2012 Is Going To Be A Fun Year In NC Politics

It's only the fifth day of the new year, and already the General Assembly in Raleigh is entertaining. The wailing and gnashing of teeth coming from the democrat representatives is awesome to behold. This article in the Greensboro News and Record does a great job of explaining what happened and features some great gnashing of teeth quotes.

The long and short of it is this. The General Assembly was called back into session because the governor vetoed the Racial Justice Act. Failing to over-ride that, the Republicans took the house out of session and then back into session at zero-dark-thirty last night to over-ride the governor's veto of another bill. In this they were successful. This new law, which also passed the senate, will stop the state from automatically deducting dues for the North Carolina Education Association from teachers' paychecks. The NCEA will have to collect it's dues from it's membership all by itself. Democrats find this highly disturbing.

You see, the NCEA spent a good part of those dues last year trying to defeat Republicans, and also targeting any Democrats that fell out of step with the party line. Make no mistake, this was a political move on the part of the Republicans. They are trying to defund a part of the Democrat election machine, but the opposition to it from Democrats is just as partisan. They will claim this is an attack on education, on teachers and on the American Way, but really they worry that teachers may not be as willing to pony up dues money if they have to write the checks themselves, and that will lead to an emptier Democrat war chest come election time.

Whatever the motive, in my opinion this is a great idea from the Republicans. If the NCEA serves it's members well, they will pay dues. If not, they won't. That's the way it should work.