Waiting for McCrory
The mainstream media tells us that Gov. Pat McCrory has 38 bills sitting on his desk waiting for signatures or vetoes:
[…] Lawmakers adjourned for the year on July 26, leaving the governor with a stack of pending legislation, including a sweeping measure that makes dozens of other changes to the state’s election laws.
McCrory did not mention the elections bill Tuesday morning and did not stop to speak with reporters on his way out of the Council of State meeting.
However, during the meeting, McCrory called out two measures remaining on his desk as getting particularly close review. One is a regulatory reform measure, which touches upon subjects important to dozens of industries, including smoking and health regulations for bars and the review of all existing administrative rules crafted to implement state laws. The other is a technical corrections bill for the state budget. […]
In the meantime, this wait has created an opening for our rather useless attorney general to remind people he’s still here. Roy Cooper is circulating a petition urging a McCrory veto of the voter ID legislation. Never mind that Cooper’s job description requires him to defend the state when it gets sued — and we know a lawsuit is coming on this particular bill.
On one hand, Cooper’s move gives Republicans an opportunity to discredit him as being little more than a leftist political hack. On the other hand, it’s pretty clear that Cooper has ambitions for 2016 that may include the race for governor or US senator. (Senator Richard Burr comes up for reelection in 2016. Sources out of Forsyth County tell me there is a strong possibility Burr will not seek another six years in DC.)
Clearly, there are three options for our rookie GOP governor. Option One: Gov. Pat signs the bill, shuts Cooper up, and moves on. Option Two: Gov. Pat does nothing, and the bill becomes law on its own. Option Three: Gov. Pat vetoes that sucker.
Option One earns Gov. Pat some brownie points with conservatives — a group he really needs some help with right now. Option Two gives conservatives what they want, and helps Gov. Pat with moderates and lefties by putting some distance between him and the bill. (I don’t know how much help it will earn him. The folks who are screaming the loudest about voter ID were in Walter Dalton’s corner in 2012.) Option Three ruins Gov. Pat’s honeymoon and ensures the long knives come out for him and the rest of the NCGOP establishment.
The biggest problem is that McCrory obviously has an incompetent staff to let things drag out like this. Lord only knows where he gets his political advice from.
The issue of political advise is a critical one, and I have wondered the same thing.
Governor Holshouser kept his top campaign operative around in Raleigh for that purpose, L. Gene Anderson. Governor Martin did the same thing with Brad Hayes who had been his consultant in his Congressional races and then his Governor’s races. Hayes remained on retainer by the Martin campaign committee, came to Raleigh once a week from his Charlotte office for policy meetings, and was in constant touch the rest of the week by telephone. Anderson and Hayes both stayed hands-on with the intersection of policy and politics. Both had years of political experience, a great deal of political savvy, and a close working relationship going back years with their respective governors.
Many of us in the party expected Jack Hawke to fill the same role for McCrory, as his background was similar to Anderson and Hayes, but it has become very apparent that this has not happened. Perhaps that was due to Hawke’s health problems or perhaps he was deliberately cast aside. Whatever the reason was, the lack of a Hayes / Anderson figure in the McCrory administration is a hole that needs to be filled.
Not everyone liked Brad Hayes, and Gene Anderson was actually loathed by many conservatives, but they were critical players in the administrations of the governors they served. If Hawke is out of the game, I cannot think of who might successfully fulfill that role in a McCrory administration.
McCrory just signed the Voter ID bill. Hooray for Governor Pat!
McCrory is said to be vetoing two bills today, and that they are likely to be the welfare reform bill which requires welfare recipients to be drug tested, and the study commission bill on issues related to illegal aliens. The latter veto would effectively prevent legislation on this subject from coming up in the short session. This is a pair of ultra-liberal vetos if the information is true, so I hope it is not.
The Governor took a big step forward by defying the far left and signing the Voter ID bill, but it would be two big steps back to veto these.
Why would the Governor be against welfare reform or cracking down on illegal aliens?