Sharon McDonald: Don’t rely on ‘majority of the majority’

So, as noted in the Jan. 17 news article “Cooper says he’s in talks about repeal of House Bill 2,” our GOP Senate leader Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore do not want to vote on a repeal of HB2 unless they have a majority of the GOP legislators on their side. They want a “majority of the majority” to vote their way, or they won’t call for a vote, even though it appears that there are enough votes for repeal if Republican and Democratic votes are counted.

Apparently, they are following the bad example of the U.S. House of Representatives, which also uses the informal “majority of the majority” rule (The Hastert Rule), to limit the power of the minority party to bring legislation up for a vote on the floor. But that does not make it right and does not further our democratic process, either in the U.S. Congress or in the N.C. General Assembly.

Our legislators should do the job they were elected to do. Let’s have a vote on HB2!

This story was originally published January 26, 2017 at 10:26 AM with the headline "Sharon McDonald: Don’t rely on ‘majority of the majority’."