The Senate's punching bag

Published March 28, 2015

by Thomas Mills, Politics NC, March 27, 2015.

Wake County is the fastest growing county in a state where half the counties are losing population. It’s been the economic engine pulling North Carolina out of the recession. It’s attracting industry and Raleigh’s downtown is becoming a destination.

So what have Republicans got against Wake County? They turned it into a virtual punching bag. The latest shot comes from the three Republican Senators who want to gut the deal to sell Dorothea Dix campus to the city of Raleigh. Instead, they want to sell it to the highest bidder because why should our capitol city have anything nice?

The Dix nix is just the latest in a string of shots Senate Republicans have taken at Wake County. Their plans to redistribute sales tax revenue and dole out incentives shift money from Wake to smaller counties. Sen. Chad Barefoot’s proposal to redistrict county commission seats is little more than a legislative coup d’etat in slow motion. 

They’re short-sighted, small-minded people with authoritarian instincts. Sen.Tommy Tucker (R-Union), one of the sponsors of the Dix nix, once told a newspaper publisher testifying before his committee, “I am the Senator. You are the citizen. You need to be quiet.” That pretty much sums up the sentiment of the state Senate. 

Wake County, though, will continue to grow. Today, it makes up more than 10% of the state’s population and that percentage will increase, as will resentment against Republican overreach. A poll released yesterday shows that Wake voters oppose Barefoot’s plan by almost 2-1. Just like their  voter suppression laws undermine any Republican outreach efforts to the African-American community, the current overreach will drive a wedge between the GOP and Wake County, darkening the county’s blue hue while its political influence is growing.

Rural North Carolina needs help but the GOP approach is unbalanced, mean-spirited and authoritarian. The goal is not just to help smaller counties but to hurt, or at least insult, Wake. It’s bad for Wake County and it’s bad for North Carolina. The old saying, “Payback’s hell” comes to mind.

http://www.politicsnc.com/the-senates-punching-bag/

March 29, 2015 at 1:26 pm
Richard L Bunce says:

When Democrats were the majority in the NC Legislature they favored their Wake County power base... nobody should be surprised that the Republican majority in the NC Legislature would want to undo/reverse/reciprocate on that.