It Turns Out, Some Things Could Be Finer Than to Be in Carolina in the Morning...

Once again, the MAGOP show who they are, as the MAGOP supermajority legislature in North Carolina stripped powers from the incoming governor and other just-elected high state officials, all of whom affected are Democrats. This is just like the party did in Wisconsin in 2018, just six years ago. This despite voters not only voting in these Democrats, but also defeating the veto-proof supermajority down to just a majority last month. Unfortunately, that new legislature doesn't get seated until January.

​Hopefully this can be challenged in court and overturned. But that's just a hope, we'll see...

The short version is Democrats did extremely well in statewide elections, winning all major offices except for State Auditor, and winning enough seats in the legislature to take away the veto-proof supermajority.  But under the guise of a hurricane relief bill, among the actions that MAGOPs in the current state legislature took -- having absolutely nothing to do with hurricane relief -- are that they removed the authority of new Democratic governor Josh Stein to appoint judges and also to appoint members of the state board of elections -- giving that right to the one Republican who won, the State Auditor, a job that has nothing to do with elections.  Further, they cut back the right of the new Democratic Attorney General Jeff Jackson's to participate in lawsuits against bills the state legislature passes that are challenged in court, and also removed the powers of incoming Democratic Superintendent of Public Instruction Mo Green to oversee the state's charter school system.

Yes, the word "galling" is too polite.

And  yes, it passed by Constitutional rules.  But the action and intent have pure authoritarian fascist smeared all over it.

​As Governor-elect Josh Stein wrote in a mailing yesterday, "Just last month, North Carolina voters rejected the far-right’s agenda, elected Democratic leadership, and broke the GOP’s legislative supermajority — that’s why GOP legislators are pushing this bill through in the final weeks before new lawmakers are sworn in."

When the initial strip-away bill was passed, there was massive outrage in the galleries, which got cleared by MAGOP officials.  The general response in the press and public and been just as angry.  Yet, there they are, overriding outgoing Democratic Governor Roy Cooper's veto.  Which they could do because, right now, the MAGOP have a supermajority -- which they know will disappear in the new legislature next month.

For a more detailed explanation about what happened and where things currently stand, here's an article about it all in RawStory.

But just as important at what this particular story is, I hope this is a massive wake-up call to Democrats in Congress and all over:

This is the "game" MAGOPs play. Democrats shouldn't do the same, it's contrary to democracy, but they should play hard with the very same rules.  Not just on offense, but also defensively to protect against this sort of thing happening elsewhere.  And since it's the second time the MAGOPs have done this, if they see it working it's not unreasonable to think they'll try it again.