It’s now a three-way race to see which lame-duck Republican legislature can be the most corrupt and anti-democratic of them all!
Wisconsin Republicans passed a crooked series of bills to limit early voting and limit the new Democratic governor’s power; Michigan is gutting minimum wage increases, paid sick leave, and reversing many of the gains made in voter rights; and now North Carolina Republicans — who started the whole limiting the incoming Democratic governor’s powers thing in 2016 — are quietly scrambling to remake state government in hopes of keeping their egregious gerrymanders.
What, you thought Republicans running for Congress in North Carolina were the state’s only awful cheaters?
Right now, there are a number of things going on. First, the General Assembly, which will lose its GOP supermajority next year, wants to rig the system so that a Republican is always in charge of every county’s election board during big election years. It’s a bill tailor-made to screw over Democrats and voters, almost laughably so.
Then, the GOP is trying to artificially stuff state courts in hopes that it helps preserve their gerrymander.
This is key because a challenge to the state’s awful gerrymander — which was already struck down once — is making its way through the North Carolina court system. Democrats have a 5-2 advantage on the Supreme Court there, which puts them in good position to eventually overturn the gerrymander, but Republicans are doing everything they can to subvert justice and democracy.
The bill, originally submitted in 2017, is back on the calendar for Thursday.
This all comes on the heels of the GOP passing a strict voter ID plan on Wednesday… truly a dark day for democracy. But there is at least one silver lining, as a court in North Carolina overturned the last GOP lame-duck session’s decision to allow outgoing GOP Gov. Pat McCrory to choose the members of the Industrial Commission, the committee that decides worker comp cases.
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