Editorial: Tillis reveals ruthless ends-justify-the-means reign in legislature

If North Carolinians sense their leaders in the General Assembly don’t care about their view or priorities, U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis – who served as N.C. House Speaker from 2012 through 2014 – has just confirmed their worst suspicions.

Tillis boasted of stripping away old legislative rules and procedures that demanded open debate and replacing them with new ones, as the Politico article summed up to “churn out big wins guided by the Koch brothers-backed American Legislative Exchange Council.”

Tillis called out those legislators who want democratic debate and public participation as a bunch of whiners:

“When people are fundamentally opposed to the policy, they start screaming process. It’s hard to debate the result. They may not like the process, but if they don’t like the process, change the rules. Otherwise you should use whatever rules are available to produce the outcome,” he said.

In North Carolina, not only does the Republican majority rule, but it makes new rules and new laws, such as gerrymandering electoral districts and making it difficult for certain people to vote – all in an “anything goes” way of doing business to maintain their power.

Critical proposals and major changes suddenly appear in unrelated legislation and become law in hours – without discussion in committees or public hearings.

For Tillis and the state legislative leaders that served with him, democracy ends at the threshold of the Legislative Building. The views and input of North Carolinians that aren’t in lock-step with their vision are, at best, of minor concern. Facts don’t matter. If ideologically imposed solutions mean 500,000 people are denied health insurance, public schools are disrupted and short-changed and unemployed workers are denied benefits, so be it.

In the interview, Tillis mocks fellow Republican Sen. John McCain’s call for a return to “regular order, letting committees of jurisdiction do the principal work of crafting legislation and letting the full Senate debate and amend their efforts.”

Tillis sees all that as old fashioned, quaint and irrelevant.

“I hope our state can have a thoughtful dialogue on how to modernize, reform, and strengthen it in the coming months,” said Berger in the news release that announced the committee. It’s a bit late for that. Don’t be fooled, what Berger really wants is some political theater to provide cover for what’s being imposed.

Their goal isn’t a government that provides for the needs of citizens, it is about imposing ideological rigidity and crushing those who might hold differing points of view.

In real democracies, like those envisioned by the founders of this nation and state, discussions and debates come BEFORE laws are passed. If Berger and the other leaders of the General Assembly are sincere in wanting to modernize the state’s judicial system and how judges are selected, they should be proactive and take an unbiased and deliberative approach.

How about a fresh start? Let’s set aside the bad laws and create a truly representative judicial reform study commission to provide guidance. That commission should rightly include people with firsthand knowledge of the system -- prosecutors, court administrators, judges and justices along with those who practice law and knowledgeable members of the general public.

Granted, that kind of “regular order” approach isn’t the strong-arm bullying that Tillis boasts about and Berger’s imposes on other lawmakers. But it IS the way elected officials who REALLY believe in representative government and REALLY are concerned for the public will go about their business.

It might be that history will not remember what you did but history will remember how you did it