Override, Over, and Out

RALEIGH – State lawmakers convened on Saturday to finally override two vetoes from Gov. Roy Cooper after a full week of waiting for members to have sufficient availability to hold the votes. Vetoes require a super-majority to override.

The first vote reminding Cooper of his impotence was held on House Bill 3, the original reason for calling the late summer special session. The legislation relieved a commission originally charged with writing ballot caption language for the half dozen constitutional amendments, and dominated by two hard Left Democrats, from its duty.  Instead, the caption will merely read ‘Constitutional Amendment,’ and the ballot question itself will outline the amendment purpose.

“The partisan spectacle earlier this week by the people tasked with drafting unbiased ballot language makes the need for today’s override vote glaringly clear. Labeling each proposed Constitutional amendment as ‘Constitutional Amendment’ is the simplest, fairest way to present the choice to voters,” said House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate Leader Phil Berger in a joint statement.

Attorney General Josh Stein and Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, two of the three-person commission, held “public hearings” in which they waxed poetic about their opposition to the amendments themselves.

The Left is crowing about withholding information from voters because the Left can’t literally pepper the ballot with captions that cast the amendments in a negative light.

But that’s not the only plan of theirs that got blown up during the special session. Senate Bill 3 aligns some elections rules for judicial races concerning listed party affiliation with all other partisan races, and in so doing interrupts the Democrats’ plan to foil the reelection of N.C. Supreme Court Justice Barbara Jackson by planting a Democrat in Republican clothing on the ballot to siphon votes away and hand the race to ultra-liberal Anita Earls.

Chris Anglin was a registered Democrat mere weeks before he filed as the second Republican option in that race just minutes before the filing deadline.  With comments like “I’m definitely not a plant,” and “This is seriously not a trick by the Democrats” it was clear what the Left was up to.

“Today’s vote simply aligns the rules for judicial elections to those for every other public office in North Carolina, yet Democrats continue with their ridiculous claims that we are somehow attempting to ‘rig the system.’ Sadly, it’s the Democrats who shamefully resorted to partisan scheming to confuse the citizens of North Carolina. Thankfully, after today’s overrides, these bills will deliver accurate, unbiased information to voters,” said Moore and Berger in their joint statement.

Anglin has filed a frivolous lawsuit to contest Senate Bill 3, demanding that he be listed as a Republican on the ballot, despite all of the evidence that his desire for that party label is nothing but a dirty trick.

The Left is in full spin mode on both of these topics, but will beat the drum loudest on the amendments. That’s because they realize how popular they are among the voting public, and how much they will hinder their Big Government cause if given the chance to govern in the future.