NORTH CAROLINA OPEN THREAD Sunday, December 12, 2021
343rd Weekly Edition
This is a weekly feature of North Carolina Blue. We hope this weekly platform gives readers interested in North Carolina politics a place to share their knowledge, insight and inspiration as we work on taking back our state from some of the most extreme Republicans in the nation. Please join us every week. You can also join the discussion in four other weekly State Open Threads.
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Covid data 12/12/2021 1:00pm EDT
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USA NC Total Cases New Cases Total Deaths New Deaths Total Recovered Active Cases 1,566,269 18,976 1,503,247 44,046
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Please jump the fold for links to stories I hope you find interesting, useful and timely. The floor is yours.
GOP redistricting plans give rise to a trio of court challenges — here’s where things stand
NC Policy Watch ,Lynn Bonner,12/8/2021
With 2022 primaries looming, plaintiffs hope to secure speedy review by the state Supreme Court
State courts are wading into the bare-knuckle fight over new congressional and legislative districts that Republicans say are just fine, but Democrats and outside evaluators argue are heavily skewed to the GOP’s advantage.
Three lawsuits have been filed against the redistricting plans, but all have been dealt setbacks in lower courts.
The NC League of Conservation Voters is challenging the congressional and legislative districts, saying the plans are unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders and dilute minority votes.
North Carolina voters tend to split their choices about evenly between Democrats and Republicans, but Republicans will win nine or 10 of the state’s 14 congressional seats even if voter preferences shift significantly toward Democrats, the lawsuit says.
Editorial: Jeopardizing public trust in N.C. Courts impartiality
WRAL, Editorial, 12,9,2021
The current turmoil over the status of congressional and legislative elections – and the gerrymandering of election districts that is at the heart of the matter – is threatening public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of our state’s courts.
Some partisan players, such as Republican state Sen. Paul Newton, have been quick to complain about some judges while lauding others. He is highlighting the state’s unfortunate return to politically partisan election of judges -- Republican reimposed starting in 2015. Since then, the Republican-dominated legislature has turned aside several ground-breaking reforms that provided for non-partisan judicial elections and public funding of judicial campaigns.
Newton, legislative leader Phil Berger’s lieutenant for gerrymandering matters, wasn’t happy early Monday when a three-judge North Carolina Court of Appeals panel ordered a temporary stop to candidate filings for congressional and legislative offices amid challenges to the maps drawn for election districts.
NC SUPREME COURT HALTS CANDIDATE FILING, POSTPONES PRIMARY
BlueNC, 12/9/2021
North Carolina’s 2022 primary election must be delayed — as gerrymandering lawsuits play out that could lead to redrawn districts — the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled Wednesday. It’s a win for the liberal voters and groups that have challenged the new political maps for those races as being unconstitutionally gerrymandered, and a loss for the Republican lawmakers who drew the maps. All primaries, not just the ones using disputed maps for U.S. House and the state House and Senate, are being delayed to May 17 from March 8.
The maps in question would give the GOP a sizable advantage in future elections, likely helping Republicans win a majority of seats even if Democrats win a majority of the statewide vote, according to several outside analyses. And they will be used in every election for the next decade — unless a court forces them to be redrawn, which Democrats are rooting for.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/election/article256425341.html
Cawthorn-Meadows Bonus
Jan. 6 Committee Examines PowerPoint Document Sent to Meadows
New York Times, Luke Broadwater and Alan Feuer, 12/10/2021
WASHINGTON — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol is scrutinizing a 38-page PowerPoint document filled with extreme plans to overturn the 2020 election that Mark Meadows, the last chief of staff to President Donald J. Trump, has turned over to the panel.
The document recommended that Mr. Trump declare a national emergency to delay the certification of the election results and included a claim that China and Venezuela had obtained control over the voting infrastructure in a majority of states.
A lawyer for Mr. Meadows, George J. Terwilliger III, said on Friday that Mr. Meadows provided the document to the committee because he merely received it by email in his inbox and did nothing with it.“We produced the document because it wasn’t privileged,” Mr. Terwilliger said.
Phil Waldron, a retired Army colonel and an influential voice in the movement to challenge the election, said on Friday from a bar he owns outside Austin, Texas, that he had circulated the document — titled “Election Fraud, Foreign Interference & Options for 6 JAN” — among Mr. Trump’s allies and on Capitol Hill before the attack. Mr. Waldron said that he did not personally send the document to Mr. Meadows, but that it was possible someone on his team had passed it along to the former chief of staff.
Mark Meadows PowerPoint Plan to Overturn Election Results Revealed
NEWSWEEK, Ewan Palmer, 12/10/2021
ormer White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows handed over a PowerPoint presentation to the House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol that details how the Trump administration planned to overturn the 2020 election results, including by declaring a national emergency.
The 38-page presentation, entitled "Election Fraud, Foreign Interference & Options for 6 Jan," is dated one day before the Capitol riot. It's believed to have been submitted by Meadows after he was subpoenaed by the panel in connection with the insurrection.
The slides contained a series of recommendations for Donald Trump and his administration to follow ahead of the certification of the electoral votes ceremony to declare Joe Biden the winner.
REVEALED: Mark Meadows possessed 'insane' blueprint for military seizing ballots after Trump's 2020 defeat
Raw Story, David Edwards, 12/9/2021
Details of documents in the possession of former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows show that there was a blueprint for members of the National Guard and U.S. Marshals to take control of the U.S. election system following former President Donald Trump's defeat.
Author Karen Piper reviewed portions of the slideshow and concluded that it was "nuts." It's the craziest thing I've ever seen," Piper wrote on Twitter. She also described the document as "insane."
One slide explains how National Guard in each state would be federalized to count only "legitimate" paper ballots. Meanwhile, U.S. Marshals would be tasked with providing a "protective perimeter around the locations."
"A Trusted Lead Counter will be appointed with authority from the POTUS to direct the actions of select federalized National Guard units and support from DOJ, DHS and other US government agencies as needed to complete a recount of the legal paper ballots for the federal elections in all 50 states," the document states.
Madison Cawthorn may have broken the law during meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago: report
Raw Story, John Wright, 12/8/2021
A flier that North Carolina GOP Congressman Madison Cawthorn shared with former president Donald Trump and others during a meeting at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday appears to violate House ethics rules.
"The document, titled 'Congressman Cawthorn's Plan for North Carolina,' contains a map of North Carolina's newly approved congressional districts," Raleigh-Durham's WTVD Channel 11 reported Wednesday. "The map also contains the names and pictures of the candidates Cawthorn envisions running for 11 of 14 districts, all of which are forecasted to be either landslide victories for Republicans or in just one case, a highly competitive race."
During the meeting, Trump "brokered a deal" to clear the North Carolina Republican Senate field for GOP Rep. Ted Budd, his endorsed candidate, according to Politico. The former president agreed to endorse former GOP Rep. Mark Walker, who is currently in third place in the Senate primary, if Walker leaves the race and runs again for the House instead.
"This is the flier Rep. Madison Cawthorn passed out at the meeting with Trump, Mark Walker, Bo Hines and David McIntosh (Club for Growth) on Saturday," Natalie Allison wrote on Twitter, above an image of flier.
Meadows text messages reveal he secretly chatted with GOP members about an election overthrow plot
Raw Story, Sarah Kay Burris, 12/8/2021
Mark Meadows shared some of the contacts he had in or around Jan. 6 involving the White House's attempts to stop the certification of the 2020 election, according to a letter from the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol and what led to it.
According to the Committee's Chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), Meadows had a conversation with a member of Congress who suggested an alternative slate of electors. The member confessed that the idea would be a "highly controversial" one, but Meadows still said, "I love it."
"The text messages you did produce include a Nov. 6, 2020, text exchange with a Member of Congress apparently about appointing alternate electors in certain states as part of a plan that the Member acknowledged would be 'highly controversial' and to which Mr. Meadows apparently said, 'I love it'; an early Jan. 2021 text message exchange between Mr. Meadows and an organizer of the Jan. 6 rally on the Ellipse and text messages about the need for the former President to issue a public statement that could have stopped the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol," an excerpt of the letter from Thompson to Meadows' lawyer says.
Madison Cawthorn invited a GOP candidate on the House floor in apparent violation of rules
Raw Story, Travis Gettys, 11/8/2021
Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) appears to have violated congressional rules by inviting a Republican candidate onto the U.S. House floor. Republican lawmakers were surprised to see House candidate Robby Starbuck, of Tennessee, on the floor during votes Tuesday evening, and they told The Hill's Scott Wong the GOP hopeful had been invited there by Cawthorn.
"For a candidate for Congress to walk around on the floor and talk to people, I found it to be very bizarre," one GOP lawmaker said, adding it was "without a doubt" a violation of House rules unless the Sergeant at Arms gave him permission.
According to House rules, only current and former members are allowed to step onto the floor, and sometimes staffers who are managing time.
Starbuck posted a photo of himself hours earlier with Cawthorn and Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) at the U.S. Capitol.
Thanks for reading and contributing, I hope you have a safe week.
Thanks for reading and contributing, I hope you have a safe week.