Accountability may be the greatest casualty of Republican rule

The GOP in NC is eliminating oversight.

On Wednesday, the state house overrode Governor Roy Cooper’s veto of the bill that strips power from the in-coming Democrats elected to executive branch offices. Out-going Speaker and Congressman-elect Tim Moore told Steve Bannon, “This action item today is going to be critical to making sure North Carolina continues to be able to do what it can to deliver victories for Republicans up and down the ticket.”

Yes, you read that right. The bill was not about disaster relief. It was not about good government. It was not about the people of North Carolina. It was about consolidating power and rigging elections for Republicans.

At least Moore admitted it. Other Republicans have tried to pretend like the bill had some sort of noble cause or aspects beneficial to the state. Nope. The bill was about, as Moore said, delivering “victories for Republicans up and down the ticket.” It was a power grab designed to reduce any check on Republican power.

Republicans have rigged the state by subverting democracy. They used extreme gerrymandering to give themselves almost veto-proof majorities in both houses of the legislature. With a partisan and complicit state Supreme Court, they have few restraints on their power. Now, they are trying eliminate the checks and balances of the executive branch to further consolidate their power. As one friend wrote, “They’re now using all three branches to guarantee their hold on power.”

Accountability is one of the biggest casualties of MAGA rule. While Donald Trump is the most obvious example, here in North Carolina, Republicans refuse to police their own. They’ve corrupted the concept of checks and balances to limit the power of Democrats while ignoring the abuses of Republicans. Republicans stood by Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson as scandal after scandal marred his political career. Few dropped their endorsements even after information emerged that he once considered himself a “Black Nazi.” Winning—not decency, not integrity, not good government, not respect for the rule of law—is the only real value held by the modern GOP.

The state Supreme Court acts as a rubber-stamp for the GOP legislature while routinely delivering defeats to an executive branch controlled by Democrats. In breaking with long-standing tradition, the current court behaves more like a legislative body, ignoring precedent to take up and overturn cases recently decided by a Democratic-controlled court. At one time, the judiciary would have had more allegiance to its independence than a political party, but those days are past. Tribalism, not jurisprudence, controls this court.

Republicans who argue that they are just doing what Democrats did when they were in power either don’t know history or are trying to change it. Often, they cite the state senate taking power from the lieutenant governor to lead the body. That happened in 1988 when Jim Gardner became the first Republican lieutenant governor of the 20th century. However, the Democratic senate majority stripped his power by changing the rules of the senate. They didn’t change the laws of the state. Republican senators were free to grant Dan Forest or Mark Robinson those powers when they became Republican lieutenant governors but declined to do so.

In addition, Democrats routinely held their own accountable. It’s almost quaint that Democratic U.S. Senator Kay Hagan requested to leave a Republican U.S. Attorney in place to complete an investigation of Democrat John Edwards. Democratic-controlled State Boards of Elections investigated Democratic House Speaker Jim Black, Democratic Governor Mike Easley, Democratic Agriculture Commissioner Meg Scott Phipps and others, holding them accountable for wrong-doing and recommending further actions by district attorneys. Nobody believes a Republican-controlled State Board of Elections would hold Republicans accountable for anything.

If the GOP controls the State Board of Elections, we know what to expect. The gerrymandered Republican legislature will pass laws designed to rig elections to favor Republicans. The GOP-controlled Supreme Court will uphold the laws. The GOP controlled boards of elections, at both the state and county levels, will press the GOP advantage as far as possible to help deliver Republican victories, either through the administration of elections or through overseeing election protests.

And there’s nobody to stop them. Corruption is the order of the day.