The new governor of North Carolina, Roy Cooper (D), despite facing long odds in the NC legislature, where the Republicans hold supermajorities, shows there are ways to push the legislature around. For example, if the GOP is sitting on a new redistricting plan in order to give their own side time to prepare candidates and plans, what are you going to do? DocDawg on The Daily Kos explains:
Fittingly, it’s a no-brainer strategy for state Republicans: all upside, and nothing down. Or at least it seemed that way, until Gov. Cooper turned the tables on the GOP yesterday, when he issued a proclamation:
WHEREAS, all North Carolinians have a fundamental right to have their laws enacted by a legislature composed of members elected from valid and lawful districts; and
WHEREAS, on June 5, 2017, the Supreme Court of the United States in Covington v. North Carolina affirmed without dissent the unanimous decision of three federal district court judges that the General Assembly violated the United States Constitution and misinterpreted federal law in establishing twenty-eight state legislative districts in 2011;
NOW, THEREFORE, I, Roy Cooper, Governor of the State of North Carolina, pursuant to Article III, Section 5(7) of the North Carolina State Constitution, do hereby proclaim an “EXTRA SESSION OF THE NORTH CAROLINA GENERAL ASSEMBLY” commencing Thursday, June 8, 2017 at two o’clock in the afternoon, which shall continue until a new plan is enacted or for a period of two weeks, whichever is earlier, for the purpose of enacting new House and Senate district plans for the General Assembly that remedy the legislative districts ruled unconstitutional.
The legislature attempted to void the order, but they lack the authority. DocDawg has little sympathy:
It’s at least conceivable that, if he chose to, Cooper could order state police into the General Assembly to enforce his proclamation. But that would be quite beside the point in this chess game. The whole idea behind Cooper’s proclamation was to give Republican legislators one last chance to do the right thing — their third chance, after first drawing an unconstitutional racist map in 2011, and then failing to meet the March 15th 2017 court-ordered deadline to draw a remedial map, and then unconstitutionally defying the governor’s order to do so this week. An interesting legal argument can now be made that, having whiffed three strikes in a row, the legislature is now — or should be — out on strikes: the legislature, having abrogated its duty multiple times, has unambiguously demonstrated its bad faith. The task of drawing a new map in a timely manner must now be taken from it by the U.S. District Court and handed to a non-partisan Special Master.
In a follow on post, DocDawg reports:
… attorneys for the victorious plaintiffs in Covington v. North Carolina filed a motion for the U.S. District Court to “expeditiously consider and order relief,” by imposing a strict deadline for the legislature to act: fourteen days to draw and adopt a new map, backed up by a grant for the plaintiffs to submit their own map for the court’s consideration if the legislature misses that deadline.
He’s excited.
Stay tuned. This is wildly exciting stuff, being present at the sudden, utterly unexpected rebirth of democracy in the Tar Heel State. It really is always darkest just before the dawn.
