“Is this the legacy you want?”
On Tuesday morning, while Governor Cooper attended a ceremony remembering the victims of the 9/11 attacks, House Republicans unexpectedly voted to override Cooper’s budget veto, taking advantage of Democratic absences to claim the supermajority they needed.
As Speaker Tim Moore attempted to call the vote during the 8:30 a.m. session — during which Democrats say they were told no votes would be taken — Wilmington Demoract Deb Butler stood up in a fury, lambasting Moore as a coward. Of the 120 House members, 64 were in attendance; only 9 of them were Democrats.
“How dare you subject this body to trickery, deceptive practices, hijacking the process,” Butler shouted. “It is so typical of the way you conduct yourself. How dare you, Mr. Speaker? If this is the way you believe democracy works, shame on you.”
A vote to override Cooper’s veto on the budget had been on the calendar since July, but Republicans, who lost their supermajority in last November’s elections, lacked the votes. That has left the budget in a months-long standoff, with Cooper insisting that Medicaid expansion be included in a budget deal, and Republicans refusing to budge. More recently, the House and Senate have passed pieces of the budget raises wages for some state workers, which Cooper has signed, but the larger budget remained deadlocked.
To win the budget war without compromising on Medicaid, Moore needed to pull a stunt. He found an opportunity moments before the eighteenth anniversary of when terrorists flew the first plane into the North Tower of New York’s World Trade Center.
The vote passed 55–9 along party lines. It must now clear the Senate, where Republicans also lack a supermajority — and where, presumably, Democrats will no longer take Republican leaders at their word.
The North Carolina Association of Educators, a Democratic ally, blasted the Republicans’ “unbelievably deceitful conduct.”
“By playing underhanded political games in an attempt to win at all costs, they are subverting the democratic process and destroying whatever shred of trust remained between Republicans and the people of North Carolina,” NCAE president Mark Jewell said in a statement.
This isn’t the first time Republicans in the General Assembly have subverted the democratic process to gain power.
The members of the legislature were elected in districts that a Wake County Superior Court ruled last week were unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders. This followed previous federal court decisions that held that the legislative districts drawn in 2011, after the Republicans gained power, were unconstitutional racial gerrymanders. The General Assembly declined to appeal the Superior Court’s decision to the state Supreme Court and is now in the process of redrawing the districts — ostensibly in a transparent, nonpartisan manner, although lawmakers may simply be trolling the court.
“You wait until a moment when you suggest there will be no votes,” Butler shouted at Moore this morning, refusing to yield the floor. “You are making a mockery of this process. You are deceiving all of North Carolina. Your leadership is an embarrassment to the history of this great state.”
She continued: “At this moment in time, you are doing the unspeakable. Is this the legacy you want?”
Contact staff writer Leigh Tauss at [email protected].
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Here’s what Jeff Jackson (Senator for NC’s 37′s District) had to say:
Here's the full story on what happened this morning with the veto override:
Almost every morning while we’re in session, the General Assembly begins with a "skeletal session." This is held for procedural reasons and no votes are taken. Gavel in, gavel out. A formality.
Not only is this session a formality, but on this specific occasion Republican leadership had actually told the Democrats there would be no votes. This is routine. Non-voting sessions happen almost every single day.
But on this morning - after telling Democrats that there would be no votes - the House Republicans used the skeletal session to ambush Democrats with the biggest vote of the year.
At 8:40 a.m., they called a vote on the veto override on our $24 billion budget.
To understand what a big deal this was, you have to know that the (Democratic) Governor had vetoed their (Republican-passed) budget about two months ago. Both sides were in the process of negotiating a better budget, with major issues including teacher pay and Medicaid expansion.
It’s also important to know that this is the first time in almost a decade that Republicans have actually had to negotiate with Democrats on the budget. Until the last election, the GOP had the votes to override any gubernatorial veto. Now they don’t, and for these folks who were used to absolute power that comedown has been absolutely excruciating.
So they found a way around it.
After telling Democrats there would be no votes, they called a vote.
This was while our Governor and at least one of our Democratic members were at a ceremony honoring those who died on September 11th.
A handful of Democrats were on the floor conducting other business. Rep. Butler, a Democrat from the coast, immediately stood and objected. Other members asked to be recognized so they could object, but the Speaker refused to recognize them and proceeded with the vote.
The budget veto was overridden, 55-9.
When they called the surprise vote, barely half the members of the body were present - almost all of them Republicans. They had planned this.
The veto still stands in the Senate, where our members intend to defend it.
It's remarkable to say this because in five years I've seen some really bad stuff, but I think this qualifies as a new low. To be openly dishonest and use that to pass the most high-profile legislation of the year is a new level of outright corruption that I hadn't seen before today.
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