The rise of the Special Interest Republicans | Eastern North Carolina Now

By:  John Steed

There was a time when most candidates running on the Republican line were at least generally conservative.  Now grassroots voters scratch their heads when they see a large block of Republican legislators vote for major liberal Democrat priorities like allowing men in ladies restrooms and locker rooms, the Green New Deal, and most recently the Obamacare Medicaid expansion.  All of these were pushed by legislative leaders Speaker Tim Moore and Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger and a significant part of the GOP delegation followed along behind them.

Voters ask “what has happened? Has there been a mass Jekyll and Hyde type transformation of conservatives into liberals?”  Not exactly.  What has happened is there has been a huge growth of GOP legislators who are more interested in serving the special interests than serving the voters back home. In the House, Speaker Tim Moore and his predecessor Thom Tillis have always functioned that way. In the Senate, President Pro Tem Phil Berger stood strong on conservative prinicples while Pat McCrory was governor but then flipped to being a special interest spear carrier after Roy Cooper became governor.

One big problem is that many special interests that used to not be flaming liberals have jumped on liberal policy to appease pushy liberals by “virtue signalling”.  A good example of that is the repeal of the bathroom privacy law, HB2, where polls showed the Republican position of keeping men out of ladies restrooms and locker rooms was popular, especially with the Republican voter base.  A growing number of big companies and other special interests, however, vigorously demanded that the law be changed.

In the 2016 election, Republicans stood firm on the bathroom privacy law, and in spite of wads of leftwing cash sent into the state against it, were rewarded by voters with a slight increase in seats. Standing on principle paid off for the Republican Party.  In less than a year, however, Berger and Moore caved in to the special interests and led an effort to repeal the bathroom privacy law, which saw about half of the GOP delegation also fall into line with the special interests.  The special interest Republicans then allied with the Democrats to enact this major leftwing policy of allowing biological men into women's restrooms.

In 2018 enough conservative voters abandoned the special interest Republicans who had sold them out on HB2 that Republicans suffered significant legislative losses, losing their supermajorities in both the House and Senate.  Berger and Moore caving in to the special interests rather than standing firm for Republican principles was what led to this disaster.  One would have thought they would have learned from that disaster but they haven't.

Repealing the bathroom privacy law was a major policy objective for Governor Cooper and the Democrats, but Berger and Moore kept going with pushing Cooper's major policy objectives because the special interests wanted them too.  These were also major national leftwing policy positions. Berger and Moore were the stalking horses to push through NC's radical Green New Deal, HB951, which is more extreme than even the European Union's Green Deal and have now pushed through the Obamacare Medicaid expansion.

Polls showed that the Republican base was against the repeal of HB2, against the Green New Deal, and against the Obamacare Medicaid expansion.  Republican Party organizations also communicated to legislators their displeasure with these measures, but the special interest Republicans ignored their own base to do the bidding of the special interests instead.  For the Green New Deal, it was “woke” electric monopoly Duke Energy and the wind and solar grifters, and for the Obamacare Medicaid expansion, it was Big Medicine.

One of the more egregious special interest bills this session was one to allow non-profit medical insurance giant Blue Cross, with about 80% of all medical coverage in NC, to hive off $4.6 Billion of excess reserves into a for-profit shell company, allowing them to do what they wanted with that money. Our Republican insurance commissioner says at least part of that money should be returned to customers, and that all of it should remain under the non-profit umbrella.  However, special interest Republican legislators are falling all over themselves to do Blue Cross's bidding.

One of the tools used by Moore and Berger to get individual legislators to go along with their sellouts to the special interests is that they collect a large amount of campaign contributions themselves from the special interests which they can then dole out to individual legislators who have a tough race. Special interests are buying their votes wholesale this way instead of having to give to individual legislators.  This is a very corrupt system.  Another very appalling tactic is to threaten Republicans who are loyal to principle with stopping money to their districts or passage of their own bills, which has happened this session.

Then, too, there are growing numbers of individual legislators playing the special interest game Take for example Senator Jim Perry (RINO-Kinston), who not only voted for the Green New Deal and the Obamacare Medicaid expansion, but was very active in pushing other legislators to do the same, working both the Senate and House.  If one looks at his campaign report, it is easy to see why.  His campaign was on the take in a big way from Big Medicine interests and also Duke Energy and the wind and solar grifters.  Perry is also an outspoken supporter of the Blue Cross special interest bill.

Republican voters want legislators who stand for conservative principles and the interests of the voters back home, not those who prostitute their office to the special interests.  To get back to the principled party we once had, Republican voters are going to need to pay attention in primaries and to nominate candidates who are principled, stand firm on the issues, and will represent the voters back home instead of the special interests.  They are also going to need the backbone to stand up to a very “bent” leadership.