NC House speaker admits what GOP power-grabbing bill is really about | Opinion
Hours before North Carolina Republicans overrode the governor’s veto of a bill that would strip power from incoming Democratic officials and reshape election administration, House Speaker Tim Moore finally admitted what the bill was really about.
In an appearance on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast Wednesday morning, Moore discussed the bill, which purports to be about hurricane relief but is primarily a vehicle for brazen political maneuvering.
Moore claimed that the goal of the bill was to “further expand election integrity and make sure that votes count.”
The bill would strip the governor of his authority to appoint members to the State Board of Elections and instead place it under the purview of the newly elected Republican state auditor, meaning that election administration would be under the control of Republicans instead of Democrats. The auditor would have the ability to appoint a Republican majority to the elections board. Moore told Bannon that it’s a necessary move because “we need auditing of the elections. There are a lot of questions,” citing in particular the state Supreme Court race that Democrats won by a narrow margin.
“Our Republican candidate … on election night, he was 10,000 votes ahead,” Moore said. “The day after all these other provisional ballots and everything, he’s underwater 700 votes. A lot of questions about that.”
Moore is not the first Republican leader to publicly cast doubt on the outcome of that election. Senate leader Phil Berger suggested last month that the vote-counting process in North Carolina is rigged in favor of Democratic candidates. That comment drew a strong rebuke from the leader of the Board of Elections, who told Berger that his accusation had no basis in fact and could lead to threats of violence against election officials.
Moore also referenced the part of the bill that restricts the power of the Democratic attorney general, preventing him from taking any stance in court that does not align with the stance of the legislature. That part of the bill is intended to prevent the attorney general from joining “woke lawsuits,” such as those that promote “radical environmentalism” and “this transgender thing,” Moore said.
“We’ve got legislation to clip the wings of the attorney general so they can’t be out here pushing these crazy woke ideologies,” Moore told Bannon.
Toward the end of the podcast, Moore encouraged listeners to call their Republican legislators and urge them to vote to override the veto. Three GOP lawmakers from western North Carolina initially joined Democrats in voting against the bill, with one of them saying that he didn’t believe the disaster relief portion of the bill was sufficient. In order to override the veto, however, Republicans couldn’t afford to have any defections.
Moore said that those Republicans were under a lot of pressure to vote against the override, including from the “woke folks” who have shown up to protest the bill (Moore called it “wander[ing] around creating mischief and protest for the sake of protesting.”)
“I think they’re going to come around. But it’s a big deal. It’s a big vote … We need the MAGA world to step up and remind our Republicans to stay strong and to demand that this be signed into law, that it go into law by overriding this veto,” Moore said.
It was always obvious that this bill was far more about power politics than it was about disaster relief, and even Moore inadvertently admitted that himself toward the end of the podcast. Here’s how he summed it up:
“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 and move this country in the right direction.”
It was never about helping people. It was just about helping Republicans win. That’s a disservice to the people of western North Carolina — and to anyone who values democracy.
