Master Class in the Art of Timing

 

That's one of the best put-downs I've ever seen.

The State of NC Women's Health Options, Post Dobbs

 

The latest action in Federal Court last Friday:

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A federal judge ruled Friday that a provision in North Carolina's abortion laws requiring doctors to document the location of a pregnancy before prescribing abortion pills should be blocked permanently, affirming that it was too vague to be enforced reasonably.

The implementation of that requirement was already halted last year by U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles until a lawsuit challenging portions of the abortion law enacted by the Republican-dominated General Assembly in 2023 was litigated further. Eagles now says a permanent injunction would be issued at some point.

But Eagles on Friday restored enforcement of another provision that she had previously blocked that required abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy to be performed in hospitals. In light of the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, she wrote, the lawmakers “need only offer rational speculation for its legislative decisions regulating abortion.”Unlike challenges in other states like South Carolina and Florida that sought to fully strike down abortion laws, Eagles' decisions still mean most of North Carolina's abortion laws updated since the end of Roe v. Wade are in place. GOP state lawmakers overrode Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto and enacted the law in May 2023 . It narrowed abortion access significantly from the previous state ban on most abortions from after 20 weeks to now after 12 weeks. The hospital requirement would apply to exceptions to the ban after 12 weeks, such as in cases of rape or incest or “life-limiting” fetal anomalies.

But here's the bottomline according to the AP:

Unlike challenges in other states like South Carolina and Florida that sought to fully strike down abortion laws, Eagles' decisions still mean most of North Carolina's abortion laws updated since the end of Roe v. Wade are in place. GOP state lawmakers overrode Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto and enacted the law in May 2023 . It narrowed abortion access significantly from the previous state ban on most abortions from after 20 weeks to now after 12 weeks. The hospital requirement would apply to exceptions to the ban after 12 weeks, such as in cases of rape or incest or “life-limiting” fetal anomalies.

 That's an issue for the ballot box this November.

Federal Judge Blocks Part of NC Law Limiting Mifipristone Usage

 

On Monday U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles blocked parts of North Carolina’s law on medication abortions, ruling that any health care provider — not just physicians — and pharmacists who are certified can prescribe abortion pills, and patients can take mifepristone at home, and they no longer have to make three in-person visits to a doctor.

The lawsuit was filed last year by Dr. Amy Bryant, an OB-GYN in Hillsborough.

Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein, who’s running for governor, was a lead defendant in the case but declined to represent the state. Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore were allowed to defend the laws with private attorneys. They argued that restrictions on mifepristone and abortion were necessary to protect patients’ health and safety.

In a statement released Tuesday, Stein lauded the ruling, saying:

“Republican lawmakers enacted SB20 to control women. Their sloppy, chaotic law violated women’s constitutional rights and made it harder to get a safe, effective medication abortion. I fought back against the unconstitutional parts of the law that made it harder for women – especially in rural parts of the state – to get the health care they need. I’m proud to defend women’s reproductive freedoms and pleased that this ruling helps women regain some control over their personal health care decisions. Politicians need to stay out of the exam room and leave these decisions to a woman and her medical provider.”

Judge Eagles did not grant Bryant’s request to strike down state requirements for an in-person exam, ultrasound, blood testing, and a 72-hour consultation before the abortion.

There's Only One Issue

 

Produced by Carolina Forward.

Hunt vs. Weatherman: Opening Shot

 

Around 3 p.m. yesterday, Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor Rachel Hunt posted a thread on Twitter announcing an amendment to the North Carolina constitution "to protect women's health care and abortion rights." And indeed, there it is, Senate Bill 909, "An Act to Amend the Constitution of North Carolina To Protect Women's Health." The bill calls for a public referendum on the November 2024 ballot.

Bold move, lady. And the right one. It's never gonna pass, natch! But it puts the Republicans in the corner, which is the tight intersection of walls that they themselves constructed. "Let the voting public of North Carolina have their say this November," ha!

She can't get this constitutional amendment on the ballot, but she sure as hell can raise the profile of Republican anti-abortion activities, and beyond present activities (like passing more restrictive laws) to the wishlist of both Mark Robinson (R candidate for governor) and Hal Weatherman (R candidate lt. gov.):

Both Robinson and Weatherman say they want to see a “heartbeat” bill pass the legislature, which would ban abortion after cardiac activity is detected, which is around five or six weeks into pregnancy. [Dawn Baumgartner Vaughan]

Part of her statement published on Twitter yesterday:

Decisions around pregnancy, including abortion, birth control, and miscarriage care, are personal and should be left up to women and their families .... The people of North Carolina deserve a chance to vote for themselves on whether we will protect women’s healthcare or continue down the path of states like AL and TX.

I want to ensure that we are putting families – not politicians like Hal Weatherman or Mark Robinson – in charge of our personal medical decisions.By choosing Weatherman as their nominee, the MAGA Republicans decided they want abortion to be front and center in this election. Weatherman has repeatedly said he wants to completely ban abortion access. He makes a great ally and partner for Robinson, who is leading the anti-abortion charge here in NC. 

...I don’t want my daughter, or any of our daughters, to live in a state where they could be forced to travel hundreds of miles for care or where doctors and nurses could be criminalized for basic access to health care that their patients require....

The Republican facing Rachel Hunt -- Hal Weatherman -- began his career with Rep. Sue Myrick, but he proved himself an accomplished political operative as both Dan Forest's campaign manager and then Forest's chief of staff. The Dan Forest bubble broke in the elections of 2020 when Roy Cooper beat him, and according to his LinkedIn, Weatherman went to work briefly for the Madison Cawthorn campaign from January '21 to June '22, when he apparently had had enough of that particular shitshow and somehow decided to run for lieutenant governor, which will be for Weatherman -- let's be honest -- a lovely little sinecure with hardly any lifting at all, just a job about sitting on committees and being agreeable and showing up at golf tournaments, and -- of course! -- mouthing whatever conservative bullshit is agreeable to the day.

He's actually running on charm, I think. This is his photo on Twitter, a prepster dressed impeccably and smiling, in a nicely rugged setting:

He brags that he visited every county -- all 100 -- before the primary and that he'll visit them all again before November. Before the March primary he published videos of himself talking about where he's going that day and who he'll be talking to, but always solo, standing at an anonymous spot somewhere, but the picts he's put on Facebook give a clue that he's been most comfortable in living rooms with crystal light fixtures at strictly high-dollar donor events, with cocktails and polite conversation. I don't see a lot of evidence of this guy's appeal for the MAGA crowd, though an attack piece from the Democratic Lieutenant Governors Association calls Weatherman's campaign "MAGAPURISM." I don't see any evidence yet that Weatherman has faced a crowd of cultists who always prefer blood. Weatherman looks like a country club Republican. Is he gonna roar with Mark Robinson about abortion? I think it unlikely. I think he'll go to ground on that issue and find something else to excite his crowd.

  

All Hail the Arizona Supreme Court

 

Progressives do have their cracked pots, or crackpot ideas, but you can't beat the current crop of American conservatives for their new levels of lunacy.

The Arizona Supreme Court voted 4-2 today to restore a total abortion ban -- okay, almost total, but I see very little difference -- that was in effect from 1864, from well before Arizona was even a state of the union, but the Arizona Supremes have decided that the law is still in effect. The ban provides that "anyone who administers an abortion could face a mandatory prison sentence of two to five years. That ban could compel Arizona’s licensed abortion clinics to ramp down dramatically or shutter — though it’s unclear how the decision will be enforced."

Kris Mayes, the Arizona Attorney General, has already declared she won't be enforcing this wacko decision.

Meanwhile, abortion rights activists have apparently gathered enough signatures to get a guarantee of legal abortion on the November ballot as a citizen initiative. The voters who care about women's rights are going to be thoroughly stirred up in Arizona this year.

Meanwhile, Trump if twisting around his own axle trying to figure out how to temper his own promises -- not to mention performance of his boys (and girl) on the Supreme Court -- because someone has finally managed to convince him that his policies are sheer poison to American woman and their male friends. So he says it should be up to the states. His former BFF Lindsey Graham didn't like that at all and criticized him for giving up on being a hardliner on life, and Trump blasted Graham in turn as trying to single-handedly lose the election for Republicans.

These are truly bizarre times. And thanks to the Supremes' Dobbs decision, all Republican apple carts are currently upsidedown. Where they belong.

Florida, Going Like Ohio?

Buoyed by last Tuesday's ballot initiative in Ohio which added abortion rights to the state's constitution, the Florida movement to get an abortion rights ballot initiative on their ballot has only until February 1st to gather another 400,000 valid signatures to make the deadline. If they make that deadline, and if a proposed constitutional amendment actually gets on the ballot in Florida, the new amendment would read in part, “No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s health care provider.”

The Florida abortion rights initiative has already gathered 500,000 verified signatures, and its fundraising has soared since last Tuesday (money used to pay petition-gatherers), as Florida women continue to react to the new 6-week abortion ban signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis and realize that they too might turn around their state with a citizen-generated movement to restore and preserve women's freedom.

The Florida initiative faces huge odds -- not just those additional 400,000 signatures. The conservative Florida Supreme Court must approve the ballot language, and Florida's Republican attorney general has  already announced a court challenge to the measure, alleging that the language is too broad, vague, and misleading. Plus ultimate passage of a citizen ballot initiative requires 60 percent of the vote. Some 57 percent of Ohio voters approved their amendment.

But if this thing actually makes it to next year's ballot, watch out! (Which reminds me that the state of North Carolina doesn't allow citizen-generated ballot initiatives -- and we ought to make a political movement out of that prohibition -- and also denies home rule to local municipalities and through "local bills" can meddle in any local issue they please, to the benefit of whom they please.)

The World Tomorrow, If We Don't Stop It

 

There can’t be any doubt what we’re in for.

--Gene Nichol

 

Gene Nichol is the liberal UNC law professor who gives the Republican General Assembly the dickens regularly on the op-ed pages of the News and Observer. Nichol is a hard puncher with a gift for clarity:

 

[The NCGOP's] most consistent goal is to slant the playing field in its favor, democracy be damned. You know the list — redistricting, voter suppression, ballot manipulation, legislative process tampering, impermissible power grabs and more. (Aug. 6)

 

More? Nichol lays out the full complaint against the Republican super-majority in Raleigh. Number One: "Our nearly all-white Republican legislative caucuses repeatedly burden and disadvantage Black Tar Heels. The case reports of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals prove it to be so. Lawmakers don’t like it mentioned, but it is what it is."

 

Women (especially the ones of childbearing age) and LGBTQ have been treated as second- and third-class citizens -- with abortion restrictions, gay marriage bans, licenses to discriminate, House Bill 2, and "the brutal targeting of transgender teens."

 

They target poor people -- abolishing the earned income tax credit, slashing the state’s unemployment compensation program, cutting SNAP benefits for poor kids, and dramatically reducing legal aid support. "Stepping on their necks is, apparently, the moral high ground." 

 

The decimating of public schools. Vouchers, charters, the incursion of corporate entities into education-for-profit -- tearing down public education. "They don’t admit it. They just do it. Day in, day out." For higher education, their loathing of liberal professors like Gene Nichol has spilled over on the state's flagship universities. A stacked Board of Governors with yes-men for Berger/Moore make life sometimes miserable for university chancellors who want to be independent.

 

That's the path the General Assembly has taken under a Republican majority. Gene Nichol lays it out, and it's a depressing fact, but voters can storm the helm and turn the ship. It's the only thing.

Are the Alito Five Capable of Regret?

 

Linda Greenhouse, long-time Supreme Court reporter and an expert on its history, titled an opinion piece, "Is There Any Twinge of Regret Among the Anti-Abortion Justices?" After a lengthy discussion of all the personalities among the Alito Five and the wealth of history and legal precedents and arguments contained in an avalanche of friend-of-the-court briefs filed in the matter of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Org., Greenhouse concludes her essay bluntly:

So no, I don’t think the Dobbs justices are sorry. They did what they were put there to do, what they wanted to do, and they were quite explicit in washing their hands of the consequences.

The consequences? You may be oblivious to the mounting numbers of women in extremis, with potential fatalities resulting from gone-wrong pregnancies, untreated because doctors in anti-abortion states are now terrified of new rules:

A report titled “Care Post-Roe: Documenting cases of poor-quality care since the Dobbs decision,” published in mid-May by teams of experts from the University of California at San Francisco and the University of Texas at Austin, ... consists largely of excerpts from submissions by 50 health care providers, many of whom felt, as one wrote, that “our hands are tied” as they waited anxiously for their patients’ conditions to deteriorate to the point where the pregnancy could be terminated within the narrow exceptions permitted by the state laws. When doctors turned women away, their next encounter was sometimes in the emergency room or intensive care unit as the patient lay bleeding or even near death.

Unable to get an abortion in their own home states, many women are fleeing to neighboring states, and paying the fare (which ain't light). Chaos has added to the misery fourfold, which moved Greenhouse to consider whether Alito, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Thomas, or Coney Barrett felt even a glimmer of regret for overturning what had been for 50 years a basic right of women.

"No."

On the way to that not surprising conclusion, Greenhouse gets into Court history about when regret over a decision leads to a reversal. She recounts the interesting reversal in 1942 of a previous decision in 1940 that allowed school systems to enforce rules for demonstrating patriotism, expelling students who didn't salute the flag or say the Pledge of Allegiance. In 1942, the West Virginia Board of Education required public schools to include salutes to the flag by teachers and students as a mandatory part of school activities. The children in a family of Jehovah's Witnesses refused to perform the salute and were sent home from school for non-compliance. The case, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, ended up with the Supremes, who had previously, just three years before, ruled that school systems could penalize children for not saluting the flag, actually expel students. But in 1942, the Court reversed itself.

Three men on the Court had voted in 1940 to allow for the expulsion of non-saluting children, and the same three voted to change their minds in 1942, admitting openly that they had been wrong. They regretted the chaos and misery for Jehovah Witness families and tried to correct it. 

But these guys in 2023? Greenhouse concludes that regret isn't a part of their makeup. They're too busy enjoying their status as billionaire accessories, riding the boat but not steering it.

Ted Davis, Rationalizing His Veto-Override Vote

 

NC House member Ted Davis, Republican from the coast, recently took a starring role as one of the four Republican legislators targeted for pressure by Gov. Roy Cooper because they had once promised not to monkey with North Carolina's 20-week abortion limit and yet were on the verge of voting to overturn the guv's veto and therefore monkey big-time with things they shouldn't be monkeying with. (The other three targets: Tricia Cotham, John Ray Bradford, and Michael Lee.)

Ted Davis spoke to a reporter recently about why he personally “took a walk” during the initial vote on passage of the abortion bill. He ducked out on the vote, he said, "because he was doing what he told voters he would do — supporting keeping the 20-week law in place," so his principled stand for abortion rights meant sneaking off.

But why come back to the chamber another day and vote to override the veto of the very bill you didn't want to be caught supporting? Davis's rationalization is both hilarious and illustrative of situational ethics, coastal-style:

“I view the veto as an entirely different matter. That’s not voting on the bill. That’s voting on whether or not you support Roy Cooper, and Roy Cooper’s veto. I don’t support Roy Cooper, and I do not support his veto, and that’s why I voted to override.”

Suddenly realizing (perhaps?) the stupidity of what he just said, he added rather plaintively, “And if they want to use that against me, that’s fine. It is what it is.”

Indeed it is.

Whistling Through the Graveyard

 

“I frankly -- I just I don’t think that this law is going to be that big of a determining factor in next year’s election." 

--Stephen Wiley, director, North Carolina House Republican Caucus

 

I can't help noticing that Republican lawmakers in Raleigh keep returning defensively to how their new highly unpopular abortion ban was actually an amazingly moderate compromise between the Republican Hard Right and the Republican Less Hard Right. "Why Lordy!" the whining goes, "Republican women more moderate on the law won some concessions, so whaddya want, anyway? We listened to the women!" (The fact that those particular women are also made to wear the Republican pro-life straitjacket might temper our appreciation for any "moderation." The ultimate goal is clear, no matter how incrementally you approach it.)

 

When Stephen Wiley, who's a big deal as campaign operative for the entire NC House Republican Caucus, told a reporter that the abortion law will fizzle as a 2024 campaign issue, he nevertheless left the door open a crack: “I think there’s going to be some people who are motivated by it. Whether that’s a significant number or not, I think remains to be seen.” Duh.

 

Wiley said the presidential race is the biggest factor determining the "tenor" of the 2024 election, especially if the Republican nominee is Trump. “Donald Trump is not within anyone’s realm of normalcy." By which I think he dreads the chaos that's likely to characterize 2024 (not to mention the rest of 2023).

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.

Not Just Women But Non-College Women

 

Out this morning, news of a new poll of non-college women in North Carolina about abortion rights. Carolina Forward polled non-college women exclusively, and the results suggest that the rural wall against Democrats might crack a little for women facing life decisions that the Republican Party wants to take completely away from them:

When asked the following general questions about abortion and Senate Bill 20, non-college female voters responded:

• How important are candidate positions on abortion when deciding who to vote for: Very important = 61%
• Abortion should be: Legal in all cases/Legal in most case = 65%
• When, if ever, do you think access to abortion should be limited: No restrictions/< 20 weeks = 61%
• Lowering the current abortion week guideline from 20 weeks to 12 weeks: Strongly oppose = 51%
• Would you vote for a state legislative candidate that supported SB 20: Much more likely to oppose = 53%

What's it going to take for statewide Democratic candidates -- let alone the local candidates for NC House and Senate seats -- to make abortion rights the number one issue in North Carolina?

Is Vickie Sawyer a Republican Feminist?

 

To hear Vickie Sawyer, Republican state Senator from Iredell (Dist. 37), tell about the behind-closed-doors negotiations that went on between House and Senate Republicans about how much abortion to ban, and how, you might deduce that she was the leading feminist in that coven of deciders, a warrior for "exceptions" to the new bans.

According to the interview Sawyer gave Will Doran from WRAL News, "Many of her fellow Republicans were initially opposed to allowing exceptions for issues such as rape, incest or medical complications, Sawyer said, adding that she fought hard to get those added into the final compromise. 'If you ever knew how hard those meetings were,' Sawyer said. 'How hard I fought for that rape exception, that incest exception. And how hard that was to get across the line.' "

No. We believe you! We're familiar with folks with that single "pro-life" issue to their name. They don't take prisoners.

Some of Sawyer's Republican colleagues wanted proof of rape -- did the woman report it? -- before they would allow the rape exception into the law. Sawyer told reporter Dawn Baumgartner Vaughan of the News and Observer, "I was very adamant about not having a reporting requirement because I did not want a young woman who was raped to have to go through anything else. So for me, that was a big deal.”

I had to look more into who Vickie Sawyer is and discovered, first, on her website, that you won't find a whisper of allegiance to any of the raw meat, hard-right conservative issues that we automatically associate with the Republican caucuses down in Raleigh. She really does appear moderate or at least totally indifferent to pushing all the regular conservative buttons.

She mentions -- just a passing, brief mention -- that she grew up in a trailer park in rural Davidson County, and I might want to read more into that than I should -- that maybe she learned some toughness but also some understanding and compassion for people -- especially women -- who are "seeing it hard." How different that background may have tempered her, compared to, say, Virginia Foxx, who likes to brag about how poor she was without any trace of humility.

But before I get carried away, I have to note that Sawyer is also a soldier in the GOP army, so she was duty-bound to do something against abortion. It's the price of admission to that political party. Plus she was a prime sponsor of the Fairness in Women's Sports Act, which passed the Senate in May and which will ban transgender girls from competing in female sports events -- an issue I really think is a loser for Democrats. “This bill is not about being anti-trans," Sawyer said during debate. "This bill is about being pro-woman. If we want to talk about uncomfortable, let’s talk about how young women’s lives are put in danger by having to play a sport they love against someone who’s three times as strong as them.”

Sawyer was first appointed to the senate in August 2018 to fill out an unexpired term. She had already won a Republican primary for the seat in May against her principal rival, the notorious Bob Rucho, who had previously been in the senate and chose not to run for reelection in 2016 but wanted back in in 2018. Sawyer easily beat him, since he had kind of a volatile reputation. So she's in her 3rd senate term. She and her husband run a big insurance firm.

GOP to NC: "You Ain't Seen Nuttin' Yet! Wait Until After We Win in 2024"

 

Minutes after the Republicans in both houses of the General Assembly successfully nullified Roy Cooper's veto of the new abortion bans, the N.C. Values Coalition, a Christian conservative group, called the new abortion restrictions “the beginning of North Carolina’s first real step towards becoming a pro-life state.”

In other words, O my Brethren, those forces that insist on controlling women's lives ain't fully baked yet, not by a long shot. Speaker Tim Moore has said already he wanted a much more restrictive 6-week ban, but bowed to the compromise the Republican caucus reached with some of its women members for the 12-week ban that passed. Rep. Keith Kidwell and the Freedom Caucus had previously backed a complete and total ban, from conception, and those are the people who'll be newly empowered if they get Mark Robinson in the governor's house in 2025, along with more of their extremist brethren in the legislature.

They expect that they'll have complete and total control because -- you'd forgotten, hadn't you? -- they still get to gerrymander anew all the seats in the General Assembly and make winning all the more impossible for Democrats.

So here's how the GOP leaders were talking and winking immediately following their successful veto override:

Tim Moore said he had wanted the 6-week ban, but what passed was pretty much all that could get passed at this time, he admitted (because of the women). "We won't be introducing any more abortion legislation until after the 2024 elections," he said. “[But] I can’t say what’ll happen two years, four years, 10 years from now.”

Phil Berger was more direct: “Who knows who's going to be in the General Assembly after the next election? There may be members that want to push it further on the restrictive side." Berger quickly added, as though he wanted someone to think he's balanced: "There may [also] be members who want to increase the window for the elective [procedure].” Who knows? 

Well, Mr. Berger, I think we know there's no chance under God's cloudy skies that Republican electeds in the state of NC are ever gonna loosen those chains, not voluntarily.

“Make no mistake — this is only the beginning,” Attorney General Josh Stein said. He'll be running for governor against the very scary Mark Robinson.

Vote or die, folks.

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. 

Does John Bradford Have the Cojones To Sustain Cooper's Veto? No, Probably

 

Governor Roy Cooper is trying to put pressure on four Republican members of the General Assembly who previously supported North Carolina's 20-week abortion ban, but who have now voted for the much more restrictive 12-week ban, which Cooper vetoed on Saturday and for which Berger-Moore promise veto-override votes, probably this week.

One of those four supposedly (previously) pro-choice Republicans, Rep. John Ray Bradford III of Mecklenburg County, answered a question from Channel 9 about abortion rights in October 2022. Here's his full response:

What is your position on abortion? I support NC’s current law which provides a woman’s choice up to 20-weeks. This has been NC’s law since 1973 and, notably, is longer than many other states and countries which have time limits on lawful abortions. After 20-weeks, I support special exceptions for cases such as when the mother’s health is in danger, rape or incest. Unlike my opponent, I do not support unrestricted abortions through full-term, also known as ‘until viability’. Most Americans agree that reasonable time limits for a woman’s choice are acceptable and do not support unrestricted full-term abortions.

Currently, when he was asked about Cooper's pressure campaign on him, Bradford erupted that Governor Cooper had just not been friendly enough with him: “I am serving my 4th term in the legislature and the Governor wouldn’t know me if he bumped into me,” he said, and then whined bitterly about not being invited to bill signings that he thought he should have been invited to. So Bradford is prepared to disregard his campaign promise of 2022 and to kneecap women's rights because of hurt feelings. Are he and Tricia Cotham pledging the same sorority?

My advice to Governor Cooper: Call John Bradford. Or even better, show up at his office door.

But at least Bradford's expression of hurt feelings allowed him to completely avoid the question of just how far he's willing to go to drop his previous beliefs like soiled laundry. Look, the man has already announced he won't be running for his House seat again anyway. He's planning to run statewide for state treasurer, so the calculus of bucking the Republican bosses right now comes into play. Would it help or hurt him more to be the single Republican who stopped an extreme abortion ban in North Carolina? It could help him with independent voters in a statewide race but invite rabid conservative animus in the meantime. My bet: he won't take the risk of riling up the far right wing.

He would have every reason to worry about that veto override vote if he were running for reelection to his Dist. 98 House seat. He won it in 2014 when Thom Tillis went to his reward in the US Senate. He lost it in the blue wave year of 2018 to Democrat Christy Clark by a margin of 415 votes. In a rematch with Clark in 2020, Bradford took back his seat (the margin was just over 2,000 votes). District 98 is a swing district which could very easily swing against him in 2024 because of his flipflop on abortion rights.

But he's not running in that small district again. He plans to run statewide. Duh. What a time to stand up for what you recently said you stood for.

Gov. Cooper Gooses the Abortion Issue

 

Big crowd turned out in Raleigh Saturday morning to rally for abortion rights, as Goveror Roy Cooper publicly and with a flourish, stamped VETO on the newest Republican effort to limit the rights of women.

Governor Cooper now has a new responsibility since former Democrat Tricia Cotham did what she did, changed her stripes and her core beliefs and became the veto-overturn vote in the NC House. Cooper has to awaken and energize the Democratic base on the current crisis, that Republicans intend to chip away at women's health care options in a rushed process, because they fear the opposition of the voters and yet cannot resist the extremists in their own base.

Up next (and you can count on it!) -- the Republicans begin enacting new rules to disallow the voting of as many young people as they can -- disallow or at least discourage.

In Boone SUNDAY, 1 PM