My friend J and I have taken to haunting the halls of the N.C. General Assembly the past few weeks, dropping off notes and letters and talking with lawmakers regarding various bills that have been submitted to the N.C. House and Senate. Almost 2,000 bill have been submitted in the past 12 weeks, so lawmakers and N.C. voters have been scurrying to keep up with the onslaught of odious bills to restrict voting, restrict healthcare, restrict public education, restrict minority outreach, restrict public access to government goings-on ...
Well, you see the pattern here.
With all these restrictions, you'd think the Tar Heel State is moving toward smaller government, right? Not so. Not so. In fact, the state's Republican supermajority has been working at a feverish pace to expand state government authority and responsibilities.
Take, for instance, the Voter Information Verification Advisory (VIVA) bill. Is this bill addressing a need that hits taxpayers in the pocketbook? No. Is it a bill that addresses a wrong that needs to be righted? No. Is it a short-term cost to benefit the state in the longterm? No, not that, either.
It is, as titled, "an act to restore confidence in government" that will "promote the electoral process through education and increased registration."
And it's Republican pork that will add a new bureaucracy to implement and oversee voter ID cards without addressing actual instances of voter fraud that occur with absentee balloting, and that will cost a minimum of $3.6 million (not including infrastructure, office overhead, other expenditures for the new department/division).
