Our Founding Fathers understood that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Many of us have forgotten that. We live in a busy, complicated world, and it is hard to stay tuned to the nuances of the political world around us and how those nuances impact our lives. In recent years there has been a power struggle between the political class and ordinary citizens attempting to exercise their voice in America‘s government. We are a Representative Republic–not a Democracy, and unfortunately we have reached a point where we have a political class that does not always respond to the needs of the people they are supposed to represent. In fact, in many cases, the political class desires only to hold on to their power to the detriment of the people they are supposed to represent. We are seeing that situation unfold today in the North Carolina legislature.
On July 26, I posted an article about the date of the North Carolina Presidential Primary. If the Primary Election took place in February, North Carolina would lose most of its delegates. If the Primary Election took place before March 15th, the delegates would be awarded proportionally, giving more weight to the delegates of the liberal states that hold later primary elections. Having the Primary Election before March 15th allowed the more liberal establishment Republicans to control the outcome–the desired outcome of the establishment being the nomination of Jeb Bush. The North Carolina legislature has written a bill to change the date to March 15th, which would solve the problem. Unfortunately, the establishment Republicans have decided to add a poison pill to the bill. If the bill is passed with the “Affiliated Party Organization” Amendment, it will strip the existing state Republican Party of its power. Why would they want to do that? Because at the North Carolina GOP Convention this summer, two political outsiders were chosen to head the party.
The Daily Haymaker posted the details of the story yesterday.
The article explains:
Since that happened (the election of political outsiders to lead the party) at the NCGOP’s June convention, party establishment insiders have been scheming about how to wrest control of the funds from these *filthy tea partiers.*
There have been attempts to go around the two new elected party chieftains by inserting highly loyal (to the establishment) senior staffers inside the party HQ. Several attempts at that have failed, and it appears another one is on the way to doing so.
House insiders are hot under the collar about these last minute changes. One quipped to me that the bill should be renamed “The Shumaker-Stewart-Leis-Dollar Retirement Guarantee Fund.”
Basically, these changes allow for Jones Street “honorables” to create FOUR new party organizations THEY FULLY CONTROL and thereby weaken / neuter their existing party apparatus. It’s establishment weasels thumbing their noses at the worker bees outside the beltline.
It is time for the American people to take back their government. This begins at the local and state level. The “Affiliated Party Organization” Amendment is an effort by the political class to prevent the average citizen from having a voice in the government. The Amendment was introduced by State Rep. David Lewis (R-Harnett), chairman of the House Rules Committee. The Primary Election needs to be moved to March 15th, but not in a bill that includes this amendment. The establishment Republicans in North Carolina should be ashamed of themselves. The people of North Carolina need to stand up and take back their state. They began with the election of Hasan Harnett and Michele Nix to lead the party. Now we need to fight to make sure what we have done stays in place.