absent, issued a statement late yesterday: “This is a disappointing decision. Rep. Cotham’s votes on women’s reproductive freedom, election laws, LGBTQ rights and strong public schools will determine the direction of the state we love. It’s hard to believe she would abandon these long held principles and she should still vote the way she has always said she would vote when these issues arise, regardless of party affiliation.”

Cotham has said -- in explaining why she missed last week's veto override vote -- that she suffers from long COVID, a condition that is said to be "neurological" in its human effects. I'm looking for an explanation for what looks more than slightly wiggy about her behavior.

There's been speculation that her heavily Democratic House district -- she took it last November with almost 60% of the vote -- will turn against her wholesale for the future. Also speculation that House Speaker Tim Moore has promised her a newly gerrymandered district to protect her, once the Supreme Court issues its gerrymandering carte blanche decision any day now.

We live in very strange times. With strange people.

BREAKING: Rep. Tricia Cotham, Giving the Republicans Their Veto-Proof Majority in the NCHouse

 

Lucille Sherman is reporting for Axios:

NC Democratic lawmaker Rep. Tricia Cotham is expected to switch her party affiliation to Republican, handing NC Republicans a legislative supermajority and the votes to override D Gov. Roy Cooper mid-legislative session.

Cotham just won her seat (Dist. 112) last November. Would she have won, running as the Republican she's about to become?

 

By Being Absent, These Democrats Helped Override a Cooper Veto

 

Two Days Ago (March 28, 2023): Just a day after the school shooting in Nashville, every NC Senate Republican voted to override Gov. Roy Cooper's veto abolishing our state background check system for buying handguns, and since the Rs have a veto-proof majority in that chamber, it was a successful override vote.

Yesterday (March 29, 2023): Three Democratic members of the NC House abandoned the governor by just not showing up in the House. The Republicans only needed one Democratic absence. They got three.

Here's one result of that:

It's interesting that Wray, Brockman, and Cotham -- all three -- had been honored by House Speaker Tim Moore with plum committee roles. 

After the vote Brockman defended himself, claiming he was in an urgent care office, and Cotham issued a printed statement saying she was receiving hospital treatment for "long COVID," and adding that she would not have voted to override, had she been present. Wray had no comment.

Carolina Forward, which produced the graphic above, was not swayed by Cotham's excuse:

We are distressed and deeply sympathetic for the personal health issues @triciacotham is going through. If she is unable to perform her duties as an elected official, she should resign in favor of an appointee who can more effectively represent Mecklenburg.