#ncgop #ncga: Can’t get your way? Change the rules behind closed doors.
In an earlier post, I lamented that you can’t take your eyes off this Jones Street crowd for thirty seconds. This latest development amplifies that assessment even further.
State Rep. David Lewis (R-Harnett), chairman of the House Rules Committee, dumped some changes into the state election rules bill that gives the Raleigh Establishment and consultant class all they need to work around their respective elected party leadership teams and divert millions of dollars meant for said parties to certain favored pockets.
The secretive last-minute changes to the HB 373 dwell heavily on “affiliated party committees”:
[…] “§ 163-278.8B. Affiliated party committees.
(a) The leader of each political party caucus of the North Carolina House ofRepresentatives and the Senate may establish a separate, affiliated party committee to support the election of candidates of that leader’s political party. The affiliated party committee is deemed a political party for purposes of this Article.
(b) Each affiliated party committee shall:
(1) Adopt bylaws to include, at a minimum, the designation of a treasurer.
(2) Conduct campaigns for candidates who are members of the leader’s political party or manage daily operations of the affiliated party committee.
(3) Establish a bank account.
(4) Raise and expend funds. Such funds may not be expended or committed to be expended except when authorized by the leader of the affiliated party committee.
(c) Notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, an affiliated party shall be entitled to use the name, abbreviation, and symbol of the political party of its leader.
(d) For purposes of this section, the term “leader” shall mean the currently elected President Pro Tempore of the Senate, the currently elected Speaker of the House of Representatives, or the currently elected minority leader of either house of the General Assembly, until another person is designated by a political party caucus of members of either house to succeed to one of the aforesaid positions, at which time the newly designated designee becomes the leader for purposes of this section.”[…]
Translation? It’s been SOP for years that party insiders got filthy
stinking rich off of funds raised by the state party and passed down from DC. Certain consultants pocketed a major chunk of that money — as did certain “honorables” on Jones Street with sketchy side consulting businesses. That scheme works well if you have party leadership in on the game. Well, for the Republicans, the grassroots threw a monkey wrench into it this year by electing two outsiders to lead their party.
Since that happened at the NCGOP’s June convention, party establishment insiders have been scheming about how to wrest control of the funds from these *filthy tea partiers.*
There have been attempts to go around the two new elected party chieftains by inserting highly loyal (to the establishment) senior staffers inside the party HQ. Several attempts at that have failed, and it appears another one is on the way to doing so.
House insiders are hot under the collar about these last minute changes. One quipped to me that the bill should be renamed “The Shumaker-Stewart-Leis-Dollar Retirement Guarantee Fund.”
Basically, these changes allow for Jones Street “honorables” to create FOUR new party organizations THEY FULLY CONTROL and thereby weaken / neuter their existing party apparatus. It’s establishment weasels thumbing their noses at the worker bees outside the beltline.
And this stuff NEEDS to be stripped out of the bill. Establishment types
are always griping at us about how we need to lick our wounds and get on board with”their” guy or gal. (2014 GOP US Senate primary, anyone?)
In this case, you’ve got the Tea Party coming out on top, and the Establishment picking up their marbles and going home (after sneakily changing the rules of the game).
HARNETT COUNTY…vote David Lewis OUT! The State of North Carolina’s very existence depends on God and the voters to remove evil like him out of the way.
Folks are upset about this, it’s going to be a dog fight
David Lewis is GOP National Committeman and sits on the party Central Committee. He is abusing legislative power to stab the party in the back on this. He needs to be removed as National Committeeman for this act, by defeating his reelection at next year’s convention, if not sooner.
And he needs a successful primary challenge. Lewis comes from Harnett County,, just like Ellmers, and he is a junior league Renee Ellmers.
The ec need to vote to remove lewis at staturdays ec meeting. That is if the ec has the power to do this
The NCGOP is sounding the alarm and calling for help repelling this attack.
http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=f3100bc5464cbba2f472ddf2c&id=e77bcee7ca
Rep David Lewis is on a roll, to our detriment. Will he be switching to Democrat any time soon? See what he did to weaken voter integrity in our noble state (per email by Jay DeLancy of the VIP):
“This shows once again why it was a bad idea to rush through any election law legislation,” said Jay DeLancy, Director of the Voter Integrity Project. “Instead of waiting for the courts to rule, Rep Lewis and Sen Rucho used the urgency of the (then) upcoming state court hearing to panic their caucus into unconditional surrender.”
By a combined 150-4 vote, Rep Lewis and Sen Rucho explained the bill (HB 836) to their respective caucuses at the last minute, on a Thursday afternoon, when lawmakers are itching to dismiss for the week and make up to a five-hour drive back to their homes.
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“No doubt the state was going to get spanked in state court after the plaintiffs discovered that DMV employees were regularly breaking the law by not issuing the free voter ID cards,” he said, “but my sources tell me that Sen Rucho came unhinged after his own mother was turned away by the nice people at DMV.”
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Instead of taking their lumps in court, multiple sources confirmed that Rep Lewis briefed the major provisions of a HB 836 in the house caucus, obtaining their near unanimous support, without giving them time to read the bill.
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“At that eleventh hour,” one legislator told VIP, “we just had to rely on Representative Lewis for what was in the bill. After all, nobody in the entire caucus had worked harder on election law than he did.”
Lewis needs to be removed. The establishment in NC House and Federal House are ruining America.
The House GOP caucus jumped the shark on this one.
Update: this just passed the Senate 30 – 12.
Sad result. We can do better. But it isn’t going away. This will be remembered during the next election by the TEA Party and others who don’t like crony politics.
Names, Adam, we need the list of names on this Senate vote, for and against.
Both House and Senate roll calls are available at http://www.ncleg.net/gascripts/BillLookUp/BillLookUp.pl?Session=2015&BillID=H373
This abomination passed.
Mike Hager’s vote was a shock. I guess he has gone native inside the beltway and can no longer be considered a conservative.
This attack on the party should be an incentive to amend the Plan of Organization to remove legislators as being automatic members of the state executive committee of the NCGOP.
Did this vote happen?
Yes. Passed the Senate 30 – 12, passed the House 52 – 49. Roll call votes are linked by John Gjertsen above. The House and Senate Caucuses can now raise unlimited PAC money under the NCGOP’s name and funnel it directly to their favored candidates, unbound by the NCGOP’s restrictions on meddling in primaries.
The NCGOP needs to fight back by ending its restrictions on involvement in primaries. Otherwise, the grassroots is always going to get screwed by the arrogant Raleigh RINO bosses.
Only one Senate Republican voted no!
I tell ya, Pat McCrory and his gang have brought Charlotte crony politics to Raleigh. All you have to do is look at the I-77 HOT lanes It is being built on taxpayer dollars by a corrupt, make that three corrupt, contractors and when it fails it will have to be dug up and built all over again with tax payer dollars. Parsons Brinckerhoff of the Big Dig debacle initiated this idea and they have had Pat in their back pocket from one boondoggle to another. GETTING RID OF PAT MCCRORY needs to be a top objective.
The Democratic House and Senate Caucus leaders voted against this.
But enought Dems voted for it to know to pass in the house.
Also from looking at who was excused, there were 4 Republicans excused for just yesterday afternoon when this was scheduled in the House. I checked with one of the 4 and he said he would have been a “no” vote.
There was some serious vote counting going on to get this to pass the House.