CBC Editorial: Monday, Oct. 28, 2019; Editorial #8476
The following is the opinion of Capitol Broadcasting Company.
It was a stern and threatening
news release issued Friday. It had the finger-wagging tone of warnings to wayward children.
From a less parental position, but simply to advocate fairness and transparency, we admonish the state Senate’s leadership to resist – even the slightest – any temptation to resort to parliamentary slight-of-hand or procedural monkey business to manipulate an
override of Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of the state budget bill. Further, the budget is unworthy of the needs of the state and the veto needs to be sustained.
“There should be no question that should the budget override vote come up, that every member of the Senate has been told publicly that they have a choice to make: To be here and vote, or not,” Senate leader Phil Berger reiterated
in a statement. The statement (a threat?) accompanied an announcement that there could be a vote to override Cooper’s budget veto and it is on Monday’s state Senate agenda.
Berger’s unilateral refusal to expand Medicaid to more than a half-million hard-working North Carolinians and their families who cannot afford health coverage is more than enough reason to sustain the veto. That opposition comes regardless of the fact that expansion is backed by
strong majorities of the state voters in
recent polls.
There have already been more than enough demeaning shenanigans in the legislative leaderships’ desperation for a phrenic victory over the governor. The veto law itself is unreasonable – demanding strict time limits for the governor to act, but not placing any deadlines on the General Assembly following a gubernatorial veto. That needs to change.
The culmination was the
shameful Sept. 11 sneak attack in the N.C. House of Representatives – when without notice and only a handful of Democrats present – Speaker Tim Moore
rammed through an override vote to send it to the Senate. A Senate vote to override the veto would be an affirmation of the House’s
underhanded tactics. For that reason alone, Senate Republicans and Democrats should join together in sending the entire matter back to the House for a legitimate vote.
In the House and Senate there were desperate efforts to quite literally buy votes for the final version of the budget bill. When the conference committee bill emerged, it included no fewer than
531 earmarks totaling more than $383 million for pet projects in legislators’ home districts. Communities represented by Democrats who didn’t yield to the leadership were largely left out of the money.
Then there’s the desire to punish North Carolina’s public school educators who had the temerity
to march, by the thousands, on the legislature to demand better funding for their students’ education (including more health, mental health and counseling services) and better pay for teachers and schoolhouse administrators.
There are some shifty moves Berger can make to fix the override vote. If all the 50 senators are present, the Republican majority needs just one Democrat to vote with them to override the veto.
Four Democrats — Floyd McKissick, Durham County; Don Davis, Pitt County; Ben Clark, Cumberland County; and Toby Fitch, Wilson County – voted for the budget but have indicated they support sustaining Cooper’s veto. That’s just what they need to do.
The leadership of the General Assembly has rigged their elections; packed their budget with pork and resorted to shamefully underhanded tactics to impose their will. No harkening to past unseemly legislative behavior justified it now – particularly from those who pledge to end it.
The Senate Democrats need to stick together and sustain the governor’s veto in an open and fair vote.
