On today’s BradCast, Republicans are flexing their muscles and demonstrating their willingness to break all norms — and even laws and the Constitution when necessary — in order to take power and hold onto it at all costs, while Democrats continue to be caught flat-footed. [Audio link to show is posted below.]
An unprecedented attempted power grab is now underway at the capitol in Raleigh, North Carolina, where Republican lawmakers, stinging from having lost the Governorship and their majority on the state’s Supreme Court last month, have suddenly convened an emergency “special session” to strip power from the incoming Democratic Governor.
The naked lame duck coup attempt by the GOP — which already enjoys a super majority in both chambers of the statehouse — would take away Executive Branch powers previously granted to the outgoing Republican Governor. If successful, the “sore loser power grab” as some are calling it, strips the incoming Democrat of control of state and county boards of election(!), limits his ability to make appointments, shifts power from the newly Democratic-majority high court back down to the Republican-controlled state court of appeals, and keeps Republican state employees in place across many state agencies.
All of those attempts to effectively undo the will of millions of voters also comes on the heels of a federal court order for new special elections for the state legislature in 2017, after finding that Republicans had unconstitutionally gerrymandered 28 statehouse districts following the 2010 census. (And that, not long after a federal court found Wisconsin Republicans had also done so.)
With a similarly unprecedented coup at the federal level — for example, a stolen U.S. Supreme Court majority — Republicans in a number of other states are also quickly working to pass newly restrictive laws to make it harder for Democrats to even take part in elections around the nation.
It’s difficult to win a war when you’re fighting against a dishonest opponent who has no interest in playing fairly. The questions then remain: When will Democrats figure that out? What do they intend to do about it? And who, if anyone, will emerge to lead the way in the current Democratic power vacuum more than a month since Election Day?
Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report with details on Trump’s disturbing new appointments at federal agencies, the EPA’s admission that fracking can harm drinking water supplies, and the Arctic unraveling before our eyes…
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[audio:http://bradblog.com/audio/BradCast_NCGOPCoup_DemsButterKnife_121516.mp3]
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The GOP has been circling the maw of this maelstrom for decades now and it was inevitable that they’d slide over the edge into the abyss.
When you’re a kid, you have an exciting realization that when you steal something you want from the store, you can have it and keep your allowance too.
Republicans grow up, never seeing a downside to that.
I suspect there may be legal issues arising out of the North Carolina Constitution that may act as a brake on the legislature’s ability to intrude upon executive branch powers. It is an issue that could come before a Democratic majority state supreme court.
Additionally, given the previous federal court finding that many members of the current legislature derived their position as the result of illegal gerrymandering in violation of section 2 — a finding that requires a 2017 election, there may be an ostensible argument that such blatantly partisan legislation should be treated as a nullity — the product of the same illegal gerrymander.
This old bumper sticker comes to mind “Elections: the pause that refreshes” (Awe Topsy – 2).
UC Irvine Law Professor Rick Hasen writes: