Registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans 42.7 percent to 30.1 percent in North Carolina, with only 20 percent of voters approving of the job the GOP-led state legislature is doing. Nevertheless, North Carolina has voted for a Republican in eight of the last 10 presidential elections, and Republicans have impressively engineered very conservative policies in the past year. Here's how they accomplished the latter.
Step 1: Find a rich guy
To begin transforming your state into one that doesn't represent the stated values of a plurality of your constituents, you need to find a man with a dream of reform and millions to spare. In North Carolina, that man is Art Pope.
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Step 2: Spend!
Pope poured $2.2 million into 22 state legislature races in 2012 (as well as various gerrymandering efforts), and helped Republicans take 18 out of 22 seats up for grabs. In 2012, he again poured over $2 million into the race, leading to a Republican victory in 9 out of 13 now-gerrymandered seats, despite the fact that 51 percent of voters chose a Democrat.
Step 3: Once in power, waste no time
A political party is veto-proof when it holds the majority in both the House and Senate, like North Carolina Republicans do. If this is the case, you might as well change as many policies as you can, as quickly as you can. Speed is very important here — the slower you roll out policies, the greater the chance of a mass revolt.
Step 4: Fully commit
North Carolina has the fifth-highest unemployment rate in the country, so rejecting long-term federal unemployment insurance might seem rash. But, as they say, you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs…or 170,000, in North Carolina's case. That's how many residents lost their unemployment benefits since this law was passed.
Step 5: Don't hesitate to alienate specific demographics
You don't have to fight everybody. Try taking on specific demographics, preferably powerless ones.
Take the example of how North Carolina shortchanged children. Since the smartest kids will magically find their way to private schools, North Carolina is reallocating $90 million in public school funds to private schools. The state ranks 46th in per-capita education dollars. Who is going to raise a fuss if it slips a little further — certainly not the kids, they can't vote!
Step 6: Ruffle the right feathers
Similarly, it can be fun to piss off certain people. The bills to establish an official state religion and force people on welfare to submit to drug testing didn't pass, but they did anger liberals countrywide. The ACLU called the welfare bill "unconstitutional, scientifically unsound, fiscally irresponsible." Sometimes victory is not as sweet as messing with people along the way.
Step 7: Hide contentious bills
What if you want to pass something serious that will affect a lot of people? Hide it.
North Carolina passed legislation that requires abortion clinics to mirror the structure of outpatient surgical centers, specifying the physical presence of a doctor during abortions, even when a woman is taking the RU486 pill. This is a prime example of what to do when you don't think a law will pass on its own: Bury it among the details of another bill, like…let's say…a bill for motorcycle safety.
Step 8: Ignore resistance
By now, many, many people are going to hate you, but that's okay.
Take North Carolina's recent gun bill as an example. The state ranks 15th in the country for gun violence, so it shouldn't be surprising that constituents don't like a new law that allows anyone to bring a gun into parks, schools, and bars. Seventy-three percent of voters are opposed to concealed weapons in bars, 69 percent are opposed to weapons on college campuses, and 65 percent are opposed to them in parks.
You can always just throw peskily resistant people in jail. After one protest in Raleigh, 89 people were jailed for the night. Who cares what kind of approval ratings you have as long as you get everything done before the next election?
Step 9: Make it hard for people who oppose you to vote
Of course, it would be nice to win that election, wouldn't it? So follow this time-tested method to weight the odds in your favor: Make it as difficult as possible for your opposition to vote.
North Carolina now requires voters to present a government-issued photo ID at the polls, keeping some traditionally Democratic voters like students and low-income individuals from casting their ballots. Smart! Other measures that passed include ending same-day registration, cutting early voting by a week, and only permitting citizens to vote in their specific precinct, which is often confusing since several urban precincts can be housed in the same building.
Step 10: Circumvent the federal government…
Sometimes the threats come from without, not from within. If the feds do come knocking on your door (e.g., the Justice Department's suit against North Carolina over that voting law) insist that your law is a "necessary" and "fair" way to prevent some completely made-up problem, like voter fraud. That should hold them off for awhile. If "necessary" and "fair" don't cut it, bring in the big guns: "Commonsense reform." Booyah!
Step 11: …Except when you can learn from the federal government
This is just as important as knowing when to ignore the government.
There's a special kinship between the actions of Republican lawmakers in North Carolina and the recent actions of Republicans in Congress who caused the federal government shutdown. Namely: They're all Tea Partiers. While 72 percent of Americans disapprove of the shutdown, 57 percent of Tea Party supporters give it an A for Awesome. So when in doubt, do like the House does and happily lead your little clique off a political cliff.
