Susan Marshall: Turnabout will come for GOP

Regarding the Dec. 17 news article “GOP cites Hunt’s ouster of workers”: As is the national pattern, the N.C. GOP thinks that if it just repeats falsehoods enough it will be accepted as fact.

Sen. Chad Barefoot claimed that House Bill 17 “undoes the power grabs that Democrats did 20 and 40 years ago.” Patently false.

It was four years ago that the GOP-dominated NCGA increased the number of state employees its Republican governor could hire and fire from 400 to 1,500. Now for a Democrat governor, it has to undo that “power grab” and create new ones, by moving authority from newly elected Democrats to Republicans.

Instead of packing the N.C. Supreme Court the legislators moved authority to the Republican-dominated Court of Appeals. Since the courts have consistently negated their gerrymandering efforts, they’re trying this new tactic to maintain their stranglehold on the state.

This is how the N.C. GOP operates – it refuses to lose. If those pesky voters don’t cooperate, the GOP circumvents them to keep control in its party.

I can only imagine the Republicans’ outrage when Democrats regain control of the legislature and the tables are turned. They’ve set the precedent, they’ll have to live with it.

This story was originally published December 23, 2016 at 6:08 PM with the headline "Susan Marshall: Turnabout will come for GOP."