State of the State? Chaos

RALEIGH – Governor Roy Cooper is scheduled to deliver the State of the State address to a joint session of the N.C. General Assembly Monday night. The speech will come on the heels of a Wake County Superior Court ruling that voided two Constitutional Amendments (Voter ID and Cap on State Income Tax Rate), with Judge G. Bryan Collins arguing that because a handful of the State’s legislative district maps have been ruled gerrymanders, the legislature lacked the legitimacy to propose the amendments.

Again, those two amendments were overwhelmingly approved for addition to the State’s governing document by the people of North Carolina. If a statewide popular vote doesn’t represent the sovereignty of the citizens therein, what does?

So as Cooper gives his speech tonight, will he be speaking in front of a legislature of ‘usurpers‘? N.C House Majority Leader Rep. John Bell (R-Wayne) is wondering the same thing.

Exactly. Where does our Governor stand? Does he agree with #JudgeCollins? Does he believe he’ll be addressing an illegal legislature tonight? If so, then why come? The people of NC deserve answers. #ncpol #ncga https://t.co/Rv1tjC8kCU

— Rep. John Bell (@JohnBellNC) February 25, 2019

Answers to these serious, burning questions will be hard to come by tonight in Cooper’s speech. What will be abundant are social justice platitudes as the governor employs the State of the State as a campaign platform for re-election in 2020.

Previous court cases related to the gerrymandering issues, cases that resulted in some judges declaring certain districts to be unconstitutional, still acknowledged the necessity for the legislature to carry on its duty, as to not create chaos.

Well, with Collins’ judicial edict, chaos is exactly what we have. We have judges overruling the majority vote of the people of North Carolina, and essentially labeling the entirety of the General Assembly an illegally constituted body.

Something has got to be done about judicial overreach in this state and in this country. The founding fathers designed the Constitution of the United States, and the government structure is delineated, so that the judiciary was necessarily week. While the structure protects the rights of individuals, and balances the branches of government against each other, they recognized that the voice of the people was most fully amplified through the legislative branch. Thus, the legislature is ‘more equal,’ if you will, than the other branches of government, by design.

Cooper, and the rest of the Left, are positively giddy that a judge was willing to go all in to advance their cause against popular Voter ID and tax rate limits through the courts. They pledged to ‘Sue ’til Blue,’ and that’s exactly what is manifesting now. If the legislature cannot draw it’s own maps, propose ballot initiatives, or even legislate, merely because an activist judge decides to issue decrees from the bench, we have lost hold on the constitutional principles that make our system of government and our nation the best in the world.

There is little need to hear Cooper’s speech tonight to gather what North Carolina government’s current status is: The State of the State is chaos.