It’s a badge of honor to be ripped by these NC Republicans

Sometimes people say things they shouldn’t say. Or, more precisely, things THEY shouldn’t say.

For example, last week Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell expressed acute dissatisfaction with recommendations by President Biden’s Supreme Court reform commission this way:

“Judicial independence is as fragile as it is important. The Framers took great pains to protect it. Every single American deserves impartial justice. It would be beyond reckless for Democrats to smash this centuries-old safeguard in a fit of partisan pique. [It] would poison the actual source of the court’s legitimacy – its impartiality.”

Really. That Mitch McConnell. The same guy who, upon the death of Justice Scalia, announced an unprecedented election year blockade to prevent President Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, from reaching the high court. Then, upon Republican ascendancy, he was quick to brag of the partisan capture, assuring the court’s continuing move to the right.

Next, he violated his newly constructed principle by confirming Amy Coney Barrett the week before the 2020 election — announcing, in effect, that rules, even McConnell-created rules, are for suckers. Having secured the most partisan supreme court in generations, he’s now apparently committed to its independence. Mitch McConnell accusing Democrats of partisanship is like Aaron Rogers calling someone dishonest, or me, perhaps, claiming somebody is opinionated. The words simply shouldn’t pass the lips.

But we needn’t look to D.C. to discover stunningly hypocritical political discourse. Union County Judge David Lee, charged with enforcing the famed Leandro decision, determined last week that the state’s children could wait no longer to receive the sound, basic education the state constitution guarantees. For 17 years, he noted, courts have pled for the General Assembly to meet its constitutionally-imposed obligation. “The court’s deference,” Lee ruled, “is at an end.”

North Carolina’s Republican leaders, Phil Berger and Tim Moore, erupted. Senate leader Berger called Judge Lee “unhinged … utterly without authority”, making “a mockery of our constitutional order.” House Speaker Moore added Lee is a “rogue judge” out to trash “separation of powers” in rank “violation of the constitution.” Any “attempt to circumvent the legislature,” Moore warned, “would (constitute) judicial misconduct and be met with the strongest possible response.” The people “elected their representatives to do their job as outlined in our constitution.” How many times “will the courts tell North Carolinians their votes don’t matter?” Good gracious.

There is potent irony in Berger and Moore’s declared mission to safeguard the constitution and separation of powers. Not to put too fine a point on it, but these two leaders and their Republican colleagues have, over the last decade, likely amassed the stoutest record of judicially-declared constitutional transgression in North Carolina history.

To remind, as courts have held: “Neither this legislature, nor any other in the country has done so much, so fast, to restrict access to the franchise.” It has enacted, another court ruled, “among the largest racial gerrymanders ever confronted” in America. It violated the constitution so repeatedly it crushed “the very mechanism by which people confer their sovereignty and hold the General Assembly accountable.” It placed a constitutional amendment on the ballot “so deceptive” it represented “a deliberate attempt to perpetuate fraud.” It has, time and again, denied the constitutional liberties of Tar Heels and lied about it. And it has demolished separation of powers. National commentators indicate “what’s happening in NC is not politics as usual, it’s an extraordinarily disturbing legislative coup, the kind seen in Venezuela, not in a U.S. state.”

So here’s to Judge Lee. No one could possibly be as bad a constitutional arbiter as Berger or Moore. I mean that literally.