Editorial: Moore and Berger - Stop procrastinating. Start negotiating

Friday, Aug. 9, 2019 -- Senate leader Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore say they're willing to hold a "special" legislative session on Medicaid AFTER Cooper acquiesces to their budget. Do they think Cooper just fell off a turnip truck? Let's have the House and Senate debate and vote on expanding Medicaid now. And while they're at it, do it in the open. Skip the backroom, secret partisan caucuses.

Posted 9:00 a.m. Aug 9, 2019 — Updated 9:00 a.m. Aug 9, 2019

CBC Editorial: Friday, Aug. 9, 2019; Editorial #8452

The following is the opinion of Capitol Broadcasting Company.

To take leaders of the General Assembly at their word, they are not to blame for the current impasse in adopting a new state budget.

But let’s review the facts:

On Thursday June 27, 2019 the General Assembly passed and sent the budget bill (H 966) to Gov. Roy Cooper. That’s the legislature’s job.
At 1:55 p.m. on Friday, June 28, 2019 Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed the budget bill and that message was received by the state House of Representatives. “This is a bad budget with the wrong priorities. We should be investing in public schools, teacher pay and health care instead of more tax breaks for corporations.” That is Cooper’s job.
North Carolina’s Constitution says it’s the job of the legislature – specifically the House of Representatives – to vote on whether to override or sustain that veto. There hasn’t been a vote.
For 39 days, at a cost to taxpayers of nearly $2 million, Speaker of the House Tim Moore has forbidden a vote. The House of Representatives HAS NOT done its job.

That’s the law.

There’s no question just whose job it is to act. Moore knows he doesn’t have the votes to override Cooper’s veto. Instead of voting and moving on, he plots and waits to spring a roll call on unsuspecting legislators when the right number of Democrats are absent.

Cooper offered legislators a counter proposal to keep budget talks open. He is insisting that Medicaid expansion be a part of those discussions. That is no “cop-out” as Sen. Harry Brown, the Republican budget chair from Onslow County dismissed it. It’s standing up.

Brown and his fellow legislative leaders owe Cooper a substantive reply AND some action NOW, not later on Medicaid.

Berger and Moore say they’re willing to hold a “special” legislative session on "health care access" AFTER Cooper acquiesces to their budget. Do they think Cooper just fell off a turnip truck?

Let’s have the House and Senate debate and vote on expanding Medicaid now. And, while they’re at it, do it in the open. Skip the backroom, secret partisan caucuses with direct and implied threats of political retribution.

Moore is aware there are Republicans who know the right thing to do is to expand Medicaid – nearly entirely paid for with federal funds -- so more than a half-million hard working North Carolinians and their families can access health care. Berger knows that if the House passes Medicaid expansion there are Republican senators who will back it – because it is the right thing to do.

More than two-thirds of North Carolina’s voters favor expanding Medicaid.

Legislative leaders need to wake up and act.

Bribing legislators with more than $300 million in local pork barrel projects hasn’t worked. A baseless PR initiative and torrent of news releases hasn’t worked. There are no cosmetics that will disguise the legislature’s ugly budget and tactic.

Stop the fruitless stalling and political maneuvers. If Phil Berger and Tim Moore really are honest about a fair discussion on Medicaid expansion, take it up and vote on it now.