Last week, Republicans in the North Carolina state House got two Democrats to join them in overturning Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue's veto of a bill targeting the North Carolina Association of Educators by prohibiting its members from having their dues deducted from their paychecks. The override vote was held
after midnight when some Democratic opponents of the bill were absent. Monday, the NCEA sued and got a
temporary injunction against the law:
In the 16-page lawsuit, association attorney Bob Orr, a former N.C. Supreme Court justice and Republican candidate for governor, argued that the legislature's midnight session violated the state Constitution because it fell beyond the scope of the special session Gov. Bev Perdue had called.
The state Constitution gives the legislature only the ability "to consider such bills as were returned by the governor to that reconvened session."
Perdue, a Democrat, recalled lawmakers to consider her veto of a bill to repeal parts of the Racial Justice Act. The Senate overrode the veto, but the House Republicans couldn't muster the three-fifths majority needed.
But at 11:30 p.m. Wednesday, the House approved an adjournment resolution to reconvene after midnight. The override vote on the teacher dues bill - aided by absent and ill Democrats - came at 1:12 a.m. The Senate overrode the veto in July.
Got that? The governor called a session to allow an override vote on her veto of Racial Justice Act repeal, and when the House couldn't override that, it instead took advantage of some absences to use a midnight session to override a veto from summer 2011. That's serious perseverance in the cause of hurting the teachers union, which was specifically targeted:
Democrats argue the dues check-off law shows the lengths that Republicans will go to damage the state's public education system, even by singling out and inconveniencing teachers in a group that fought the GOP. Republicans already are taking lumps for passing a state budget over Perdue's veto that directed $459 million in public school spending cuts. Local education positions were eliminated.
[Republican House Speaker Thom] Tillis made it clear last year that voting on the dues bill was payback for the association's political opposition to GOP candidates and policies.
Now it's with the courts to decide whether the override vote was legal—and, ultimately, with North Carolina voters to decide whether they want a legislature that targets teachers with shady midnight votes.