A New Hero

Who knew that southern states would take the gift John Roberts handed them in June and move so quickly to start with their voter suppression efforts? (Okay, we all knew, and that was pretty much the point.)

The latest is something you really need to look at, involving some pretty outrageous parliamentary maneuvering between North Carolina governor McCrory and the two thugs he installed on the Watauga County board of elections to suppress the progressive (student, minority, you know the drill) vote.

The back story as nearly as I can make it out is that McCrory appointed two teabaggers to the three-member board and those two guys either cooked up a set of amendments or had them fed to them, to consolidate voting precincts, crack down on absentee voting, and even block public comment at board of elections meetings. Then, when they had all these amendments in place they kept Kathleen Campbell, the only Democrat on the board, from even seeing the proposals until they met to elect themselves chair and secretary and ram the amendments through.

(Apparently there are some issues about whether their pre-meeting consultation violated the state's open meetings law, and that may be subject to challenge.)

We've seen this kind of thing here in Vermont, and we know that when the majority acts unilaterally to crush its opposition it is essential to have a strong voice to stand up to them. 

The story is at Kos but there is a longer video here, and you should really watch it. From what I saw, Kathleen Campbell is another Wendy Davis.

Keep fighting, Kathleen and North Carolina Democrats! 

One thought on “A New Hero

  1. Sounds pretty clearly like a violation to me.  

    Of course if North Carolina is anything like Vermont, violations of Open Meeting Law are punishable by little more than a slap on the wrist and a re-vote.  So long as that is the case, people will try it again and again.  

    What have they got to lose?   And, if they get lucky and no one has the presence of mind or the knowledge with which to challenge them, they get their way.

Comments are closed.