Opinion

Editorial: Tweet sends powerful legislators into a tizzy

Wednesday, July 25, 2018 -- The special legislative session made a circus clown car performance look organized. As it turns out, the legislature's actions reveal the bankrupt agenda behind the needless constitutional amendments.

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CBC Editorial: Wednesday, July 25, 2018; Editorial #8326
The following is the opinion of Capitol Broadcasting Company

There was a $50,000 legislative panic on display in Tuesday’s hastily called and disorganized pecial session of the North Carolina General Assembly. It was a day of hurry up and wait. Legislation that was supposed to be all set to go, prepared in secret of course, wasn’t quite ready for prime time and needed more work.

Why all the upheaval? Because Gerry Cohen, who served 32 years as director of the legislature’s bill drafting division, responded to a public call for suggestions and comments from the state Constitutional Amendments Publication Commission on short captions about the content of the proposed amendments. The commission, which includes Democrats Secretary of State Elaine Marshall and Attorney General Josh Stein along with Legislative Services Officer Paul Coble, a Republican, is charged with providing the captions that, by law, are included on the ballot with the proposed amendments. Cohen shared his suggestions on Twitter.
State Senate leader Phil Berger confessed that the special session was much the result of Cohen’s tweeted suggestions and the extensive twitter storm that followed. “I don’t know that I can point to any additional specifics,” Berger, R-Rockingham, said in response to reporters’ questions about whether Cohen’s tweets were to blame.

The last thing Berger, House Speaker Tim Moore, House Rules Chair Rep. David Lewis and Senate Majority Leader Harry Brown wanted was for their unnecessary package of constitutional amendments to be subject to open debate and any kind of public scrutiny. After all, the leadership had hastily concocted these amendments in secret, did all they could to make sure there was as little public notice and discussion as possible and worked hard to obscure any details on the impact of these amendments so citizens wouldn’t be fully informed when they faced them in the voting booth.

So, what did they do Tuesday afternoon and evening? They removed the explanation from the ballot. THAT’S RIGHT. Even though it was these same legislators who mandated just two years ago that there be explanations on the ballot now passed a bill to remove them. The last things they want are clear, objective, concise descriptions.

The whole session made a circus clown car performance look organized. As it turns out, the legislature’s actions reveal the bankrupt agenda behind the needless constitutional amendments.

It all adds up to more proof voters need to reject ALL of the constitutional amendments to protest a legislature that has broken faith with the people they were elected to represent and that acts solely out of partisan political desperation.

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