North Carolina Republicans held the state budget and Medicaid expansion hostage to a failed attempt to expand casino gambling for three months. They finally passed the budget on September 22. Gov. Roy Cooper allowed it to become law without his signature. A veto and inevitable override vote would have been a pointless additional delay.
We sounded the 🚨 on this when the NC budget dropped with this hidden language. Now the national media are paying attention. Thanks to @JuddLegum and @tesszeeks for putting some ☀️on what’s happening here in NC. https://t.co/vnl6425yhP
There was one teensy rider added. Judd Legum reports in a thread:
1. Buried in North Carolina’s 600+ page budget is a little-noticed provision that creates a secret police force, controlled by Republicans, with extraordinary powers
🧵
2. The budget grants the Gov Ops Committee the right to seize “any document or system of record” from anyone who works in or w/state & local government
This includes contractors or any entity that directly or indirectly receives state funds, including charities and colleges
3. It gets worse. Gov Ops staff will be authorized to enter “any building or facility” owned or leased by a state or non-state entity without a judicial warrant.
This includes private homes, if it includes a home office of a contractor
4. Alarmingly, public employees under investigation will be required to keep all communication and requests “confidential.” They cannot alert their supervisor of the investigation nor consult with legal counsel.
Those who refuse to cooperate face jail time and fines of up to 1K
5. Gov Ops is dominated by Republicans and pursues partisan investigations. It is co-chaired by Senate Leader Phil Berger (R) and House Speaker Tim Moore (R).
Gov Ops launched an inquiry into diversity training programs at the University of North Carolina earlier this year.
6. Berger and Moore claim this is all about oversight and transparency. But a separate provision of the budget allows them to reject any public records requests concerning the operation of Gov Ops.
7. This is part of a broader effort to restrict public access to public records. The budget also repeals a law that required “communications regarding redistricting” be made publicly available when new legislative maps were adopted.
8. North Carolina is one of the most gerrymandered states in the country. In 2022, a gerrymandering trial exposed a top Republican redistricting official for using “secret maps to help draft the state’s redistricting plan.”
The Raleigh News and Observer reported in that September 21 story, “Plaintiffs in the lawsuit requested copies of those maps, but were told by the legislature that they no longer existed…. Previous legal challenges to redistricting, including some brought by the North Carolina NAACP, have used draft materials as evidence.”
Furthermore, another section of the new public records restrictions, “broadly exempts legislators from the state’s public records law, stating that lawmakers, even those who are no longer in office, ‘shall not be required to reveal or to consent to reveal any document, supporting document, drafting request, or information request made or received by that legislator while a legislator.’”
We’ll see y’all in court. As we have again and again and again ever since 2010.
