North Carolina Republicans introduced a bill making "Public Breast Baring" a felony.
The halter pictured above is part of NC's new sex ed curriculum.
(Just kidding... For now at least...)
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Alan: The weirdest element in all this is that Republicans think their incontinent nonsense is not only normal, but virtuous.
Extreme bills make N.C. fodder for jokes
Posted: Monday, April 8, 2013
The photo spoke for itself: Pat McCrory walking back into a restaurant in Kernersville holding up the utensil that he had accidentally pocketed while inhaling some cake. He wanted to make a show of returning it.
After a rough first couple of weeks on the job with some of the ideas pushed by the wingnuts in his own party, the new Republican governor wouldn’t have been blamed had he carried it back to Raleigh with him. That way, he could have put a fork in some of the nonsense that made North Carolina the butt of more than a few jokes on the national stage.
As one pundit put it, McCrory is being treated by legislators as their junior partner in a tea party crusade.
That’s not the spot in which a rookie governor wants to find himself.
Unwanted attention
As is often the case in Raleigh, the fun begins with the opening of bill filing. Just like walking into a voting booth or starting a car, there is no IQ test required.
Any one of the honorables in the House or Senate, with a minimum of effort (or forethought), can file a bill creating, altering or negating virtually any bill being proposed to create or alter he law of one’s choosing.
In the 2011-12 session for example, the honorables filed 2,195 bills and less than 30 percent of them — 646 — became law.
So far this session, if the numbering sequences are logical, 1,318 bills have been filed and had some sort of action taken on them. And a handful have been, shall we say, interesting enough to attract national attention from the late-night comics.
A harbinger came last year with House Bill 111, which would allow people who have concealed carry licenses to bring their weapons into bars and restaurants. This isn’t the Wild West; alcohol and firearms are never a good idea, and it doesn’t take a Ph.D. to know that.
The first to hit the radar was one voted on in committee in February. It was sponsored by state Reps. Tim Moffitt of Asheville and Rayne Brown of Lexington that would make it a felony for a woman to go topless in public. Moffitt was offended by topless rallies in his hometown; Brown seemed to think that her constituents — 130 miles east of Asheville — were offended by it, too.
Another involving guns popped up last month when area legislators filed bills that would allow private schools to authorize certain individuals to carry weapons on their campuses to protect students. Not a bad idea on its face until state Sen. Stan Bingham of Davidson County explained that he wasn’t completely sure what was in the bill, that a church group had written it and that it had several holes — not least of which that it could have been taken as a mandate for all private schools to have armed guards.
Next was the “Healthy Marriage Act,” which would extend the mandatory waiting period for a divorce to two years instead of one and require counseling. That’s a tad draconian for adults in control of their own lives.
The best — and most noticeable — was a bill filed by a pair of goofs from Rowan County who wrote a bill in which North Carolina (and its counties and towns) could establish an official religion.
Reps. Carl Ford and Harry Warren and 10 co-signing legislators apparently were a little light on their understanding of the Constitution.
Reasoned by comparison
The furor died down somewhat a day later when Speaker of the House Thom TIllis (more precisely, his staff) stepped in to save Ford and Warren from themselves.
“I hope (Tillis) decided that making a statement that North Carolina didn’t want to abide by the (U.S.) Constitution was the wrong thing for North Carolina to do,” said Sarah Preston, the policy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina.
Possibly.
Or maybe Tillis – a man some believe harbors higher political ambitions than just wielding the speaker’s gavel – was saying: Relax. I’m in charge of this playground.
And that’s where the far, far right does the most good for fiscally prudent, center-right Republicans such as Tillis and McCrory. Let the loons file all the bills they’d like; there’s plenty of space in committee hearing rooms for them to go off to die.
If McCrory and Tillis come off looking like the focused, disciplined voice of reason by comparison, a few gags on late-night TV are a small price to pay.
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Stephen Colbert On North Carolina "Climate Change"
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Is this Raleigh or Washington?
The North Carolina General Assembly becomes a darker, meaner and nastier place
When I started as a lobbyist for low income Legal Aid clients in the North Carolina General Assembly during the “short session” of 1992, it was not an overly friendly place for me or my clients. At the first committee meeting I attended – it was an introductory gathering of what was then called the Senate Banking Committee – virtually every member of the Committee from both parties went out of their way to explain his or her connection to the banking industry. Some served on bank boards, some were retired industry employees and some were even current employees.
Needless to say, it was not a terribly encouraging first experience for a new lobbyist with the charge of battling lenders on behalf of poor consumers. Subsequent meetings in the weeks and months that followed confirmed the legislature’s broadly pro-business slant. My adversaries had access and influence that I and my clients did not, and could not hope, to enjoy.
And yet, now as I look back on that era with the perspective provided by two decades in Raleigh and compare it with the General Assembly of 2012, I am struck by how much further things have tilted in the direction of corporations, the powerful, and the wealthy. What was then, by any fair assessment, a very conservative body dominated by older men from the rural south, has now become a downright reactionary place.
And what’s more, things have become a whole lot, for lack of a better word, meaner.
This is not to imply in any way that politics in 1992 Raleigh were a pillow fight. Battles then were fierce and could get ugly at times. Though rarely captured by recording devices, ignorant and hateful things did find their way into debate.
But today, it’s strikingly different. With the rise of a vocal, well-funded and hyper-partisan wing of the Republican Party, things have started to feel more and more like the U.S. Congress; it’s as if Rush Limbaugh and Grover Norquist were literally making the day-to-day decisions about the bills that will be heard, the committees that will meet and even the people who will be allowed to speak or enter the Legislative Building.
The list of illustrative events and decisions from the current General Assembly is long – here are just a few:
The contempt for process and transparency
Despite rising to power on a platform of combating corruption and promoting openness in government, the conservative leadership at the General Assembly has, in fact, taken the direct opposite path. From almost Day One last winter, secrecy, limited debate, closed door meetings and ends-justify-the-means processes (or lack thereof) have been the dominant themes.
Just this week, leaders of the state Senate made the rather remarkable announcement that they would move to pass the 2013 state budget without even bothering to hold Appropriations subcommittee meetings! Instead, the Senate version of this huge, complex and critically important new law is simply being put together behind closed doors by a trio of powerful GOP members. It will then be unveiled in a full Appropriations Committee meeting – a venue in which, unlike subcommittees, thoughtful and detail-oriented discussion and amendments are almost literally impossible – and then rushed right to the Senate floor.
This may seem like inside baseball, but it is actually a remarkable bit of nose-thumbing at established democratic processes. Sure, powerful insiders have often made important budget decisions behind closed doors, but the blatant secrecy of the current legislative leadership makes those past episodes look positively genteel by comparison. At least in the past, budget-makers would go through some semblance of “the motions” and allow rank and file members (and even citizens) to be heard. Now, Speaker Thom Tillis, Senate President Pro Tem Berger and their lieutenants don’t even pretend.
But this is just one large and important example. There are numerous others:
- Speaker Tillis’ unprecedented and constitutionally questionable action of keeping veto override motions calendared indefinitely since last summer (a step that allows him to threaten to hold votes on critically important matters any time a Democratic member provides him with the super-majority he desires by stepping out of the chamber to use the restroom);
- The also quite-likely unconstitutional January “midnight madness” session to punish the North Carolina Association of Educators for opposing public education cuts;
- The blatant abuse of state ethics laws that occurred in a lobbyist-financed trip to Florida to promote a kind of school voucher program;
- The whole ethics mess that has swamped Tillis’ office in the wake of the revelation of multiple staff-lobbyist romances.
Each of these events has revealed a cynical, unapologetic and take-no-prisoners attitude towards governing that simply makes past legislatures look downright wimpy.
The legislature itself
But it’s not just the way the legislative processes are being managed; it’s the feel of the place itself. What once was a mostly friendly and congenial place – a set of buildings in which even adversaries could be cordial and find some common interests in governing and in which all visitors were welcomed – is now a divided, suspicious and less polite venue. Law enforcement officers patrol the hallways casting a suspicious eye on every group of more than handful of people. Access to hallways and committee meetings is much more tightly regulated and even the sergeants-at-arms patrols (groups of mostly retired men and women who once greeted all visitors with a smile and a pat on the back) seem grumpy and short-fused.
A classic example of the new and harder General Assembly in action was the ridiculous (and selective) decision made by Tillis’ office a couple of months ago to eject a group of silent protesters from the Legislative Building’s second floor – a place that the public had long visited without interference.
Another occurred just yesterday. It took place when senators moved a committee meeting on controversial legislation to legalize “fracking” from the legislature’s largest committee room – a place that would have been able to accommodate a sizable chunk of the hundreds of citizens who’s come to voice their opposition to the bill – to a small room at the last minute. Rather than trying to accommodate visitors, lawmakers locked them out and sent police officers to watch them as they milled about outside the committee room.
While relatively small and perhaps even explainable decisions in isolation, in the context of so many other steps to limit debate and reduce public access and input, it’s hard not to see these actions in a more sinister light.
Making sense of the change
So, how does one explain this shift on Jones Street? Why would a group with such huge and comfortable majorities feel compelled to behave in such a consistently heavy-handed way?
A charitable observer might attribute it to inexperience. But if this is the explanation, why do we see the same kind of change in Washington – a place in which conservatives have been in and out of power for decades?
Sadly, a more plausible explanation is this: The change in the General Assembly is ultimately about a group of political leaders who are hostile, insecure and bent upon pushing through a radical anti-government agenda as fast as possible. It is a political movement that worships the imperial CEO and holds little patience for the messy machinations of democratic lawmaking. Put simply, these people do not believe in public systems and structures in the traditional sense and that hostility to all things “public” carries over to the very place in which laws are made
It is one of the great risks of our current political environment that these changes will be very hard to eradicate in the future – no matter which party runs state government.
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Or will... The day hell freezes over.
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ALEC-Sponsored Bill To Repeal North Carolina’s Renewable Energy Standard Narrowly Passes Out Of Committee
Yesterday, the North Carolina House Commerce Committee narrowly passed a bill that would repeal the state’s successful renewable energy standard. Currently, 29 states and the District of Columbia have adopted Renewable Energy Standard’s (RES) to encourage electric utilities to expand the power they generate from renewable sources such as solar and wind.In 2007, North Carolina became the first state in the Southeast to adopt such a standard — Senate Bill 3 passed both chambers with overwhelming bipartisan support and requires state utilities to supply 12.5 percent of renewable energy by 2021. Since then, clean energy companies have generated billions in revenue and have created thousands of in-state jobs — all while reducing pollution and saving ratepayers money.
But now, North Carolina has joined the growing list of states in which organizations like the Heartland Institute and the American Legislative Council, or ALEC, and Koch-backed Grover Norquist have been lobbying against renewable energy policy, and pushing “model legislation” to undo these standards. House Bill 298, called the “Affordable and Reliable Energy Act,” was introduced by known ALEC member Representative Mike Hager, and aims to fully repeal the energy standard.
The nearly two-hourly long committee hearing concluded with an 11-10 vote on the RES repeal, barely escaping committee with two key Republicans voting against it. The Raleigh News and Observer reported that Representative Ruth Samuelson, a Republican from Charlotte who is the Republican conference leader, said the bill went too far. Samuelson said the law has helped develop an alternative energy industry that has benefited rural communities — and she is absolutely right.
North Carolina now has over 1,100 clean energy companies that have contributed $3.7 billion in annual gross revenue. This clean energy development has led to a net gain in employment of21,162 jobs in just five years. Moreover, the renewable energy standard has lowered residential bills and these savings will more than double within a decade, with expectedsavings of up to $173 million to ratepayers. The RES standard also catapulted North Carolina to fifth in the nation in solar energy development and the state is expected to move to fourth place this year. “It’s an extraordinary success story that there’s an industry that hardly existed several years ago,” said Michael Shore, CEO of FLS Energy in Asheville.
Despite its success, this law has been the target of conservatives since it was adopted.
Legislation was also introduced in 2011, but got no traction in part due to the state’s largest utilities protesting its repeal. Thousands of dollars have been spent by conservative organizations across the state to dismantle the program, with efforts being led and coordinated by Koch fueled groups. Indeed, the Koch brothers have donated $150,000 and $25,000 to ALEC and the Heartland Institute respectively, the organizations responsible for creating the model legislation. The Koch brothers have also donated to the John Locke Foundation, one of the state’s most outspoken climate science denial groups. The John Locke Foundation was created by Art Pope, a discount mogul and conservative benefactor that was once a national director of Americans for Prosperity, the tea party group founded and funded by the Koch brothers. Pope was also key to fueling the Republican Party historic takeover of the state legislature in 2010, spending over $2.2 million targeting two dozen key state races. His organization released areport attacking the RES with false claims that it would increase the cost to consumers and cost the state jobs.
Grover Norquist has also joined in on the conservative battle, who wrote an op-ed attacking renewable standards in which he cites the report released by the John Locke Foundation as a basis for repeal. He recently was seen in Topeka, Kansas trying to convince state legislators to weaken their own renewable energy standard through SB 82 and HB 2241. However, the Republican controlled House and Senate responded by rejecting the bills. This occurred after thousands of people signed online petitions, and organizations like the Kansas Farm Bureau wrote op-eds supporting the state standard.
Today, Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn, president and CEO of the American Council on Renewable Energy, responded to Norquist with an op-ed of his own. McGinn writes,
So as a nationwide initiative funded by opponents of renewable energy targets state Renewable Portfolio Standards, Americans should be asking themselves, with all the benefits that came with doubling our renewable energy capacity from 43.5 gigawatt to 85.7GW from 2008 to 2012, “Do we want more renewable energy or less?”
Kansas policymakers showed their support for the state’s renewable energy standard – it’s time for North Carolina legislators to do the same.
Tiffany Germain is the ThinkProgress War Room Senior Climate/Energy Researcher. Matt Kasper is a Special Assistant for the Energy Policy team at the Center for American Progress.