Editorial Roundup: North Carolina
Charlotte Observer/Raleigh News and Observer. October 30, 2023.
Editorial: NC Republicans revive some old map-drawing antics. Even conservatives aren’t happy
North Carolina Republican lawmakers are drawing new legislative and congressional maps, and they’re apparently back to using old tricks.
According to WUNC Capitol bureau chief Colin Campbell, redistricting maps are being drawn this week in private rooms — unlike in years past, when the process occurred in the public eye.
Because who needs transparency, anyway?
Such blatant disregard for accountability and public oversight should concern everyone, Democrat or Republican. And it has. The news drew criticism even from conservatives at the John Locke Foundation, who called it “not good” and “not the right move.”
As WRAL’s Will Doran pointed out, redistricting in North Carolina was always done in secret up until 2019, when a court forced more transparency into the process. Upon declaring maps used last decade unconstitutional, the court found that Republican lawmakers made “highly improbable” claims about who really drew the maps and whether it was done outside of the public eye. As a result, the entire process was livestreamed, and negotiations were forbidden outside of public view.
Two years later, when maps were redrawn again after the 2020 census, GOP lawmakers bragged it was the “most transparent redistricting process in state history.” “We’ve heard people want transparency.
We’ve heard folks want to have input on how the maps are drawn,” Rep. Destin Hall, chairman of the House Rules Committee, said at the time.
That turned out to be a lie, though, because Hall later admitted in court that he used secret maps, drawn privately by his aide, as a guide when he drafted the new House districts, and that he and key staffers would retreat to a private room for “strategy sessions” to discuss the maps.
So the secrecy isn’t anything new — but Republicans have apparently given up on even pretending that transparency is part of the process. Perhaps we ought to thank them at least having the decency not to lie about it.
But what makes it worse this year is that North Carolinians will likely never have the chance to find out how new redistricting decisions are made, even after the fact. In addition to drawing maps in secret, Republicans used the recently passed state budget to repeal a law that made all draft materials and communications related to redistricting public record.
Of course, Republicans aren’t the only ones who have kept the public in the dark when it comes to redistricting. Democrats are guilty of secrecy and gerrymandering in North Carolina, too. It’s wrong no matter who does it, and it chips away at the public’s trust. Republicans didn’t like it back when they were in the minority, but now that they have a chance to use it to their own advantage, they no longer have an objection. That’s not surprising, and it’s still unacceptable.
___
Winston Salem-Journal. October 27, 2023.
Editorial: Foxx and friends heckle a reporter
Now that Republicans finally have settled on a new speaker of the House, they apparently don’t want him to answer obvious questions.
So, when Louisiana Republican Mike Johnson stepped to a microphone to greet the press Wednesday, pity the poor reporter who dared to pose one.
When ABC News’ Rachel Scott asked Johnson about his involvement in Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, she was met at mid-sentence with a chorus of jeers, boos and sarcastic laughter from the contingent of fellow Republicans who had gathered around Johnson.
Among the loudest of the bunch was our own veteran member of Congress, 5th District Rep. Virginia Foxx, who yelled for Scott to “Shut up!” Twice.
Then Foxx smiled, as if she were proud and satisfied with herself.
When Scott tried to ask a second question, Foxx shouted: “Go away!”
And why not?
The nerve of that uppity reporter, expecting the new speaker of the House ... to speak.
Frankly, it was a question he should have anticipated and prepared for.
Here is what we know about Johnson, 51, who was first elected to Congress in 2016, when it comes to aiding and abetting Trump’s “stolen election” fantasies:
He was one of 139 Republicans who voted to object to the election results in Arizona.
He signed a 2020 amicus brief that supported a frivolous Texas lawsuit that attempted to overturn the election results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
The New York Times described Johnson, a constitutional lawyer, as “the most important architect of the Election College objections on Jan. 6.”
There are other concerns.
He solidly opposes same-sex marriage and has described homosexuality as “inherently unnatural” and “a dangerous lifestyle.”
He opposes legalized abortion and has voted for a national abortion ban.
And he is against continued funding for the war in Ukraine.
All of which make Johnson seem a lot like failed nominee Jim Jordan, without the jagged edges.
But to fellow Republicans on Wednesday, those were trivial details, fine-print disclaimers.
What they seemed most in the mood for was celebrating.
After all, after three failed nominees and 22 days of cussing and fussing and death threats and almost coming to blows among themselves, they finally have selected a speaker.
At some points in recent days, that seemed hardly a given.
As for Virginia Foxx, what can you say?
That her shouts were rude and unbecoming for anyone, much less a member of Congress?
That a member of Congress since 2005 surely is aware that what reporters are supposed to do at a news conference is ask questions? And that what the person who is holding the news conference is supposed to do is answer them?
That her behavior was crude and childish and should be an embarrassment to all North Carolinians?
And that surely as a Southerner, she was brought up better than that? (Oh wait; she was born in the Bronx.)
Even the reliably conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board frowned on the churlish conduct of Foxx and Friends, which it noted, “isn’t a great start for retaking the suburbs.”
What was clear from Foxx and her fellow Republicans is that they’d like for all this distracting talk about the rigged election myth to go away. In which case maybe they should have a word with the person who keeps bringing it up the most, over and over, every chance he gets.
Maybe they should tell Donald J. Trump to “shut up.”
END