#ncga: HB373, McCrory and The Power Grab
The word I am hearing from the big city is that our governor is strongly leaning toward vetoing HB 373 and its ”affiliated committees” language. Given recent polling showing McCrory neck-and-neck with Roy Cooper for 2016, it might be wise to throw a bone to the highly-perturbed grassroots.
The BAD NEWS? It is seriously being batted around the governor’s office to expand the whole ”affiliated committees” thing to include the governor AND The Council of State!
Doing that definitely would signal the beginning of the end of state parties, and solidify pay-to-play as the standard operating procedure for state government. Talk about making a bad idea even worse.
The party itself controls one thing that these guys cannot get their hands on, and that is the mail permit for super cheap mail, that only official national and state parties can qualify for. Controlling access to that is the party’s ultimate trump card.
No argument but the new leadership has a few other things going for them as well. Was following a conversation between County Chairs recently (admittedly secondhand through my cuz the County Chair). Turns out that they are strongly backed by the RURAL County Parties….you know, the folks that are essential for a Republican candidate who is seeking state-wide office.
Which leads to an interesting stat….some detractors of the new Chairman like to mention he “barely” won with only 55% of the vote. When you consider that he didn’t win the big urban counties (Wake, Mecklenberg) which supply a big chunk of delegates to the convention, and that Harnett unanimously swept many non-urban counties….well, there’s a lesson there for any politicians who are paying attention.