Tar Heel Electioneering

As the mid-term elections begin to amble into focus, my home state of North Carolina, like many locations around the country, contains elements of blatant fuckery by the majority political party as well as signs of hope that there may be a path through the present miasma. 

I’ve written previously that the birthplace of Vince McMahon, John Coltrane and Michael Jordan is a purple state that’s been gerrymandered and re-districted of late to glow red. Republicans hold a 71-49 advantage in the state house of representatives and 30-20 edge in the state senate. Yet as recently as 2022, the state’s Congressional delegation was split evenly 7-7 with Republicans and Democrats. But the state legislature monkeyed with district maps ahead of the 2024 election and resulted in 10 GOP seats out of 14, despite less than 53 percent casting votes for Republicans. 

Hmmm, you might say, that doesn’t appear to be proportional representation. Fear not: they weren’t finished. After President Reflecting Pool called on Republican-led states to change the maps so that more elephants will be elected to Congress, the state drew new lines last year that will likely result in an eleventh GOP rep. To do so, they carved up all eight of the state’s majority-Black counties, which were concentrated in NC’s First District, and splintered them among several conservative-leaning districts (your counter-argument about blue-state gerrymanders is duly noted). 

Similar moves are being played out in several other Southern, conservative-leaning states, with the tacit backing of the U.S. Supreme Court. SCOTUS has chipped away at the 1965 Voting Rights Act in recent years, most recently in Louisiana v. Callais, essentially ruling that race-based voting districts are unconstitutional, partisan gerrymandering is perfectly acceptable, and good luck proving that race is the cause of any sort of voting or representative shortfall. Meanwhile, Republicans who control North Carolina’s state and county election boards want to move early-voting sites away from college campuses and to reduce Sunday voting. Both could impact student and Black voters, who tend to vote Democrat. 

Boliek. Yeah, this tracks.

A New York Times piece reported that three counties were instructed to move voting sites and one county to eliminate Sunday voting, which is popular among Black voters. Democrats and voting rights groups claim that the changes are the result of pressure from a gent named Dave Boliek, the Republican state auditor of election boards. Boliek has held the position since 2024 after the state legislature stripped Governor-elect Josh Stein, a Democrat, of power over election boards. Boliek subsequently appointed Republican majorities and a Republican chairperson to all 100 county election boards. 

For his part, Boliek claimed that pushback is typical partisan griping from Democrats after power shifted from their party to the opposition. He conveniently omitted that legislative scales were tilted to assure said Republican control. 

So where’s the hope, the glimmer of possibility that me and my Tar Heel State brethren aren’t sentenced to one-party rule and representation? Well, the governor’s mansion is a good place to start. Stein was elected comfortably in 2024, which marked the third consecutive gubernatorial election that a Democrat won. In fact, all three of the state’s top office holders, Stein, Lieutenant Gov. Rachel Hunt and Attorney General Jeff Jackson, are Democrats. The Republican-led legislature has done its darnedest to neuter the governor’s powers in recent years but both Stein and his predecessor served honorably. 

Speaking of his predecessor, two-term former Gov. Roy Cooper is running for the open Senate seat that Republican Thom “Unnecessary H” Tillis will vacate at the end of his term. Tillis last summer chose not to run for re-election after opposing Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill because of its cuts to health care and because of increasing discomfort over being forced into GOP lockstep with all things Trump. 

Cooper gives Democrats a solid chance at flipping the seat and narrowing the Republicans’ 53-47 Senate majority. He is polling ahead of GOP candidate Michael Whatley, the former chair of the state Republican party and chair of the Republican National Committee in 2025, a Trump endorsee who has never held public office. Cooper is running a simple, folksy campaign whose primary slogan is Make Stuff Cost Less. He refers to his campaign schedule as the Make Stuff Cost Less Tour. He doesn’t rail against Trump and keeps the rhetoric lukewarm. A favorite refrain is, “For so many North Carolina families, there’s just too much month at the end of the money,” which is about as close to glib as he gets. 

He governed mostly center-left and without scandal, so attempts to portray him as some sort of radical will likely fall flat. The primary GOP accusation against him thus far is: he’s a Democrat, which for many is disqualifier enough. Republicans will sink a fuckton of money into the fall campaign because it’s a contested seat, and the race figures to be tight because, hellooo, purple state. Anyway, not necessarily sturdy limbs on which to climb, but these days you take what you can get.

Tar Heel State Distress

Dispatch from the State Where Wilbur and Orville Mightily Tried to Take Off: A couple of recent developments have roiled the citizenry here in North Carolina, and that doesn’t even include Bill Belichick’s tenure in Chapel Hill. I’ll try to keep it brief, as y’all come to this site for politics and current events like guys go to IKEA for simplicity and serenity. 

The state legislature voted this week to redraw the Congressional district map, in lockstep with the Big Orange Oaf’s directive for Republican-controlled states to do so to maintain, if not increase, the GOP’s narrow hold of the House of Representatives. The current map is already tilted to give Republicans ten seats and Democrats four; the new map is likely to give Republicans an eleventh seat and take away one Democrat rep. It just so happens that the rep is Black, and the redrawn districts split up the African-American constituency. 

This wouldn’t be a big deal if state legislative maps weren’t already gerrymandered to hell and back. North Carolina is essentially a purple state. As recently as 2022 the Congressional breakdown was seven Democrats and seven Republicans. Vote totals in all Congressional races combined are generally within a few percentage points one way or the other. Yet Republicans hold super-majorities in both the state House (71-49) and state Senate (30-20) – thanks, further gerrymander! – and two years ago re-drew the Congressional map for the current 10-4 advantage. 

The legislature has also done its darnedest to kneecap the Democratic governor (previously Roy Cooper, now Josh Stein) to do anything beyond voice strongly worded opposition. Democrats may sue to overturn the map, but in a dandy little turn of self supervision the Republican-controlled State Supreme Court ruled a couple years ago that the Constitution doesn’t expressly prohibit partisan monkeying with voting districts and that courts cannot force change or alter maps, that only the legislature can do so. 

The message to Dems, as Marco the Albanian said to Liam Neeson in “Taken” – Good luck. Meanwhile, more than a year after Hurricane Helene ravaged areas of western North Carolina, state and local officials are still waiting for Federal funds promised by FEMA. 

According to a Washington Post story, millions of dollars in cleanup and recovery funds are hung up by bureaucratic delays and obstacles, which has forced the state and various counties to assume much of the costs so far and stretched budgets beyond their capabilities. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who oversees FEMA, has said that the review process and further scrutiny are needed to root out waste, fraud and abuse. In a statement to the Post, FEMA said that it’s prepared to support states with critical disaster needs, but that its Disaster Relief Fund “is not infinite.” 

Coupled with President Bone Spurs’s remarks earlier this year about possibly shuttering FEMA, and states and local governments taking more responsibility for disaster recovery in the future, folks in North Carolina and elsewhere are a mite skittish about whether the Feds will pony up. Staff cuts to the Federal workforce, FEMA included, have further slowed and complicated the allocation process. Also, Noem, who I wouldn’t trust to oversee cleanup of a garage never mind a multi-billion-dollar disaster, has to sign off on any expenditure over $100,000, and such requests also now go through a DOGE vetting process. 

The Post also reported that so far the Federal government has covered only 10 percent of the damage from Helene, compared to 70 percent of the damage caused by storms such as Katrina, Sandy and Maria. All of which leans into an evolving notion of “You’re On Your Own.” It’s a curious addendum to the current regime’s campaign mantra of “America First.” If the wealthiest nation on the planet is going to slash foreign aid and pull back from alliances and concentrate on matters within, then what parts of America and which Americans come first? To be sure, there are indicators, many of which aren’t promising for those of limited means and influence. Depending on one’s level of discouragement, it might be enough to hop on one of Wilbur and Orville’s machines and take off for distant shores.

Carolina Blew?

We are likely months, if not years, from conclusions about the University of North Carolina’s L’Affaire Belichick. Certainly, there’s plenty to discuss already, but early results have done little except confirm the football program’s nondescript status within the sport’s hierarchy, albeit now with a much larger spotlight. 

Such is the case when a school with a modest football history goes off script and pays exorbitant sums to hire one of the sport’s most accomplished coaches, a guy with six Super Bowl rings who is also 73 years old and had never coached a minute in college. Oh, and with an attractive, opportunistic, sensitive-to-scrutiny girlfriend almost 50 years his junior in tow. 

But hype is hype, and in a quest for football relevance, several UNC Big Checkbooks circumvented the regular hiring process and went back-channel to recruit Coach Hoodie, with the promise of big money and full control of the program. Their throw-weight prevailed, and the administration signed off. Wholesale staff and roster makeover ensued and enthusiasm within the fan base spiked, accompanied by national curiosity about how it all would play out. 

The Tar Heels’ opener, a 48-14 nationally televised home dump trucking by TCU, exposed them as miles away from their stated goal of championships and illustrated that it doesn’t matter who’s wearing the Big Headset if players are lacking or don’t perform. Last weekend’s 20-3 win against Charlotte, a meh American Athletic Conference program, provided little evidence of progress. Upcoming games against FCS Richmond and Central Florida, a middlin’ Big 12 opponent (hard to keep up with who’s where these days, ain’t it?) in its own reset won’t reveal much. 

UNC’s next “test” comes Oct. 4 versus Clemson in its ACC opener. Meanwhile, former NFL scout and now snoop and take-haver John Middlekauf first reported last week that Belichick banned New England Patriots scouts. Belichick confirmed the report and responded that since he’s banned from the Pats’ facility, they’re banned from UNC’s facility. 

It’s a remarkably pissy move aimed at owner Bob Kraft, particularly considering that the Patriots are coached by one of his former players, Mike Vrabel. Subsequent reporting by ESPN and others reveal that other NFL team scouts are only permitted to watch limited practice time and that NFL personnel may talk only to the Tar Heels’ pro liaison and will have “zero access” to Belichick and his assistants. It’s an interesting tack for a program and staff trying to attract talent by touting their NFL bonafides and ability to prepare players for the pros. 

Belichick’s college and UNC pivot have also revived discussion in some corners about where he resides in the coaching pantheon. It seems ridiculous to question the chops of a guy with a fistful of rings and the second-most wins in NFL history. But he was sub-.500 in Cleveland in his first head coaching stint and sub-.500 in New England after Tom Brady departed. 

The Belichick-Brady pairing and its role in the Patriots dynasty was a chicken-and-egg question for a long time. The Patriots’ and Belichick’s 29-38 record in the four years after Brady decamped for Tampa and won a Super Bowl may have tilted the discussion in the quarterback’s favor, especially as it pertains to their latter years in Foxboro. 

Speaking of poor general managers, Chapel
Hill ties, and money

I think it’s beyond dispute that Belichick is a great coach who was a poor general manager and offensive unit assembler, which led to substandard records and Kraft cutting the cord in 2023. His desire for full control likely figured into the rest of the league taking a pass when a guy who’s getting a bust in Canton became available. In Belichick’s year away, he got a whiff of the college coaching and campus experience through his son, Steve, and his compadres and enjoyed it greatly. And then several guys with Chapel Hill ties and money and grand ideas of UNC football’s potential reach dovetailed with an unemployed Big Whistle convinced he still has tread on the tires, and here we are. 

He could have kept a foot in the game on a smaller stage, and probably earned handsome side money, as a consultant and clinician. But the opportunity to run a show and receive eight figures annually to do so scratched an itch. At this point, it's probably fair to ask: So, where are you going with this, Sparky? It’s a valid question and I’m not sure I have a good answer. 

I guess the larger point is that for all the analysis and opinions and snark that every game and move and press conference remark prompt, for all the skepticism about novice Chapel Bill in a wildly unsettled college landscape, we’re nowhere near a reasonable judgment and may not be for several years. The Belichick Experiment could succeed; it could flame out spectacularly or fizzle meekly (my money is on the latter). The man’s body of work invites a level of attention that far exceeds the pace of the work itself and the task at hand, which is unsatisfying in an impatient society that frequently demands immediate returns. The risk and financial outlay certainly merit accountability and some measures of improvement along the way – for both Belichick and those who instigated his arrival – but it’s not necessarily wise to permit the audience to dictate terms.

Profiles in Cowardice, Alternatively Titled "No shit Jeff Flake!" or "Fuck you and your bolo Thom Tillis!"

Former Arizona Senator Jeff Flake (not to be confused with Jeff Lake) wrote an amazingly cowardly opinion piece in the NY Times on Sunday that rendered me irate, so much so that I yelled "No shit Jeff Flake!" out loud multiple times.

He begins with this:

Eight years ago, I stood on the floor of the Senate and announced that I would not run for re-election. I spoke then of a fever in our politics, a fever that I hoped would soon break. I noted that in today’s Republican Party, anything short of complete and unquestioning loyalty to President Trump — then in his first term — was deemed unacceptable and suspect.

Last weekend, Senator Thom Tillis announced that he would not seek re-election, and delivered a message that echoed my own. “It’s become increasingly evident,” he said, “that leaders who are willing to embrace bipartisanship, compromise and demonstrate independent thinking are becoming an endangered species.”

His decision underscores what I feared in 2017: The fever still hasn’t broken. In today’s Republican Party, voting your conscience is essentially disqualifying.

No shit Jeff Flake!  We got a fever!  Had it for over ten years now!  What the fuck have you done about it?  Oh that's right, you walked away from politics so you wouldn't have to deal with it.  Cool, cool.

He goes on to opine:

But the deeper concern isn’t about any single congressional race or even the balance of power in the Senate — it’s about the long-term health of our political institutions. As senators like Thom Tillis step aside, the chamber grows ever more polarized. There are fewer and fewer members willing to reach across the aisle, take tough votes or engage in the quiet, unglamorous work of real legislating.

No shit Jeff Flake!  The senate is polarized like Edwin Land's sunglasses!  Been this way for over ten years now!  And what the fuck are you talking about with "senators like Thom Tillis" who are "willing to reach across the aisle"?  Did he vote against any of Trump's recent cabinet appointees?  Did he vote in against Amy Coney Barrett's last-second confirmation?  Did he vote to convict in either of Trump's impeachments?  No, no, no--in other words, he went along with all of it.

Then he drops this gem:

Extreme partisanship has infected both parties, but it plays out differently. Among Democrats, it tends to be issue-driven — focused on ambitious policy goals, however unrealistic or out of step they may sometimes be. Among Republicans, it’s become personality-driven, centered almost entirely on staying in lock step with the president. That’s an even more dangerous trajectory, because it divorces political allegiance from any stable set of principles. When a party’s North Star is an individual, the direction of policy and the integrity of governance itself suffer.

Oh, fuck you Jeff Flake!  Democrats are partisan on the issues?  How fucking surprising, a political party has a partisan view on a political issue.  Give me a break.

And this broke me:

I admire Senator Tillis for choosing not to betray his convictions just to secure another term. But his departure is a loss for the nation, the Senate and the Republican Party — indeed, for conservatism — which desperately need more voices willing to stand on principle rather than bend to one man’s will.

Kiss my ass Jeff Flake!  Tillis's departure is a loss for the nation!?  That dumb fuck went along with all of Trump's bullshit, I just outlined that!  You're a schmuck.

He closes with this smoldering pile of horseshit:

The question facing Republicans still in the Senate is what to do about it. Is it better to stand your ground from within, refusing to bend even under intense primary pressure, knowing you may lose your seat but help restore a standard of principled dissent? Or to break openly with your party and run as an independent, showing voters there is another way to serve? Or, as some of us have done, to step aside entirely, yet continue pressing for the values of decency, truth and constitutional balance from outside the chamber?

A good case can be made for each of these paths. None offer certainty. But doing nothing — simply going along to get along — guarantees the fever won’t break anytime soon. It ensures that the loudest voices will keep drowning out those who would govern responsibly. The Senate and our country need more leaders willing to pay a political price to uphold what they know is right. In the long run, that is the only way this fever ends.

No shit Jeff Flake!  What brave acts have you taken since you bowed out of the Senate?  Were you out and about in Arizona canvassing for Kamala?  Were you on the Sunday shows making the "anyone but Trump" arguments?  Did you call up your old homeboys in the Senate at any point while Trump was in his 1.0/45 term and press them to vote the right way on impeachment, appointments, bills?  I haven't heard anything about that.

I wasn't going to bother writing this post until I saw another article in the NY Times.  It's titled "Tillis Suggests He Regrets Vote to Confirm Hegseth, Calling Him ‘Out of His Depth’" and it features this photo of Tillis:

It looks like the GOP is overrun with assholes in bolos.  At least I get to use the "bolos" label again.

Tillis said he now regrets voting to confirm Pete Hegseth because “With the passing of time, I think it’s clear he’s out of his depth as a manager of a large, complex organization.”

Fuck you you and your bolo Thom Tillis!  I have a lot of experience in a very specific area.  If you need someone to do this type of work, you hire me.  If you hired me to, say, manage a sporting goods store I might be able to do it but I've never done it before so you're taking a risk.  It might be more prudent to hire someone with experience running a sneaker store.  Taking that type of risk is ill-advised when you're looking for someone to run something like the United States Department of Defense.  And you knew Hegseth had no relevant experience!

This is already too long so I'll wrap it up with one last cowardly outrage.  The NYT article on Tillis also says:

Mr. Tillis said he had deferred to the Senate Armed Services Committee when it came to evaluating Mr. Hegseth’s ability to do the job of defense secretary and to Senator Bill Cassidy, the Louisiana Republican and physician who chairs the health committee, on Mr. Kennedy’s fitness.

“Quite honestly, the main reason I supported Kennedy was because Bill Cassidy thought that we should see how it plays out,” Mr. Tillis said.

Fuck you Thom Tillis!  And your dumbass bolo!  Did the people of North Carolina put you in office so you could vote however some guy from Louisiana tells you?  Of course not!  North Carolina might as well send no one to DC and have Cassidy vote three times.  And Cassidy voted to impeach the second time around--why didn't you listen to him then?  Oh that's right, you're a fucking coward!  You just went along with everyone else!  Which brings me back to Jeff Flake's article extolling Thom Tillis's boloed bravery.  One last time, fuck you Jeff Flake.

We're #69! Tar Heels Edition

One peculiarity this basketball season is the inconsistent, at times puzzling, performance of North Carolina. The Tar Heels are one of the sport’s blue bloods, an annual NCAA Tournament participant and on the short list of the nation’s most recognizable programs. 

UNC was ranked in the top 10 in preseason polls and picked to finish second in the ACC behind a loaded Duke, facing a schedule dotted with premier games. Fast forward, and the Heels have zero marquee wins. As recently as three weeks ago they were scuffling along just one game over .500 in the league and were barely on the fringe of NCAA consideration. 

A current win streak fueled by lineup tweaks has lifted UNC into the discussion, though ESPN bracketology gerbil [Ouch, babe.] Joe Lunardi and The Athletic hoop snoop Joe Rexrode both have Carolina among the first four omitted from the 68-team field. NCAA Net Rankings have the Heels a very bubbly No. 38, and Ken Pomeroy ranks them 38, as well. 

Let’s dig in our Heels: (Full disclosure: I grew up in Maryland, a fan of the Terps and Lefty Driesell and later attended College Park. Carolina’s consistent excellence under Dean Smith and frequent wins versus Maryland provided constant anguish for a kid in the days of the old ACC. Once I began covering sports for a living, however, my rooting interests subsided. I became a fan of decent stories, accommodating deadlines and reliable wi-fi connections. Though I must admit, there remains a small corner of my brain that smiles when Carolina struggles.) 

Recent History: Not too shabby. Twenty NCAA appearances since 2000. Three NCAA titles this century (2005, 2009, 2017), seven Final Fours, 13 appearances in Sweet 16. 

Mascot/Nickname Profile: Tar Heels and North Carolina’s nickname as the Tarheel State date to colonial times. The state was a massive source of material used in wooden shipbuilding – tar and pitch and turpentine from the state’s abundant pine forests – first for the British Royal Navy, and then domestically after independence. It was used to seal hulls and prevent rot. 

Around the time of the Civil War, outsiders began referring to NC natives and troops as Tarheels, a derisive nickname that natives later adopted as a source of pride, that they were more likely to “stick” to their causes and convictions than outsiders who were less committed. 

The school’s mascot, a ram named Rameses, dates to 1924. The football team’s star fullback, Jack Merritt, was nicknamed “Battering Ram” for his style of play. The head cheerleader at the time suggested that the school purchase a ram as mascot, which it did. Legend has it that in a scoreless tie against Virginia Military Institute, UNC’s kicker rubbed the ram’s head for luck and then went out and kicked the game-winning field goal. A ram has been on the sidelines at UNC football games ever since. The stuffed costume ram mascot seen at basketball games and other events dates to the late 1980s. 

IYKYK

Home Arena: Dean E. Smith Center, aka the Dean Dome (cap. 21,750). Opened in 1986. The baby-bluest building you’ll ever walk into. Smith was notably hesitant about a new arena three times the size of the program’s traditional home, Carmichael Auditorium. But he was eventually convinced because of the program’s growing popularity and the fact that it would allow more students to attend games. He was never entirely comfortable with the fact that it was named for him. For all of his success, he routinely deflected attention from himself. For instance, when people referred to UNC as a basketball school, he often responded that no, it was a women’s soccer school, owing to legendary coach Anson Dorrance and his title harvesting program. 

Notable Hoops Alumni: Dear lord, where to start? That Jordan fellow, Vince Carter, James Worthy, Tyler Hansbrough, Billy Cunningham, Phil Ford, Kenny Smith, Larry Brown, Antawn Jamison, Bob McAdoo, George Karl, Charlie Scott, Sam Perkins, Brad Daugherty, Al Wood, Armando Bacot, Walter Davis, Bobby Jones, Mitch Kupchak, Rick Fox. Three of their coaches are also in the Naismith Hall of Fame – Frank McGuire, El Deano and Roy Williams. 

Current Season: The Heels (20-11, 13-6 in the ACC) are in fourth place in the league, a half-game ahead of Wake Forest and SMU. Graduate guard R.J. Davis (17.2 ppg), the 2024 ACC Player of the Year and school career No. 2 scorer behind Hansbrough, is one of three players averaging in double figures, along with 6-4 freshman Ian Jackson (13.5 ppg) and 6-3 junior Seth Trimble (12.1 ppg). UNC has won six in a row and scored more than 80 points in each game, due in part to recent emergence of 6-9 graduate Jae’Lyn Withers (70 pts last six games) and 6-8 junior Ven-Allen Lubin (7.6 ppg, 4.9 rpg), who has scored in double figures in his past five games. Both bigs have also helped reverse the season-long trend of spotty rebounding. 

Hubert is a FOG:TB by proxy

Reasons to Believe: Late-season success, which is supposedly a factor in selection. Notion that it’s difficult to fathom the ACC not getting at least four teams into the tournament. The fact that they’re North Freakin’ Carolina. To that end, I was reminded recently that the selection committee knows precisely what teams they’re evaluating. The idea that the committee blindly compares resume’s for a supposedly more objective decision is a media concoction – often attempting to measure the worth of one team chosen vs. another that was left out. If you believe that committee members don’t consider conferences and schools when it comes to selection and seeding and juicy potential tournament matchups, we have a swell real estate proposition for you in a little paradise we call Gaza. UNC Athletic Director Bubba Cunningham is chair of the selection committee. Now, ADs are supposed to recuse themselves when their teams are discussed, but administrative back-scratching, anyone? 

Reasons to Fade Them: Metrics. The Heels have exactly one Quad 1 win, a Dec. 21 neutral site game vs. UCLA. They’re 1-10 against Q1 (Quad 1 results are home games vs. the top 30, neutral site games against the top 50 and away games against the top 75). The only team ranked above them in NCAA Net with one or fewer Q1 wins is No. 29 VCU (1-1), and obviously the Rams had only two opportunities. That said, a win against Duke Saturday and/or a deep run in the ACC Tournament would bolster their case. The fact that the ACC is down this season doesn’t provide the statistical cushion and boost of years past. In short, unless the Heels win the ACC Tournament, it could go either way. But don’t be surprised if they hear their name called on Selection Sunday.

Masking Agent

Today’s dispatch from the Tar Heel State, my current home, regards brave legislators working to keep the citizenry safe. Or something like that. 

North Carolina’s Republican-controlled General Assembly recently passed a bill that potentially criminalizes the wearing of face masks for any reason other than as part of a costume. Because nothing reflects conservative ideology like restricting choice and making people think twice about how they look and react to their surroundings. 

NC House Bill 237 of course comes mounted on the mantel of law enforcement, hence its title: the Unmasking Mobs and Criminals bill. It would increase the penalties for those who commit crimes while wearing a face mask and attempting to conceal their identity. What it also does is repeal a measure that was instituted early in the COVID-19 pandemic that permitted the state or various localities to implement mask mandates in the name of public health. 

Republicans say they’re simply fighting crime. Critics of the bill say that the elderly or those with compromised immune systems, or those who simply want an extra layer of protection in crowds and public spaces, can now be targeted by the po-po for wearing a face mask. GOP Sen. Eldon “Buck” Newton, the bill’s sponsor and an attorney by trade, said he was befuddled about opposition to the measure, which passed the Senate 30-15 on straight party lines. He accused critics of a basic misunderstanding of law enforcement and of using scare tactics to suggest that anyone wearing a mask can be arrested. He told Charlotte’s ABC affiliate, “I would like to meet the law enforcement officer or the DA that wants to prosecute Granny for wearing a mask in the Walmart. Unless she got arrested sticking steaks in her bag and trying to conceal her identity – then I could see it happening – and that’s what this bill is designed to address.” 

Hard to argue with the earnest intentions of a man who after college served as an aide to conservative grenade launcher and noted race-baiter Sen. Jesse Helms, and who during a campaign for attorney general several years ago told a crowd that those who wave rainbow flags are “upset about the way things have always been in this state” and to go back and tell family and friends “how hard we must fight to keep our state straight.” 

The House bill’s face mask repeal received most of the attention, but the conservative majority also included down-bill language that would exempt religious institutions from having to follow executive orders or even state or local government orders and restrictions. It also ratcheted up criminal penalties for demonstrators who block roads and highways, and it allows for civil liability against demonstration organizers if emergency vehicles are ruled to have been impeded from reaching victims. Decide for yourself how latter parts of the bill “unmask” mobs and criminals. Or former parts of the bill, for that matter. 

To be fair, the bill hasn’t yet reached the state House of Representatives, so it’s not law. If and when it does, there’s no reason to think it won’t pass easily. The legislature has Republican veto-proof majorities in both chambers – 30-20 in the Senate, 71-49 in the House – thanks largely to gerrymandered voting districts that exist at both the state and Congressional level. 

The “Unmasking” bill is of a piece with a good deal of Republican legislation and posturing that’s often accompanied by appeals to freedom and fear. Eliminating face masks is about catching criminals. Punishing protesters is about law and order. Vaccine requirements and pandemic mitigation measures are unwanted government intrusion. Voter registration hurdles and voter roll purges are about election integrity despite scant evidence of fraud. Abortion restrictions aren’t about women’s rights and women’s health but the sanctity of human life. Measures to reduce gun violence are an assault on the Constitution. Immigration restrictions are about stemming the tide of all those illegal undesirables. Broad health care and expanded safety nets are socialist giveaways to people who don’t deserve it. Opposition to LGBTQ rights and bathroom accommodations is a bulwark against deviants and predators. Regulation and oversight of corporations are a drag on capitalism and free enterprise. 

Both sides of the political aisle are complicit in our present dysfunction. No getting around that. But it’s clear that some will discard masks to score cheap points in one area while using them elsewhere for greater gain.

Naked Politics

My least favorite law school class was Constitutional Law because, as I posited over a decade ago, "[a]ll that counts is what five out of nine middle-aged-to-elderly judges think."  What is constitutional one day might not be the next, simply because a president swapped in a new judge.  Similarly, what is constitutional one day might not be the next, simply because five of nine elderly judges want a different outcome.

For example, in 303 Creative LLC et al. v. Elensis et al., the Supreme Court held that a website designer does not have to design a website for a gay wedding when the designer believes that gay marriage is a sin and abetting the wedding would run counter to her Christian faith.  Writing for the majority, Justice Gorsuch observed:

Under Colorado’s logic, the government may compel anyone who speaks for pay on a given topic to accept all commissions on that same topic—no matter the underlying message—if the topic somehow implicates a customer’s statutorily protected trait. Taken seriously, that principle would allow the government to force all manner of artists, speechwriters, and others whose services involve speech to speak what they do not believe on pain of penalty. The government could require “an unwilling Muslim movie director to make a film with a Zionist message,” or “an atheist muralist to accept a commission celebrating Evangelical zeal,” so long as they would make films or murals for other members of the public with different messages. Equally, the government could force a male website designer married to another man to design websites for an organization that advocates against same-sex marriage. 

I understand what he's saying with these hypotheticals.  But does this also mean that a racist White person can refuse to make a website for an interracial wedding, effectively refusing to provide services to a Black person?  Justice Gorsuch refers to "all manner of artists"--how far does that extend?  Does the work of high-end chefs constitute art, and if so, can they refuse to provide their food to classes of people they don't like?  In other words, could a racist chef refuse to serve their food to Latinos?

Justice Sotomayor points to all of this and more in her dissent.  But the law of the land today appears to say, on First Amendment free speech grounds, that you can't force a business owner to provide "artistic" services to customers if the business owner does not agree with the content of the artistic work product.  I don't know how to reconcile that with discrimination.

via GIPHY

In another recent case, Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, the Supreme Court held that public and private universities cannot consider race during the admissions process.  The Court pointed to the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and said that this affirmative action process was discriminatory.  Chief Justice Roberts's majority opinion interestingly says:

At the same time, as all parties agree, nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise. But, despite the dissent’s assertion to the contrary, universities may not simply establish through application essays or other means the regime we hold unlawful today.

That's weird.  I never worked in a college admissions office, but I assume that no one other than the admissions staff reads the essays.  No one knows what any particular essay says other than the applicant and whoever reads it.  How can anyone police essay review?  Does this mean that applicants can't address their race in their essay unless they discuss "discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise"?  What does that mean?  And most importantly, doesn't this limit what the applicant can say in their essay--doesn't this restrain the applicant's speech?

Maybe not.  Perhaps the applicants can write whatever they want and it's up to the admissions staff to ignore inappropriate sentences.  But does forcing the admissions office to ignore those sentences effectively curtail the applicant's free speech?  What good is free speech if the audience isn't allowed to consider it?

More succinctly, I think Con Law is bullshit.  Sometimes free speech trumps anti-discriminatory laws, while other times anti-discriminatory laws can limit free speech.  When and how the rules apply depends on how nine old people in DC feel about the matter at hand and the outcome they desire.  Mitch McConnell's gaming of the Supreme Court confirmation process got us these decisions.  No matter what you may hear, the Supreme Court is a nakedly political body.  And as much as I approve of naked bodies, we don't need any at 1 First Street.

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TarHeelymander

The next installment of the Most Important Election of Our Lifetime is 18 months away, but the maneuvering and back-channel fuckery is well underway, if it ever ceased. 

I’ll try to keep this brief, because y’all come to this space for political yammering the way guys go to strip clubs for the cheeseburgers. Here in North Carolina, late last week the state Supreme Court overturned a previous ruling against partisan gerrymandered districts. That decision is expected to green-light the Republican-heavy legislature to re-draw districts that will give the GOP more seats in the House of Representatives in the 2024 elections. 

North Carolina is one of a handful of states building conservative legislative majorities disproportionate to actual voter trends, along with Wisconsin and Ohio, and to a lesser degree Georgia, Texas and Florida. The current redistricting kerfuffle began following the 2020 census, when NC’s population increased to the point where the state merited one more seat in the House, a 14th rep. The Republican-led legislature drew up maps that would have all but cemented 10 or 11 GOP seats. Dems and voting rights groups challenged. 

The very same state Supreme Court ruled in Feb. 2022 that state courts may reject district maps that give an unfair advantage to one party in a narrowly divided state and re-affirmed that decision late last year. 

A quick clarification – not the very same state Supreme Court. The previous court was split 4-3 with Democrats in the majority. Elections last November flipped the breakdown to a 5-2 Republican majority, and that was the margin last week. The chief justice wrote that the previous court overstepped its authority to find that the state constitution prohibited partisan gerrymandering, and that voting districts should come under the purview of the legislature. 

“There is no judicially manageable standard by which to adjudicate partisan gerrymandering claims,” wrote chief justice Paul Newby, which is some judicial jiu-jitsu that all but eliminates oversight and redress by anyone outside the gerrymandered legislature. 

North Carolina ought to be a purple state. It’s not. Some numbers: in the 2020 Congressional elections, 2.66 million people voted for Democrat candidates for the House of Representatives, and 2.63 million people voted for Republican candidates. Results seated eight Republican reps and five Democrat reps because of the way district maps were drawn (the results were 10 Rs and 3 Ds in 2018, when vote totals were 50.4 percent Republican and 48.3 percent Democrat). 

When the courts rejected the Republicans’ proposed maps after the 2020 census and used maps drawn up by judges and a more impartial election panel in the 2022 mid-terms, 1.94 million people voted for GOP candidates, 1.76 million voted for Democrats, and the state delegation to Washington D.C., was split 7-7. 

That ain’t happening again, largely because of the Supreme Court ruling and makeup of the state legislature. As of April 2023, Republicans control the NC House 72-48 and the state Senate 30-20, veto-proof margins against a Democrat governor or a rubber stamp for a GOP governor, again because of the state voting district map. The state GOP will get its 10 or 11 House seats. 

If you’re still reading and your eyes haven’t glazed over, you might point out that this is nothing new and that both parties are guilty of gerrymandering. Maryland, New York, Illinois and Oregon are current examples of Democrat district tinkering. Politics and all that. But on the Republican side of the ledger, I’d argue that the current setup is less about convincing voters that their positions are attractive and more about preserving power and limiting access to the “wrong” sort of voter, through legislative monkeying backed by a judiciary increasingly stacked with Dollar Tree Scalias. 

North Carolina is at the forefront of these efforts. Judges tossed a state voter ID measure in 2016 because they found that it “would target African Americans with almost surgical precision.” A Republican strategist named Thomas Hofeller, a California native who eventually settled in Raleigh, was one of the modern gurus of gerrymandering, working in North Carolina and multiple states to create bulletproof conservative districts. His estranged daughter obtained many of his files following his death in 2018 and released them to various media outlets. In a case that originated in NC, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments last term on so-called “independent state legislature theory,” a movement that would prohibit state judges and other officials from changing the rules on Federal elections. It’s unclear whether the court will rule on the case, now that the state Supreme Court has reversed its previous ruling. And in a tandem decision late last week, the state court also threw out a prior ruling that restored voting rights to convicted felons no longer in prison but who have not completed their parole or probation, a move that observers say likely will remove tens of thousands from voter rolls. 

The old saying goes that people get the government they deserve. My concern is that the slow march toward artificially constructed majorities will lessen the impact of overall vote counts, and we’ll end up with government we don’t.