{"id":9912,"date":"2017-06-14T11:14:21","date_gmt":"2017-06-14T16:14:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=9912"},"modified":"2017-06-14T11:14:21","modified_gmt":"2017-06-14T16:14:21","slug":"is-north-carolina-the-most-toxic-state-in-the-union-ctd-27","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2017\/06\/14\/is-north-carolina-the-most-toxic-state-in-the-union-ctd-27\/","title":{"rendered":"Is North Carolina the most Toxic State in the Union?, Ctd"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/strong><\/em> explains<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Fittingly, it\u2019s a no-brainer strategy for state Republicans:\u00a0all upside, and nothing down. Or\u00a0at least\u00a0it seemed that way, until Gov. Cooper turned the tables on the GOP yesterday, when he issued a proclamation<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

WHEREAS, on June 5, 2017, the Supreme Court of the United States in Covington v. North Carolina<\/u> 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;<\/p>\n

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 \u201cEXTRA SESSION OF THE NORTH CAROLINA GENERAL ASSEMBLY\u201d commencing Thursday, June 8, 2017 at two o\u2019clock 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The legislature attempted to void the order, but they lack the authority. DocDawg has little sympathy:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s 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\u2019s proclamation was to give Republican legislators one last chance to do the right thing \u2014\u00a0their third<\/em> 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<\/em> unconstitutionally defying the governor\u2019s 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 \u2014\u00a0or should be \u2014\u00a0out on strikes: the legislature,\u00a0having 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In a follow on post<\/a>, DocDawg reports:<\/p>\n

… attorneys for the victorious plaintiffs in Covington v. North Carolina<\/em> filed a motion<\/a> for the U.S. District Court to \u201c<\/em>expeditiously consider and order\u00a0relief,\u201d\u00a0<\/em>by imposing a strict\u00a0deadline\u00a0for 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<\/em> map\u00a0for the court\u2019s consideration if the legislature misses that deadline.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He’s excited.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9912"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9913,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9912\/revisions\/9913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}