#ncga: Hager, OUT!
This is yet another occasion where we hate to have been right.
It appears that state Rep. Mike Hager (R), the current majority leader and unofficial leader of House conservatives, will be stepping down from his seat:
North Carolina House Majority Leader Mike Hager (R-Rutherford) will resign his seat in the general assembly on Tuesday.
Hager confirmed his departure Saturday morning after WBTV obtained a memo from the North Carolina Republican Party that said he had already resigned.
Although Hager said the memo had been sent prematurely, the three-term lawmaker said he was leaving to devote more time to family.
Hager’s departure comes just weeks after Rep. Charles Jeter (R-Mecklenburg) resigned his seat in late July. Jeter served as chairman of the House Republican Caucus.
The memo prematurely sent by the NCGOP announcing Hager’s resignation says party leaders in the 112th House District–which includes parts of Burke and Rutherford Counties – will meet to select Hager’s replacement on Wednesday, August 17.
Ah. Spending more time with the family. That is sure to gin up all kinds of gossip and conspiracies. We had heard he had a lucrative job waiting in the wings. But I asked a source close to Hager for some clarification:
“He’s throwing up his hands. He’s tried to provide some straight-up leadership that honors the party platform, that is ethical. And he gets run over by Dollar, Moore and Lewis every time. He sees the House as a lost cause for conservatism. He’s just had enough.”
My sources tell me that House Republican Conference chairman John Szoka, House Finance C
ommittee chairman Jason Saine, and House Majority Whip John Bell all met privately last week on the Hager situation. Apparently, my sources tell me, the decision was made to put Bell forward as the leadership-approved choice to replace Hager as House Majority Leader. Bell, you may remember, replaced the scandal-plagued, embattled state Rep. Stephen LaRoque a few years back.
If the republican party is not going to be the conservitive party what’s the point
Patrick, maybe you’re finally seeing why Unaffiliated is the fastest growing registration segment.
Yes, once all you conservatives get out, then we will seal the deal to have two progressive parties, and you will all be left out in the cold. Have fun with that!
democrap-lite is just not going to get the job done.
Checkmate goes to Speaker Moore
When you can’t beat them, get them a job!
What wonderful news! The main guy in the leadership who actually put consumers and taxpayers ahead of polar bears is gone! This is the guy who used to lead the charge to get rid of our renewable energy mandate. We need to keep that mandate because it is NC’s ticket to have its electric rates ”necessarily skyrocket” as President Obama has pointed out. We have to jack up the electric rates if we are going to price airconditioning out of the range of average folks and save the polar bears.
Now, we have the prospect of the key players in the House all being progressives – Tim Moore, John Szoka, Jason Saine, David Lewis, and Nelson Dollar are all in the hip pocket of our hard core environmental movement. We own them. We just have to get Hager’s seat as majority leader, and we will control all the levers of power in the House. It is a great day for progressives.
This would be a good time for the true conservatives in the House form a House Conservative Caucus and like the Freedom caucus in DC, make membership contingent upon voting record and invitation. At least then, Republican non-members would be subject to inquiries from conservatives back home as why they’re not a member.
That would be a great step! Hopefully, they will do it.
We will know who those who support those pesky taxpayers and consumers and don’t like Polar Bears are!
From your lips to God’s ears Toxhandler!
It would also be a good time for local party organizations to re-engage in legislative candidate recruitment and tell the caucus that under the PoO that is the job of the party, NOT the caucus.
I have heard that the Moore mafia would not tolerate putting the word ”House” in front of anything he could not have a hand in. Therefore, maybe they need to use the word ”Legislative” and include solid Senate conservatives, too.
FWIW, I hear several county leaders who are leading the way on this, including my cuz.
Since when did being in the pocket of out-of-state special interest groups like ALEC and doing the bidding for a utility/monopoly like Duke Energy become such a vaunted Conservative trait?
What are you talking about? Duke Energy has played ball completely with our green energy friends. They run interference against those conservatives like Hager when he tries to gut the renewable energy mandate. Duke Energy completely supports our wind and solar friends. They are honorary polar bear huggers. Cut ’em a break on that coal ask stuff as long as they keep backing up our renewable energy friends. And, heck, it costs them nothing since they pass the extra cost of that green energy along to their customers.
…and they were consistently one of Hager’s largest campaign contributors….are you saying he’s a polar bear hugging conservative?
The key is to look at where Duke has stood on the renewable energy issue, and they have stood with the polar bears. Most special interests try to buy access to all sides, and of course they will especially try to buy access to those in leadership positions. Of course, Duke has other irons in the fire on issues, too. When it comes to contributions, they will try to obtain influence on all of their issues.
If one of the biggest utilities in the world likes polar bears – don’t you think they have a vision for the future that’s been very carefully planned?
Don’t you have any cute stories about ALEC and polar bears?
Rats off a sinking ship.
There are two big question marks here:
1) Did Hager line up a conservative successor for his own seat?
2) Will conservatives in the delegation put up a candidate for majority leader?
If Hager did not do the former, he is extremely irresponsible and has left conservatives in the lurch even more than just resigning as Majority Leader.
If other conservatives in the House do not do the latter, then conservative voters need to just throw up our hands.
I heard a rumor that the Tim Moore mafia had planned to try to oust Hager from the Majority Leader position next session, and this might have played a role in his thinking. Anyone else hear that one?
There are only about 20 real conservatives currently in the NC House Republican Caucus. There are a lot who ran as conservatives (Szoka, Saine, Bell, Dollar) but who are completely at the beck and call of the solar lobby, which will pour mountains of cash on them now. In the next election the House will lose more conservatives then “Dems-in-sheep’s-clothing”, aka, Lite-Democrats with R behind their names. There really is very little hope for the NC House at this point. Like all of Washington DC, they have been bitten by Leftists and are now just more socialist Zombies. Like with Hillary, the best we can hope for is that the many things TMoore and DLewis are being investigated for at last will put them in prison. Since we no longer have electoral control over them, we can only hope there is legal justice.
Still, Hager failing to line up a conservative successor for his own seat would be political malpractice, as would failure to at least try to offer a better option for the Majority Leader. I hate to see the corrupt special interest mafia who masquerade as Republicans take a seat that a good guy currently holds. The special interest mafia got its foot in the door with Tillis, and now Moore is just as bad if not worse.
We need a lot more legislators like Mike Hager and a lot less like Tim Moore, David Lewis, Jason Saine, John Szoka, etc.
I understand and appreciate what you are saying but, I think it is a lost cause. So did Hager. Regardless of what he lined up or worked out as he walked out the door, it really won’t matter. The LewisMooreDollarSaineSozka leftist coalition has too much power and money and the ability to get a ton more. The best thing we can hope for is that Dollar gets beat in November.
Conservatives need to start chipping away at the corrupt special interest Republicans who remind me more of Jim Black and Marc Basnight than they do of anything I would consider Republican.
Bell is a moderate who ranked tied for 35th most conservative in last long session with a Civitas score of a meager 67.5. And this record in that session shows that he is clearly a Solyndra Repubican in bed with Big Solar and probably Big Wind.
Yes, a defeat for Obama Republican Nelson Dollar would be a real plus. Doesn’t he have a Libertarian as well as a Democrat opponent? I would be inclined to vote Libertarian in that race, although I would not consider doing it for US Senate or President.
My brother in law says Hager has a solid back up to take over. Finally I hear hes actually moving out of district for family…
Could it have anything to do with the Cleveland County reservoir that he reportedly had a financial interest in, but so far has not gotten the go-ahead, despite years of his efforts?
Was that before or after he got sued for defrauding his clients on a development he had up in Lake Lure?
Yes, yes. We’re all shocked, shocked when a powerful sitting legislator is exposed as having extracurricular exploits related to his/her official duties…
Will anyone ask Rep. John Torbett about his current professional connections to military surveillance drones about to be circling the skies over your supposedly-liberty-loving heads?
No, of course you won’t.