Monkey Business Update: The plot thickens in Cabarrus?

monkeyApparently, Charles Jeter (see comments at end of previous post) was not the only Republican legislator caught off guard by the local bill that simultaneously disarmed the Monroe city manager and the executive committee of the Cabarrus County GOP.  

I’ve heard from three different GOP state House members — none of whom are from Cabarrus —  since that post went up.  All of them expressed disbelief at what has transpired.

“How did we let this slip past us?,” Representative A asked rhetorically.

“When this came up before, there were some pretty emotional discussions within the caucus,” Rep. B offered up. ”The decision was made then to back off of it. We thought this thing was dead and buried.  But here it is.”

All three legislators said it was highly unusual for (1) one local bill to deal with two different counties, and (2) a local bill to even be considered when at least one local legislator disagreed with it.  (Reps. Larry Pittman and Carl Ford had both objected previously to the move against the Cabarrus GOP.)

Legislator C said he expects there to be further discussion about this on Jones Street:

“I want to know who drove this backdoor move.  This was wrong on so many levels.  We made the point in caucus about how important it is to stay the hell out of local politics. This is not good.”

For all of you folks on the Cabarrus GOP executive committee: Take note of the fact that House speaker and US Senate nominee Thom Tillis put his name on this, um,  *beauty*. 

It might be a good time for some of you folks on that committee to start asking the state board of elections about the status of senator Hartsell’s campaign finance audit.  (Jus’ sayin’ ….)