Damaging the NC Constitution is far worse than toppling Silent Sam

The hypocrisy meter for the North Carolina legislature broke long ago as the Republican leadership’s outrages wore its gears smooth. But even if it was working, it likely couldn’t fully measure the gap between saying and doing coming from legislative leaders last week.

House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate leader Phil Berger sputtered with indignation about “a mob” of protesters who toppled Silent Sam in Chapel Hill. They called for the protesters to be punished even as they themselves are leading an assault on the North Carolina Constitution that will continue during yet another special session on Monday.

Berger condemned the attack on the Confederate monument on UNC-CH’s campus in a statement that said: “Only a civil society that adheres to the rule of law can heal these wounds and politicians – from the Governor down to the local District Attorney – must start that process by ending the deceitful mischaracterization of violent riots as ‘rallies’ and reestablishing the rule of law in each of our state’s cities and counties.”

The Senate leader extolled “the rule of law” twice in one sentence, but he hasn’t shown much interest in it since taking over the Senate almost eight years ago. Mostly, the General Assembly has been guided by “the rule of Berger.” He presides over a process that ignores Democrats’ dissent and punishes it in his own caucus. He dismisses public opinion and has little time for public hearings. With regularity, this legislature – seated under an illegal redistricting scheme – passes laws that are found to be unconstitutional. So much for the rule of law.

Adding to his inconsistency, Berger’s statement also blasted the “deceitful mischaracterization” of the protests as rallies. That came shortly after a three-judge panel rejected two of the GOP’s six proposed constitutional amendments for using language that mischaracterized the real nature of the proposed changes.

There are legitimate concerns about vandalism and the risk of injury when a crowd attacks a monument or any property, no matter what the motives of those involved. But Republican lawmakers have no room to criticize such an event – an event their monument protection law all but invited – when they are engaged in a kind of vandalism of their own with far more serious effects. They don’t tear down statues. They put up destructive statutes. How marred was the state’s image by the HB2 fiasco? How damaged has been the health of working poor people by the spiteful withholding of Medicaid expansion? How many children have had their education stunted by the woeful underfunding of schools?

Berger and Moore have dismissed the warnings. They’re marching on the Constitution like a two-man mob. All that stands between them and real damage are the courts and, yes, the rule of law.