Long summer ahead for House Speaker and Governor
Published May 10, 2014
by Chris Fizsimon, NC Policy Watch and NC SPIN panelist, May 9, 2014.
The House Speaker and the U.S Senate nominee
House Speaker Thom Tillis, now the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate, made it clear recently that he has no plans to step down as Speaker for the legislative session that begins next week.
That means he can continue to raise money for his Senate race during the session, even from lobbyists with legislation pending before the House. State law prohibits legislators from raising money from lobbyists for their legislative campaigns to avoid the obvious conflict of interest.
But Tillis can ignore that law. It does not apply to legislators raising money for campaigns for federal office. For some well-heeled interests desperate to win support for their legislation this summer, it must seem like an attractive and unusual “investment opportunity.”
And it’s not just the conflict of interest questions that Tillis will face during the legislative session. It is hard to imagine that his attention won’t be divided between presiding over the House and running in one of the most closely watched Senate races in the country. This week provided a preview of Tillis’ scheduling problems.
Governor Pat McCrory announced the details of his teacher pay plan Wednesday morning at an event at N.C A&T State University in Greensboro with many state officials on hand to endorse the proposal. But Tillis didn’t make it. He was busy doing a live interview about the Senate race with MSNBC.
McCrory’s potentially long summer
Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger wasn’t at McCrory’s event either but it wasn’t because he was being interviewed. It was more likely because Berger was not ready to endorse McCrory’s plan for raises for teachers and state employees.
Berger’s office issued a statement after the event saying the Senate would consider the proposal as part of McCrory’s budget plan, hardly a ringing endorsement. Berger sounded a little more supportive at his session preview news conference Thursday, calling the plan promising and something that lawmakers would go through carefully.
But that’s still a far cry from the enthusiastic endorsement Berger gave to the plan to raise the pay of starting teachers that McCrory announced with great fanfare at event in January. Tillis and Berger both spoke at that press conference.
McCrory might also have some trouble on another defining issue of this summer’s session, the response to the massive coal ash spill into the Dan River and the news that all of Duke Energy’s coal ash ponds are leaking into the groundwater.
Environmental groups want the state to force Duke to remove the dangerous ash from all the ponds and put it in lined landfills instead, dramatically reducing the potential for leaks. McCrory initially seemed to endorse the idea, but the plan he released a few weeks ago stops sort of forcing the company to remove the ash from all the ponds.
That prompted criticism that McCrory was being too lenient on the company where he worked for 28 years. Some critics even said McCrory’s proposal was basically Duke Energy’s plan and fell short of holding the company responsible for the cleanup of the ash.
The critics disappointed in McCrory’s response to the spill are not all environmentalists. This week Republican Rep. Mike Hager, himself a former Duke employee, said McCrory’s proposal was “somewhat of a codification of Duke’s plan.” Ouch.
Powerful Senator Tom Apodaca has also publicly called for tougher measures than McCrory has proposed. Apparently the Republican legislative leadership is not too thrilled with how the Republican governor is handling the coal ash issue.
And if all that’s not enough to make McCrory feel unloved on Jones Street, consider the legislation to repeal the Common Core education standards that was recently approved by a study committee. The bill sets up a new commission to create state standards to replace those that are prescribed by Common Core.
The commission would have 17 members, the majority of whom would be appointed by legislative leaders. Governor McCrory would have one appointment. One.
Whatever you think of the proposal to scrap Common Core, that’s a pretty strong message to McCrory from the legislators of his own party that they don’t want him to have much to do with education policy in the state.
It looks like it could be a long, hot summer for the governor.
