Top 10 Worst Things NC Republicans Have Done

Shut up and play the hits!

After not quite a decade in power, and insulated from voter accountability by the nation’s most notorious gerrymander, North Carolina Republicans have pretty much been off the leash. This was a tough list to narrow down to just 10. But dear readers, we did it for you.

Here’s a compilation of the absolute worst moments from North Carolina under rigged Republican rule.

10: Literal bribery

Robin Hayes was a 10-year Republican Congressman, two-time NC GOP State Chairman and a cornerstone of the state Republican Party. He was indicted after lying to the FBI about trying to funnel $2 million into the NC Insurance Commissioner’s race. In the absolute most charitable light, Hayes was trying to obtain special treatment from an officeholder on behalf of a major party donor. But what was really happening was that Hayes was trying to help that donor make a lot of money by manipulating the state insurance system.

Those involved in the bribery scheme who somehow managed to avoid indictment include Republican Congressman Mark Walker and (of course) NCGOP gadfly Dallas Woodhouse.

9: Same-sex marriage ban

Remember Amendment One?

Despite the fact that NC state law already defined marriage as only valid between a man and a woman, in 2011, state Republicans introduced an amendment to enshrine that definition in the state constitution. The amendment barred recognition of same-sex marriages or civil unions performed in other states and was essentially culture war red meat for the Republican base. It passed in a low-turnout referendum that Republicans timed to minimize Democratic turnout.

After Amendment One was struck down as unconstitutional, a handful of the loonier Republican members introduced a bill to defy the U.S. Supreme Court and keep same-sex marriage illegal anyway. (It failed.)

8: Holding public education hostage for corporations

The state government of North Carolina has not had a budget for nearly a year. The play-by-play is tedious, but the long and short of it is that Governor Cooper (a Democrat) wants a bigger pay increase for North Carolina’s teachers, whose compensation has stagnated for a long time. Republicans in the legislature didn’t want any pay increase, and then offered around half of what the Governor proposed, along with yet another round of large corporate tax cuts. (They’ve passed a number of those already.) The Governor vetoed that solution.

The Governor has asked to negotiate, but the Republicans simply refuse to talk, and so here we are. Why have they refused? Well, because they were hoping to get the votes to override his veto. Which brings us to #7…

7: Dirty tricks

NC Republicans were so desperate to override Governor Cooper’s veto of their budget — which they steadfastly refused to negotiate on — that they resorted to some of the most outrageous dirty procedural tricks the state has seen in modern memory to get around it.

Last year, on September 11th, many legislators were attending the annual 9/11 memorial. The Republican House leadership confirmed to Democratic leaders in advance that no votes would be held that morning. Yet, mysteriously, almost the entire Republican caucus showed up. In less than 90 seconds, with Democrats mostly absent, they called a vote to override Gov. Cooper’s veto of the Republican budget. And they succeeded.

Lying to the Democrats to keep them away was key to this strategy, because Republicans lack the supermajority necessary to override the Governor’s veto with all members present. It was as shameful a low point for the North Carolina General Assembly as we’ve seen. (As it happened, these dirty tricks were also futile. The veto was upheld in the Senate — exactly as everyone expected.)

6: House Bill 2

In 2016, NC Republicans passed “HB2,” which not only specified which bathrooms North Carolinians must use, but also prohibited local governments from passing their own anti-discrimination ordinances or raising minimum wages. So much for the party of small government.

The nationally infamous “Bathroom Bill” cost North Carolina dearly. The fight was dirty, pointlessly mean and deeply hurtful. The NBA and NCAA cancelled major events. PayPal moved a major expansion project to another state. It’s likely “HB2” was a factor in Apple deciding not to place its billion-dollar second headquarters in RTP. The state lost billions in tourism revenue. And… for what?

#5: Stripping the Governor of powers after they lost

In 2016, Democrat Roy Cooper narrowly defeated Pat McCrory for the governorship. Immediately after the race was decided, Republicans in the legislature leapt into action to strip the governorship of its powers.

In dozens of provisions in the middle of the night, the Republican legislature set out to systematically reduce the role and scope of North Carolina’s incoming governorship. They cut the number of positions working directly for the governor by 80% and, for the first time, required that cabinet appointments be approved by the (Republican) Senate.

As if that wasn’t corrupt enough, Republican leaders used the opportunity to tinker with the state and county Boards of Elections to mandate that Republicans be in charge during all election years. Subtle, guys.

4: Trying to steal a Congressional election

They almost pulled it off.

The plot to steal a Congressional seat in North Carolina’s ninth district through organized ballot fraud (importantly: not voter fraud) almost succeeded. An independent “consultant” for the Republican candidate was caught in an operation that harvested and altered absentee ballots to help throw the election. It later emerged that the consultant had done similar work for decades for multiple Republican candidates.

The end of the saga of NC’s Ninth Congressional seat ended in a new Republican candidate, Dan Bishop, squeaking out a narrow victory over the Democrat, Dan McCready — in a district that Trump carried by 12 points.

3: Refusal to expand Medicaid

The Republican leadership has refused at every single turn to consider any expansion of Medicaid (“Obamacare”). Despite success in 37 states and the wild claims that it’ll surely bankrupt the state proven wrong, NC Republicans have refused to allow 500,000 North Carolinians access to affordable healthcare.

Their main obstacle is simply giving a Democratic Governor a win with a policy so closely associated with President Obama. That’s really it. NC Republicans are quite willing to let rural areas suffer — particularly during the COVID era — to show their spite. This obstinacy has cost lives.

2: Openly racist voter suppression

After ramming through a racial gerrymander (see #1), the second-highest priority of the new NC Republican majority was to make it harder to vote. Especially for people of color.

What Republicans in the legislature did was request data on racial differences in voting behavior. Specifically, they looked at types of ID used disproportionately by different racial groups, usage of early voting and time periods of that early voting — for example, Sunday early voting, which is a popular “souls to the polls” activity in black communities, which vote overwhelmingly Democratic.

Then, they tailored a new voter ID law and curtailed early voting specifically to limit access by black voters. This is not just my partisan interpretation — this is literally what the state of North Carolina, under its Republican leadership, argued in open court!

And the #1 worst thing North Carolina Republicans have done…

In 2011, after winning a majority in the General Assembly, the Republicans largely ended representative democracy in North Carolina.

Under the new legislative and Congressional gerrymanders the Republicans drew in 2011, many, if not most, legislative and Congressional races became less competitive — or even non-competitive. With the stroke of a pen, they turned out 11 Democrats from the state Senate (22% of the chamber), 25 Democrats from the House (21%), and 3 Democratic members of Congress (23% of NC’s delegation). They drew themselves into a legislative supermajority that was literally unaccountable to voters in order to maximize their power, as one Republican representative was quite happy to explain.

North Carolina has seen gerrymanders before, but nothing on the scale or aggressiveness of 2011. Past Democratic efforts were orders of magnitude less aggressive—recall that Republicans, in fact, won their majority under maps drawn by Democrats.

By contrast, in 2018, Democrats won a clear majority of votes for the state House and Senate, winning the vote total by 2.5 points. But not only did this huge overperformance not win a majority of the legislature — they barely broke the Republican supermajority. (In the Senate, by just 1 seat!)

The Republican gerrymander of 2011, and subsequent versions, literally made it impossible for Democrats to win back power. There was just nothing Democrats could do. Representative democracy requires fair and competitive elections, which North Carolina Republicans simply dispensed with.

This year is our chance

North Carolina Democrats have exactly one shot at restoring democracy to our state. It’s this fall.

After the federal courts failed us, NC’s state courts finally —just last year— declared the legislative maps unconstitutional and demanded limited redistricting. The same Republicans who drew the gerrymander reluctantly drew new maps. The new maps are not fair. They are still heavily tilted Republican. But for the very first time in almost a decade, there is a real and viable path for Democrats to take back power.

This is why the Long Leaf Pine Slate exists. We represent the “critical path” for Democrats back to a majority this fall. With a second Blue Wave election gathering, this November will be our very best possible shot at overturning the undemocratic and corrupt Republican seizure of power in our state.

If not now, when? If not us, who?

The future of democracy in North Carolina is in our hands. Please help if you can.

The Long Leaf Pine Slate is dedicated to breaking the Republican majority in the North Carolina General Assembly. Learn more about us at LongLeafPineslate.org and follow us on Twitter at @ForwardCarolina.

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