Selective Outrage

Plus, Day 2: North Carolina’s Laboratory of Autocracy

- by Kevin Necessary

Day 2 (December 2, 2024): Blue States, Red States

The California legislature began a special, emergency session to enact laws and allocate funds to resist Trump’s promised attacks on the laws and the people of the state.

In North Carolina, the GOP-gerrymandered State Senate overrode the outgoing Governor’s veto of a series of last-minute legislative measures that strip power away from statewide offices recently won by Democratic candidates. The changes include: transferring the appointment of State Board of Elections members from the (Democratic) Governor to the (Republican) Auditor; removing the state highway patrol from the Governor’s purview; forcing the Governor to replace retiring Supreme Court Justices with appointees from the same party as the retiree (ie. blocking the Democratic Governor from replacing retiring Republicans with Democratic appointees); removing the seats of certain judges who have ruled against election laws passed by the legislature; stripping power from the (Democratic) Attorney General from taking steps that undermine laws passed by the gerrymandered legislature; weakening the Superintendent of Public Instruction’s power over Charter Schools; and reducing the number of days (from 9 to 3) that voters can “cure” provisional ballots.

All these changes were included in a bill labeled as “hurricane relief.” The rush to get these power-stripping measures enacted before year’s end comes because Democrats gained one seat in the legislature in November’s election. And that additional seat gives Democrats enough members to sustain gubernatorial vetoes after the New Year (ie. these measures wouldn’t survive in the new year).

Bottom line: the voters of North Carolina expressed their will on Election Day. Gerrymandered and unaccountable legislators are working feverishly to thwart that will. And this form of election denialism isn’t new—North Carolina’s legislature did the same thing after Roy Cooper won the governorship in 2016. As always, look to gerrymandered statehouses for previews of what happens at the federal government.

Kevin’s Commentary:

Welcome back, friends, to another behind the scenes look at my cartooning process. Warm up your Thanksgiving leftovers as we dig into last week's rough sketches….