It looked like North Carolina Democrats has dodged a bullet after the midterm elections, with the GOP coming one seat shy of securing a 2/3 majority in the General Assembly that would allow them to override Democratic Govenor Roy Cooper’s vetoes. However, it’s being reported that Rep. Tricia Cotham (D) will switch parties this morning to give the GOP supermajority control in the chamber.
She’s a bit of an odd candidate for a party switch – she won her district by 20 points in November and ran on raising the minimum wage to at least $15 per hour, championing LGBTQ rights, expanding Medicaid, and access to voting and affordable housing. I’m guessing she was just flat-out bought.
Either that or she has observed the Joe Manchin is more powerful than Joe Biden. And she wants to be that magic person who can say yes or no and have the outcome controlled by her vote alone.
Couldn’t she do that without switching parties, though? She could be like Sinema, a lone standout Democrat who plays both sides and is the centrist linchpin. None of that requires her to register as (R).
I’m guessing that in addition to her vote on individual voting matters, her (R) establishes which of the two parties gets to chair this and that, which of the two parties’ primo chieftains is in charge of the body politic (think Mitch McConnell or Kevin McWhatshisface), and she’s handing that over to the R folks.
I do wonder if there’s some internal Democratic party bullshit going on here. She won her district by 20 points in the general election, which should indicate this is a fairly safe Democratic district. But the article (sorry about the paywall but it’s almost impossible these days to find good non-paywall sites) says that it was a closely contested primary, so maybe she’s gotten in trouble with her base and figures better to take her chances as a Republican.
No, Republicans already have a solid majority in the General Assembly and fully control the chamber. Her switch gives them the 2/3 majority that will let them override the Democratic Governor’s vetoes.
But as the R who gives them a 2/3rd majority she’s the one who can say “Kiss my feet or say goodbye to your 2/3rds majority and the dictatorial powers that confers.”
I find it very hard to believe that she’s going to be a moderating influence on North Carolina Republicans. Assuming she doesn’t just peace out after this term and take a high-paying job with a GOP-aligned organization, she has about a year to convince Republican primary voters in her district to select her as their candidate. Given that she’s been a lifelong Democrat and some of her past positions and votes, that’s going to be an uphill climb. She will need the full support of the GOP party apparatus, which she’ll only get if she plays ball with the Republican agenda.
She can demand favors and under-the-table goodies from either party. But she can’t help the Ds from that position any more than she could from a D seat. All she can do from her new position is screw the Ds once she’s ransomed herself to the Rs.
In effect she advertising Armageddon for the Ds to the highest bidder. If the Rs pay more the Ds get permanently destroyed. If the Ds pay more, they don’t get destroyed … today. But there’s always tomorrow.
Not in this case. Republicans have a clear legislative majority so the only possible change would be veto override which she wouldn’t actually need to trade parties for.
This seems likely to me. From the article it sounds like she thought the other Democrats were being mean to her. Presumably the Republicans turned on the charm to lure her in. Eventually they will get around to eating her face.
Since as I said above, there isn’t any leadership of committee balance at stake its not entirely clear what difference this really makes. So long as she keeps voting pro choice, and pro LGBTQ and against voter suppression it doesn’t matter what letter she has next to her name.
But she won’t. The whole reason Republicans welcomed her to the club was so that she can be the final vote they need to overturn vetoes on their bills to gut abortion rights, enact anti-trans legislation and pass draconian voting restrictions. If she balks at sustaining these veto overrides, she’ll be ostracized by both Republicans and Democrats. At most, Republicans may throw her a couple superficial sops to allow her to say how she “moderated” the bills before she votes for them.
You may be right, we’ll see. Her complaint was the the Dems wouldn’t let her vote as she liked, which could mean that she is was a closet Republican who just ran as a Dem because she lived in a Dem district, or it could mean that she is very independent in her views and won’t bend them to fit the party in which case she might resist the Republicans more outrageous legislation. Of course it may also just be that she is petulant and difficult to work with and will gladly let the Republicans screw over her constituency out of spite against the Dems she thinks wronged her. Only time will tell.
Maybe her constituents could recall her. Nope, no recall provision in NC. Maybe people could do a ballot initiative to put recall in the state constitution. Nope, no such provision either.
It didn’t take long to find out — Cotham voted with NC Republicans for a 12-weeks abortion ban. It passed on a party line vote, which thanks to her means that Republicans can override an expected veto.
Reviving this thread over reporting that Cotham was initially encouraged to run for her state legislative district as a Democrat by top Republicans in the state – raising the question whether her party switch was planned all along.
And Cotham’s party switch pays off yet again for the GOP, which passed redistricting that will likely flip 3-4 Democratic Congressional seats to the GOP and cement the Republican supermajority in the state legislature for the rest of the decade. The map carves out for Cotham herself a nice little Republican district to replace the heavily Democratic district she ran in and betrayed last year.
