Cooper: 'I hope we can have a grand bargain'

A sense of détente descends over Jones Street. Will it last?

Posted 8:45 p.m. Mar 12, 2021 — Updated 8:45 p.m. Mar 12, 2021

Travis Fain

, WRAL statehouse reporter

RALEIGH, N.C. — Gov. Roy Cooper was hopeful this week that the bipartisan momentum of the moment will keep rolling toward the sort of major compromises that would define his second term in office.

“I hope we can have a grand bargain," Cooper said during a virtual sit-down Thursday with Politico.

For the Democratic governor, that means Medicaid expansion, a top priority for his administration and one that's largely been dead on arrival with the Republican-controlled legislature since the GOP took control in 2010.

“This moment in time is a time where it can happen," Cooper said. “This is a moment that we should all grab together.”

There are more signs of bipartisan cooperation right now than for most of Cooper's first term. He, House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger appeared together Wednesday at a news conference, announcing a deal on school reopenings with kind words all around.

They followed that up with an in-person meeting the next morning, gathering around a table along with Democratic leaders from both the House and the Senate.

Attendees largely declined to say what topics were discussed, but they described the meeting as pleasant, particularly for a group that sued each other repeatedly throughout Cooper's first term. They may even appear together soon in a public service announcement, encouraging people to get their COVID-19 vaccines.

It was Berger's idea, and Cooper ran with it, volunteering it during his mid-morning interview with Politico as an example of cooperation.

“We talked about doing a PSA," Cooper said, after discussing equitable vaccine distribution. "It'd be three white guys doing a PSA, but it will be trying to get to that (skeptical) population.”

The governor even snagged that "white guys" line from Berger, more or less.

“I said three old white guys,' Berger said.

“I don’t know how effective it will be," Berger, R-Rockingham, said of the ad. "It might just scare the heck out of everybody (to see us cooperating). … People will think it’s end times or something.”

Grand bargain?

This is not the first talk of a big bargain on North Carolina health policy, but the pot has sweetened for Medicaid expansion.

The new coronavirus stimulus bill President Joe Biden signed into law this week includes billions to entice the 12 states that haven't yet expanded Medicaid, which includes North Carolina, to do so.

But a bargain means both sides getting something they want. And it's Berger and the Republican-controlled Senate that have most resisted expansion, citing future costs as well as fears that full expansion would pull people off employer-provided health plans and into taxpayer-funded ones.

“I don’t think I’ve ever indicated that there is something that, if we get this, I’d agree to Medicaid expansion," Berger said Thursday, when asked what he'd want in an expansion deal. "My opposition to Medicaid expansion has been I think it’s bad policy. ... Nothing I’ve seen has led me to believe that there’s a reason to change my position on that."

Berger continued: “Are there some things I’d like to see done? Yeah. But whether or not that’s something that an arrangement can be worked out – I’m not saying no to that. I’m just saying that, at this point, I’ve always been willing to discuss Medicaid expansion, access to care.”

Cooper was asked in the Politico interview what he'd put on the table.

"Don’t want to tip my hand too early," he replied. "But what I have told them is that everything’s on the table.”

'A little different'

This is not the first time Cooper's relationship with top Republican leaders seems to have thawed.

Bipartisanship was evident last year as Republicans and Democrats in the General Assembly worked together on coronavirus legislation. That evaporated at some point, with Democrats complaining over the last two weeks that Republicans crafted the state's latest pandemic relief spending bill on their own.

And Wednesday morning, shortly before Cooper, Berger and Moore announced their school reopening plan, other Republican General Assembly leaders held a press conference on their plans to run legislation reining in the governor's emergency powers, which he has used to mandate business closures and crowd caps for nearly a year.

In his Politico interview, Cooper wasn't shy about plans to seek a Democratic legislative majority in the 2022 election cycle. He also promised to continue vetoing what he sees as bad legislation, and he criticized the GOP's metamorphosis into a the party of Donald Trump.

“They’re walling off any kind of moderate voices," he said. “[They're] so devoted to Trump that they care not about facts."

Cooper said he expects North Carolina Republicans "to follow a lot of other state legislatures in using this big lie of voter fraud as an excuse for laws that suppress the vote."

But Cooper also said North Carolinians voted for divided government by giving him a second term and re-upping Republican majorities – but not veto-proof super-majorities – in both the House and the Senate.

"We need to try to make it work," he said, adding that both sides are trying.

“We proved yesterday with the school opening bill that we can find common ground," Cooper said.

There's only so much worth reading into a press conference, a friendly meeting and a planned PSA. But Berger acknowledged Thursday, as he left the General Assembly building, that this moment of good feelings seems stronger than those of the past.

Is it a little different, he was asked.

"I think it is a little different," he replied.

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