#ncga: SB4 antes up on the intrigue
Just when you thought it coudn’t get more interesting, along comes SB4 — sponsored by senators Rucho, Tucker and Rabon. Here is the reader’s digest version:
- Partisan elections for the Supreme Court. THIS should have been done two years ago. Leadership earlier waved off concerns about not doing this — citing concerns by big Raleigh donors to the respective caucuses. NO ONE can honestly tell you — with a straight face — that this Morgan guy knocking off Bob Edmunds this year was due to anything more than confusion over party affiliation. The Democrat party has SO pansified itself that running as a judge, with a D next to your name, gets you pegged by the voters as one of Josh Stein’s Chapel Hill badminton chums. An R next to your name on the ballot often gets you pegged as the second coming of Roy Bean. (In most cases, outside of Durham and Orange counties, that is a good thing.)
- Consolidate the enforcement of ethics, campaign finance, and elections laws into one agency. So, instead of having multiple agencies doing not one damn thing, we’ll have ONE BIG AGENCY DOING NOTHING.
- No court can implement its own redistricting plan for North Carolina without giving the legislature ample time to come up with a plan.
- Vacancies on the Industrial commission. Appointees in the wake of a vacancy get a six year term PLUS the remaining balance of the unexpired term. If the governor does not act in a timely manner to fill a vacancy, the legislative leadership can act.
Frankly, this ain’t so abusive at all. I mean, come on, we’ve been needing oversight on the Governor and appointments for ages, no matter what party holds the seat. They could have reformed far wider than they went on that part of things and it would have been ok with me. I like the Appeals Court work, too.
Hell, I think it’s a job well done. And they didn’t get nearly as heavy handed as they could have LEGALLY with regard to the Supreme Court. Democrats would have loved the Board of Elections deal prior to winning in November with Cooper. In the long run, it’s more fair for everyone. There are other reforms that are good too, because the departments currently handling the jobs are absolutely failures at serving the people of the state, especially dealing with lobbyist activity in NC.
I give them a thumbs up….and I called them early on saying don’t stack that court. They didn’t. Go home and enjoy Christmas.
I wish the GA would quit messing with the NC Court of Appeals and just suck it up and add 2 justices to the NC Supreme Court already. The NC SC can take any case it wants out of the COA’s hands, regardless of the bills filed in the Special Sessions. As long as the Dems control the SC, then Cooper and Stein can gum things up in state AND federal court. So, just add the 2 justices and let McCrory appoint them. What’s the matter, GA and Governor? Too scared to pass and sign such a bill?
Remember – the liberals have politicized our courts for years, going back to FDR. Things got especially bad in 1987 with Reagan’s nomination of Robert Bork to the SCOTUS. The liberals have made it even worse lately with issues of marriage, sexuality, gender, etc., being resolved in courts rather than legislative bodies.
So, the liberals thought they got something when they elected Ol’ Roy, Steiny, and Judge Whatshisname this year. They really thought they had something when they politicized the courts. So, now the GA has the opportunity to make them play by their own rules, sit them in a corner, and add 2 justices to the NC Supreme Court and let a Republican governor appoint them. Suck it up, add the 2 justices, and make the Dems eat it. Sure, the Dems may raise Cain. Jim Hunt may threaten to raise a bunch of money to defeat the Republican justices in 2018. By this time next week, and by November 6, 2018 for sure, nobody will care. Nobody in Bumfizzle County will care in 2 years how the justices got on the SC. If we don’t add the 2 justices now, the liberals will control the SC until the November 2022 elections, at the earliest. Add the justices now, and tell the liberals to get bent.
I disagree, they should have expanded the court.
Yes, because that one would be very hard to overturn in court.
Poetic justice would be to prohibit the Governors Mansion or any executive branch agency from requiring a photo ID to enter. If voters do not have to show one, then someone going to a Cooper function should not have to either.
With the courts, I would go further and make it a felony for any judge of any court to interfere in an election.
If this oversight was needed, why didn’t they do it before McCrory lost his re-election bid?
For obvious reasons. The timing isn’t due to righteousness. It’s because they were forced to act. They would have let McCrony keep right on I’m sure. Ain’t nothing altruistic about it. Still it’s needed to check nutjob picks leftists pull and pay to play GOP types appoint unchecked.
I have to ask: Cooper says he will go to court; does he know where it is?
It’s time to admit a system of unaffiliated judicial candidates is a bad experiment. It seems to have been promoted by Democrats to hide from voters their leftists candidates part affiliation. Since judges are partisan & rule in that fashion, put the “D’ or the “R” beside their name & let the situation go forward from there.