In Soviet Russia, and indeed in China today, major decisions are made by a closed committee called a politburo. These groups hold all power closely, setting policy, directing the apparatus of the security and intelligence agencies, tightly controlling propaganda machines, and selecting leaders from within their ranks who rigidly adhere to the party line. In short, the politburo system is fundamentally different from our own. We have, in theory, a government of the people. Our leaders our selected not by a few, but by many, in open and fair elections. We have a free press that maintains a vigorous watch over our representatives in government to insure that those officials serve us and not their own will to power. And, brilliantly, we have an elaborate system of checks and balances that plays political actors against one another, insuring that no one group or individual gains too much control.
In a shocking display of pure, unmitigated, self-interested partisanship, the North Carolina GOP has turned decisively away from the traditions of openness, inclusion, debate, and bipartisan rule that have characterized government in our state and nation as a whole for decades. This week's special legislative session, ostensibly to help storm victims, was one of the most blatant power grabs the state has ever seen. Pages and pages of new law--conceived in secret--were dropped on us with scant opportunity for debate or comment from the opposition party or the public.
Leading up to the session, rumors swirled about a scheme that did not come to pass: the idea that the legislature would add new justices to the state supreme court, thereby nullifying a newly-won Democratic majority on the bench. Precious little reporting has been done as to the sources of these rumors, but at least one conservative so-called "think tank" (read: mouthpiece for super-wealthy political actors), the John Locke Foundation, put out the possibility and argued for its legality weeks before the session. As the session loomed, many justly alarmed activists began desperately seeking comment from our representatives in Raleigh. Time after time, we were fed the same canned response from GOP leaders: it was nothing more than media-driven rumor.
We now know that to be a bald-faced lie. Court packing was a decoy for a set of laws just as awful, and certainly more comprehensive and far-reaching. In fact, the party must have been cooking up these new laws for weeks, if not longer, given their breathtaking scope, complexity, and partisan mean-spiritedness. While every rank-and-file member of the NCGA may not have known about the power grab in advance, their unwillingness to even entertain speculation about the session, especially in the days just before, when McCrory's ominously worded proclamation about storm relief included the vague words "other business," is just the sort of tight message control typical of a politburo.
The laws themselves are hideous, unfair, and in many cases, patently unconstitutional, as we desperately hope will be proven in court. But the problem I have is with the secrecy. How a member of an elected body votes for a bill dropped from the sky without allowing constituents, the press, and civic leaders to have time to even read it is beyond the realm of comprehension. Many North Carolina conservatives call themselves "constitutionalists." They must have never studied how that document was conceived in Philadelphia. Months of agonizing deliberation and debate between interested parties of every possible region and political persuasion had their say in the open light of day. The charter they enacted contained in it every possible measure to prevent power from collecting in the hands of one group. That was the very thing that had propelled the revolution in the first place. Yet here we are, hundreds of years later, in the middle of a state take over by a small group of extreme ideologues who represent a tiny percentage of us.
What can we do? Here are some concrete actions:
Join a group working to turn the state house in 2017 and 2018 such as everyonesnc.org. Did you know that a huge portion of GOP lawmakers ran unopposed? Work to change this by working on a campaign, or better yet, running yourself!
Write and call your representatives and the GOP leadership over and over again. Better yet, get all of your friends and neighbors to call as well.
Write letters to your local newspaper. Keep it short and simple. Papers are looking to express the views of the people, and will usually publish something if enough people write.
Get national attention on our plight in North Carolina. Write letters to larger news outlets, share stories on line about NC that appear in the NYTimes or CNN. Tweet incessantly, using hashtags and user names that can trend and send even more attention our way. @NCGOP was trending for days. Try #RespectOurVote, #NeedstoGo or others you see people posting.
Support advocacy groups such as the NC NAACP, Democracy NC, or the ACLU. Your donations to these groups will ensure that a sensible, coherent response is at the ready when the media does come calling. It will also help grow the war chest for the upcoming legal battle. Make no mistake, the GOP and its legal team is well funded by some super-rich individuals, and is prepared to fight the long fight.
Stay vigilant and focused. Find out who your reps are, and stay on them. Support the good ones, take the terrible ones out to the woodshed. Research the negative affects of these new laws, especially if they resonate with you in some way. I am passionate about voting rights and education, so those provisions are particularly galling to me, and are where I am going to focus my advocacy.
http://everyonesnc.org
In a shocking display of pure, unmitigated, self-interested partisanship, the North Carolina GOP has turned decisively away from the traditions of openness, inclusion, debate, and bipartisan rule that have characterized government in our state and nation as a whole for decades. This week's special legislative session, ostensibly to help storm victims, was one of the most blatant power grabs the state has ever seen. Pages and pages of new law--conceived in secret--were dropped on us with scant opportunity for debate or comment from the opposition party or the public.
Leading up to the session, rumors swirled about a scheme that did not come to pass: the idea that the legislature would add new justices to the state supreme court, thereby nullifying a newly-won Democratic majority on the bench. Precious little reporting has been done as to the sources of these rumors, but at least one conservative so-called "think tank" (read: mouthpiece for super-wealthy political actors), the John Locke Foundation, put out the possibility and argued for its legality weeks before the session. As the session loomed, many justly alarmed activists began desperately seeking comment from our representatives in Raleigh. Time after time, we were fed the same canned response from GOP leaders: it was nothing more than media-driven rumor.
We now know that to be a bald-faced lie. Court packing was a decoy for a set of laws just as awful, and certainly more comprehensive and far-reaching. In fact, the party must have been cooking up these new laws for weeks, if not longer, given their breathtaking scope, complexity, and partisan mean-spiritedness. While every rank-and-file member of the NCGA may not have known about the power grab in advance, their unwillingness to even entertain speculation about the session, especially in the days just before, when McCrory's ominously worded proclamation about storm relief included the vague words "other business," is just the sort of tight message control typical of a politburo.
The laws themselves are hideous, unfair, and in many cases, patently unconstitutional, as we desperately hope will be proven in court. But the problem I have is with the secrecy. How a member of an elected body votes for a bill dropped from the sky without allowing constituents, the press, and civic leaders to have time to even read it is beyond the realm of comprehension. Many North Carolina conservatives call themselves "constitutionalists." They must have never studied how that document was conceived in Philadelphia. Months of agonizing deliberation and debate between interested parties of every possible region and political persuasion had their say in the open light of day. The charter they enacted contained in it every possible measure to prevent power from collecting in the hands of one group. That was the very thing that had propelled the revolution in the first place. Yet here we are, hundreds of years later, in the middle of a state take over by a small group of extreme ideologues who represent a tiny percentage of us.
What can we do? Here are some concrete actions:
Join a group working to turn the state house in 2017 and 2018 such as everyonesnc.org. Did you know that a huge portion of GOP lawmakers ran unopposed? Work to change this by working on a campaign, or better yet, running yourself!
Write and call your representatives and the GOP leadership over and over again. Better yet, get all of your friends and neighbors to call as well.
Write letters to your local newspaper. Keep it short and simple. Papers are looking to express the views of the people, and will usually publish something if enough people write.
Get national attention on our plight in North Carolina. Write letters to larger news outlets, share stories on line about NC that appear in the NYTimes or CNN. Tweet incessantly, using hashtags and user names that can trend and send even more attention our way. @NCGOP was trending for days. Try #RespectOurVote, #NeedstoGo or others you see people posting.
Support advocacy groups such as the NC NAACP, Democracy NC, or the ACLU. Your donations to these groups will ensure that a sensible, coherent response is at the ready when the media does come calling. It will also help grow the war chest for the upcoming legal battle. Make no mistake, the GOP and its legal team is well funded by some super-rich individuals, and is prepared to fight the long fight.
Stay vigilant and focused. Find out who your reps are, and stay on them. Support the good ones, take the terrible ones out to the woodshed. Research the negative affects of these new laws, especially if they resonate with you in some way. I am passionate about voting rights and education, so those provisions are particularly galling to me, and are where I am going to focus my advocacy.
http://everyonesnc.org
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