The new crews in charge of the North Carolina General Assembly and the U.S. House of Representatives were swept into office during a time of massive unemployment and amid a growing concern that “the government†was trying to control too much of our lives.
So, naturally, among the first things the new leaderships does – after sending a symbolic raspberry to the Obama Administration over health care – is get down to the business of regulating the reproductive rights of a little more than half the population.
It is a chore to try to understand the pretzel logic coming out of Washington and Raleigh these days, especially if you try to overlay what we saw during the last campaign with the priorities of the people now in charge.
In this state, as it was elsewhere, the economy and the dearth of jobs was at the heart of voters’ discontent.
Whether you then believed it was a good idea to throw the incumbents out or not, it’s hard to believe after a week of watching them in action that the new batch in office has any special aptitude for the hard work of righting the economy.
What we’re seeing instead is a stream of bills aimed at reigniting fires over social issues like abortion and gay marriage as well as attempts to undo the work of previous legislatures, like the Racial Justice Act and anti-bullying legislation.
And this week, just in time for the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, the state House flirted with the nascent nullification movement via a resolution asserting state sovereignty. How quaint.
None of this business is going to add a single job. And none of it should be a surprise.
Over the years, plenty of bills aimed at exploiting hot-button social issues and outright jingoism have been introduced, but the Democratic leadership never allowed them to get close to the floor. Now that the new GOP leadership is comprised of or beholden to the very people who introduced those bills, we are fixing to have the kind of divisive, angry debates we’ve managed to dodge all these years.
There are legislators who no doubt think they have been sent to Raleigh to refight the culture wars of the 1990s. But by and large, voters from both parties indicated they want basically the same things. They want jobs, better public schools, greater access to higher education and a safe and healthy environment.
It’s time to stop the political posturing and get these issues back to the top of the priority list. Legislators should save the save the tut-tutting over the 10th Amendment and the supremacy of the federal government for after hours at the Oyster Bar and spend their time on the clock trying to get this state moving again.
When Democrats were elected in other states in 2008, was the editorial board complaining when they were trying to legalize same-sex marriage and repeal abortion restrictions? What about when the NC General Assembly was busy reforming sex ed for schools? Is that not a divisive culture war issue? Or can only liberals address those issues?
A marriage amendment would pass, which is why you folks don’t want it on the ballot. It would reveal the divide among Democrats in this state, and white liberals like yourselves would have to awkwardly blame Mormons, or some other such religious group that it is acceptable to loathe, while avoiding the real issue, which is race.
General assemblies are elected to deal with all sorts of issues, and they have the right to
do so. Let’s have a debate on the merits, rather than say it is wrong to take the issue up at all.