Well, it’s official.
Senator Berger and Representative Moore have gotten their greatest reward from the hyperpartisan gerrymandering that has been to the Supreme Court twice only to fall on deaf ears and North Carolina’s voters being left to fend for themselves.
With the defection of Mecklenburg County’s Representative Tricia Cotham who was elected as a Democrat in the 112th District by double-digits to the Republicans, they now have the outright super-majority in the NC House and can override Governor Cooper’s vetoes at will with the already existing super-majority in the NC Senate.
In fact, she was already helpful to what was already a working super-majority in the House where absent Democrats would make it easier for the Republicans to get the one vote they didn’t already have in their pocket to override a veto.
Traditionally, it was custom that when a member of one party was going to be absent for medical or other reasons, they’d always be “paired” with someone from the opposing party so that the outcome of the vote would still be in line with the partisan mix of elected members of the chamber.
That went out the window when the NC “Education” Lottery was enacted under the cover of darkness when the Democrats refused to pair off an absent Republican member and the bill was rammed through. Ever since, we’ve seen critical votes on Jones Street depend more on who showed up in the chamber on a given day and without the usual 24 hours notice so that everyone who could get to the Legislature was afforded the opportunity to do so.
Such was the case when Rep Cotham was one of three Democrats absent the day the House decided to override the Governor’s veto of SB-41 which has now effectively destroyed the gun permitting system overseen by the sheriffs which acted as a partial fail safe system should a person fall through the loopholes of the federal background check system.
Seeing all of the smiles on the faces of prominent Republicans that they’ve managed to turn Rep Cotham as they took a victory lap or two in the press conference announcing the formal defection was hardly surprising.
Here were some of the more interesting reasons she gave for switching parties in no particular order:
- “It became very clear to me early on, in January, that you better vote in line with everything Governor Cooper tells you to do, from signing onto bills, to [letting Cooper] pick your seat on the House floor, to your committee requests—all of this sense of control,” said Cotham. “I will not be controlled by anyone.”
- Democratic-aligned groups attacking Rep Cotham on social media as well as her 12 year-old son receiving text messages.
- Female colleagues criticising her choice of colour of outfit or length of hair.
- Told to stay away from Democratic caucus meetings and called a “traitor” and “spy” for having worked with members across the aisle because “they were concerned” Cotham would share information with Republicans.
- Being assigned a “shadow chair” by the Democrats to keep tabs on her when she was made chair of the Education Committee (she was a teacher prior to her first election to the General Assembly) and generally being shunned and dubbed a traitor for accepting the job from a Republican Speaker.
I have no idea how true any of her allegations are about how the Democratic Party operates behind closed doors versus out in the open but I also have no reason to doubt her sincerity that those were compelling enough reasons for her to make the switch.
I will say that if her accusations of direct messaging her children are true, then the Democratic Party needs to not only stop that immediately but they also need to apologise profusely to her and her children. No political party or operative should *EVER* target the families of the politicians with hate and abuse, especially the children of the politician and definitely those that are under the age of majority are completely off limits. They did not put their names on the ballot paper standing for election and should not be the target of the dirty tricks squads political parties are known to have.
Where I start to get some increasing feelings of grodiness when it comes to her stated reason for switching is that if those were truly the straws that broke that donkey’s back and made her wish to be elephantine…why has she waited until *NOW* to make the switch?
It’s not like she would have been unaware of how the Democratic Party works when the cameras are pointed the other direction and/or the doors are closed to the public.
- Her mother who is a current Commissioner in Mecklenburg County was a former member of the Democratic National Committee.
- Her ex-husband was Jerry Meek, former chairman of the NC Democratic Party.
I have no doubts that the “top-heavy” operation of the Democratic Party in this state is nothing new and she should have been well-aware all along the fleas that come with the donkey.
Even more concerning is that the platform she ran on to be elected just last year after a several year break due to an unsuccessful run for the US House in North Carolina’s 12th District in 2016 would seem to be diametrically opposed in almost every way to the stated Republican platform and legislation they are currently filing and ramming through the General Assembly.
Increasing the minimum wage? They cannot have less interest in that happening.
Protecting LGBTQ citizens? Six bills filed in the last month alone targeting transgender people as well as being the reason North Carolina was a pariah thanks to the passage of the HB-2 “bathroom bill” puts the GOP squarely in the homophobic category.
Abortion rights and the right of women to autonomy over decisions for their own body? If the Republicans had their way and felt they could get away with it with the electorate, they’d ban abortion outright. As it is, they’re trying to float the idea of a ban at 13 weeks down from the current 20 weeks that came back into play when Roe v Wade (1973) went down in flames in a partisan vote in the Supreme Court last year.
And if she thought the name calling and bullying she complained of was bad before, I can only imagine how much worse it is going to get from a very pissed Democratic caucus who now has absolutely no reason to be nice to her in the political arena.
I do believe it’s more than a little crass and hypocritical for the Democrats to call her a traitor which should be reserved for people who are actual traitors to this country like the insurrectionists on January 6th (whether they’re officially charged with crimes or awaiting indicting) or those who give aid and comfort to the enemies of our country against the interests of the people of the United States.
But I do think the Democrats have a point that the more honourable course would have been to resign her seat and allow her constituency to choose someone else to represent their views. Whether she likes it or not, she was elected from a majority Democrat district and benefited from financial and political support from the party and now switching to the Republicans essentially deprives those citizens of the representative they thought they were electing, especially if she’s instrumental in enacting the policies they were vehemently voting against when they chose her on their ballot papers.
I don’t see her choosing that honourable option and absent the electoral maps being even further gerrymandered so that the GOP could engineer a safe seat for her somewhere near Mecklenburg County, I think she’s got a real problem on her hands in terms of her political future.
That brings me to another feeling of grodiness…we have no idea what promises were made to Cotham by the Republicans to engineer her switching parties and handing them the super-majority.
I’m sure we’ll figure them out soon enough but as I noted above, she’s going to need a radical overhaul to the electoral maps in Mecklenburg which is predominantly Democrat-leaning in order to be re-elected anywhere near Charlotte in 2024.
Maybe she made the switch because the Republicans have promised her a shot at the higher office that she aspired to in 2016 but failed in the primary by falling to Rep Alma Adams who has represented the 12th District since Mel Watt resigned. They certainly have monkeyed with the Congressional maps enough to find her one to successfully run. The 11th District immediately comes to mind as it’s just west of Charlotte and encompasses Asheville which is Democratic-leaning compared to the rest of the District and was infamously represented by Madison Cawthorn (yeah, that guy). I can’t imagine Chuck Edwards being thrilled with that idea after all of the effort he put in to the primary to send Cawthorn packing.
I’m at a loss to imagine what else they could have promised her that would have gotten her to switch. Her platform and theirs would seem to have little to nothing in common and I don’t see the GOP moderating their stance on any of the issues she’d campaigned on especially now that she’s handed them the super-majority by which they can ram every last bit of divisive and hateful legislation through that they possibly can now that Governor Cooper has no effective way to stop them.
Maybe it was just enough for them to promise to be nicer to her than the Democratic caucus.
And that’s what brings me to yet another feeling of grodiness…how many innocent North Carolinians are going to suffer and be persecuted with her assistance.
One of her complaints was that the Democratic Party was run in a very heavy top-down fashion which shouldn’t have been a surprise to her and seemed to do well by her political aspirations both in her first stint in the House and getting elected in 2022.
In fact, Rep Bishop from NC’s 8th District had this to say at the press conference where she announced her official switch in front of many smiling Republicans:
“We’ll probably still have disagreements from time to time, but this latest development in which a major party cannot abide dissenters on particular issues within its ranks is something that is bad for America. I’ve never seen that in the Republican Party.”
Rep Dan Bishop (NC-8)
I could probably drop a decent sized strategic nuclear weapon on Rep Bishop’s statement and still not manage to destroy all of the hypocrisy within it.
For those who don’t know, Bishop was the architect of the infamous HB-2 (the “bathroom bill”) and the only one to speak against it’s repeal. He was also all-in on obstructing the certification of the 2020 Presidential election results.
But his statement above is just plain farcical in light of seeing Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney losing their seats in the House for refusing to toe the Republican line on the election that made former President Trump…well, former President Trump. They committed the cardinal sins of refusing to support the claims of fraud during the election, voting for Trump’s second impeachment for his role in inciting the insurrection, and were the only two Republicans to serve on the select committee that investigated the attack on the Capitol.
Kinzinger chose not to seek re-election after he’d been effectively threatened with his Trump-endorsed opponent getting all of the resources he’d need to primary Kinzinger out of his seat and Liz Cheney ended up contesting her primary and losing to another Trump-endorsed opponent who showed the threat was real.
Former President Trump owns the Republican Party. Senate Minority Leader McConnell has an iron-clad control of his caucus in the Senate and the tortured election of Rep Kevin McCarthy as Speaker after having made deals with Trump-endorsed extremists who pretty much have ensured that he is Speaker in name only speaks volumes.
The stink of fear of being primaried by Trump that emanates from pretty much everyone you see in the Republican caucus is the only thing that makes that caucus even appear to have more homogeneous and harmonious views. When you see the brutal political consequences for daring to challenge Trump’s dictat, it’s understandable why the vast majority of them prefer not to speak at all or if they do, it’s as if they’re the dummy with Trump’s hand up their backside manipulating their mouth in an act of ventriloquism.
So getting back to the matter at hand, I’ve no doubts that Berger and Moore have told the rest of the GOP delegation on Jones Street to play nice with Rep Cotham and not make her immediately regret her switch. I’ve no doubts that there have been promises made that we’ll only know of well down the road.
And that brings me to my final point of why Rep Cotham finds herself dancing on a ring of hell I don’t even think she realises and unless she’s been promised full support in an ultra-safe Republican district or some administration job in a future Republican presidency, I don’t see her continuing her political career as a legislator after 2024.
She was angered at being thought a “traitor” and a “spy” by her Democrat colleagues.
I can imagine she’s more than a little angry that they’ve come right out and called her that publicly after her switch.
But there’s a funny thing about the Game of SpooksTM when it comes to defectors:
They’re never completely trusted by the side they’re defecting to.
If Rep Cotham thinks about it for even a second, she should realise the reason why…having defected once, what is to stop the person from defecting again when they feel disrespected or even the slightest pressure to do so?
She was elected on a platform of political views developed over many years that the GOP positively hates.
She might well be useful to their needs now to essentially circumvent the expressed will of the majority of the people of North Carolina that are consistently against the Jones Street mob passing hate-filled and persecution-ridden legislation that was never requested by the citizenry.
But what about a few months from now when the cameras of the media are focused on some other crisis du jour?
If she is of a mind that she wants to continue in the legislative game, she’s going to have to accept going along with legislation she spent most of her political life opposing. Berger and Moore are assuredly going to quietly keep an eye on her (perhaps more discreetly than the Democrats did) because no one who has ever managed a defector ever lets them completely out of their sight. They can’t afford to so as to avoid being blindsided by another defection and/or double-dealing.
She’s openly distrusted by those she has forsaken and distrusted by those who welcomed her with open arms publicly but privately will have their doubts about her fidelity to their cause. She will constantly have to toe the line between her political ambitions and her political survival where the deals she’ll be party to will get worse and worse over time.
Only Rep Cotham will be able to say in the fullness of time whether her defection and abandonment of the principles she supposedly ran on was worth it or not.
I suspect that she will find out the hard way that most defectors usually come to the conclusion that it wasn’t when the promises that were made don’t come true or the hard lessons learnt after a decision that was made in haste and anger come home to haunt her in her dreams.