This story was originally posted in October 2016.
“Are we really talking about this?”
Pat McCrory asked incredulously about HB 2 in a September campaign ad.
Yes, Pat. We are.
The governor has his reasons for wanting to change the subject. Last year, he was facing the prospect of a tough but winnable reelection challenge against the state’s popular sixteen-year attorney general. McCrory, for all his many missteps, controversies, and abysmal policy decisions, had benefited from a tech boom and a (slowly) recovering economy, especially in the state’s urban areas, a phenomenon he dubbed the “Carolina Comeback.”
This year changed all of that.
Starting with the March special session that gave birth to HB 2the infamous “bathroom bill” that did lots of other terrible stuff, tooMcCrory has been exposed for what he’s been all along: a bumbling coward who has rolled over for the far-right General Assembly. Following one screw-up with another from a state epidemiologist accusing the administration of lying about the safety of drinking water to repeated half-truths about HB 2McCrory has proven himself completely unfit for the office he holds.
Here, we’ve compiled an indictment of sorts against America’s worst governor, a list of sixty-six reasons we left hundreds more on the cutting-room floor why Pat McCrory needs to get the hell out of our Executive Mansion. To be clear, this isn’t a fair and balanced story. It’s not objective. But it is the damn truth.
McCrory & Civil Rights
1. McCrory didn’t order the March 23 special session that produced HB 2 (Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest and House Speaker Tim Moore did that), but he signed it. And not only did he sign it, he signed it that nightless than twelve hours after it had been introducedwhile half the legislature was still trying to figure out what was in the thing. (NPR, March 24, 2016)
2. HB 2 has cost the state a pretty penny: $230 million by Facing South‘s estimate and as much as $395 million according to Wired. The state has lost the NBA All-Star Game, NCAA tournaments, ACC tournament games, a PayPal expansion, a Deutsche Bank expansion, countless concerts, and more. (INDY Week, September 21, 2016)
3. HB 2 also put billions of dollars in federal education funding at risk, after the Obama administration ruled that HB 2 constituted a violation of Title IX and issued a directive making clear that the state must “ensure nondiscrimination on the basis of sex,” which “requires schools to provide transgender students equal access to educational programs and activities even in circumstances in which other students, parents, or community members raise objections or concerns.” (Indeed, perhaps the law’s one silver lining is that it forced the White House to take a stand on transgender rights.) North Carolina (along with twenty-three other states) sued the U.S. Department of Justice in several difference cases; fortunately, the administration has agreed not to halt the funds while those cases make their way through the courts. (The Washington Post, May 13, 2016; Politico, July 8, 2016)
4. McCrory was apparently willing to raid disaster relief funds to pay the HB 2 legal bills. An end-of-session “budget correction” moved $500,000 from the state’s disaster relief fund to defend the many lawsuits over HB 2; Senate Majority Leader Harry Brown told WRAL that the “governor asked for it.” McCrory neither signed nor vetoed the bill, which became law; after a public outcry, the administration said it wouldn’t use the money and denied ever asking for it in the first place. (WRAL, June 30, 2016; The News & Observer, August 5, 2016)
5. While McCrory has acknowledged that HB 2 could cost the state $300 million, he refuses to accept responsibility for it. Since March, McCrory has blamed the HB 2 fallout on, among others, “the left,” Attorney General Roy Cooper, Charlotte mayor Jennifer Roberts, the Human Rights Campaign, President Obama, the NBA, Demi Lovato, and a Jonas brother. (N&O, April 26, 2016)
6. Amid the backlash, McCrory went on Meet the Press and said that the “Human Rights Council”he meant the Human Rights Campaignwas “more powerful than the NRA.” This is objectively false: the NRA spent $350 for every $1 HRC spent on ads, mailers, and other political efforts during the 2012 and 2014 cycles. (NBC News, April 17, 2016; Politifact, April 21, 2016)
7. McCrory acknowledges that transgender former Olympian Caitlyn Jenner is a woman, but thinks she should use the men’s locker room anyway. As he put it at a debate, “If she’s going to a shower facility at UNC-Chapel Hill after running around the track, she’s gonna use the men’s shower.” This points to a fundamental misunderstanding of the lives of transgender people, which is why he probably shouldn’t have signed a law that codified his ignorance into state statutes. (YouTube, October 11, 2016)
8. McCrory thinks transphobia makes for a good laugh line (and he’s not particularly good at telling jokes). At a July rally for Donald Trump in Winston-Salem, he said, “We’ve got a big crowd, so if you need to leave suddenly, we’ve got exits this way, exits this way, and exits this way. And if any of you need to use the restrooms …” [Cheering.] “… And if you have any questions, go to the Philadelphia convention, where all the Democrats are!” (Fusion, July 26, 2016)
9. McCrory believes that he’s the real victim of intolerance. At a Family Research Council event, the governor accused the HRC of causing him and his wife to be ostracized by friends and charities. “It’s almost like the George Orwell book 1984,” he complained, “where if you disagree with Big Brother, or you go against the thought police, you will be purged and you will disappear.” (BuzzFeed, October 10, 2016)
10. While defending HB 2, McCrory said Congress should rethink civil rights laws: “Frankly, I think there’s a time where the Republicans and the Democrats in this Congress need to revisit the 1964 Civil Rights Act and revisit all this issue,” McCrory told CNN’s Jake Tapper, referring to transgender rights. (Mic, May 12, 2016)
11. In September, Judge Thomas Schroeder, a George W. Bush appointee, granted the plaintiffs in the HB 2 case a preliminary injunction, barring UNC from enforcing the law. But HB 2 isn’t the only time legislation McCrory signed has run afoul of federal courts this year. In July, the Fourth District Court of Appeals struck down the state’s voting law, which imposed some of the most stringent voting restrictions in the country, cutting early voting days, eliminating same-day registration, and requiring a photo ID at the polls. The Fourth Circuit said that the law was “enacted with racially discriminatory intent.” (The Atlantic, August 26, 2016; The Washington Post, July 29, 2016)
12. At an October 11 debate, McCrory seemed to endorse racial profiling. When asked if implicit bias was a factor in policing, McCrory responded, “There’s bias in all of us, it’s not necessarily racial bias. There might be bias in how we dress, how we look, the environment that we might be in. Those are tools that police use to determine what action to take.” (ThinkProgress, October 11, 2016)
13. In October 2015, McCrory signed a bill banning “sanctuary cities,” or municipalities that prohibit their local police forces from asking residents about their immigration status or issuing forms of ID for undocumented immigrants. The law makes it less likely that undocumented immigrants will report crimes to authorities. (WRAL, October 28, 2015)
14. After signing HB 318, which stripped municipalities of the ability to direct their police departments not to ask about immigration status, McCrory sat down with ABC11’s Jon Camp for an interview. Minutes into it, he grew irritated with Camp’s use of the word “undocumented.” “Illegal, excuse me, you say your station apparently has a rule where you can’t use the term ‘illegal,’ but these are illegal immigrants coming into our nation.” (ABC11, October 29, 2015)
15. Earlier this year, McCrory signed HB 972, a bill that restricts police body-camera footage so that only the police can decide whether or not to show the footage to anyone, even if the person requesting it is on the recording. The law which critics worry will further erode trust between the police and African-American communities also says that the footage can only be released to the public following a court order. (ABC11, July 12, 2016)
McCrory & Social Issues
16. During the 2012 campaign, McCrory promised to not sign any new restrictions on abortion. But in 2013 he signed a law that applied the same outpatient-surgical-center standards to abortion clinics and excluded abortion coverage from city and county health plans. McCrory broke his promise again two years later, signing a law requiring women to wait seventy-two hours before getting an abortion and doctors who perform abortions after fourteen weeks to supply an ultrasound to the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services. McCrory argued that these were “common-sense measures aimed at protecting women’s health,” and thus did not break his pledge. (USA Today, July 29, 2013; The New York Times, January 10, 2016)
17. “Basically,” says NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina executive director Tara Romano, “the last four years have brought North Carolina a seventy-two-hour waiting period, medically unnecessary clinic and provider requirements, the collection of private ultrasounds, and state funding for anti-abortion pregnancy centers. They’ve cut funding for Planned Parenthood and restricted private health insurance in the [Affordable Care Act] marketplace from offering abortion care coverage. … Taken as a whole, these actions make it difficult both for abortion providers to practice in North Carolina and for patients seeking abortion to access safe care.” (Email from Tara Romano, October 20)
18. In 2013, McCrory signed the repeal of the Racial Justice Act, which eliminated the ability of death row inmates to challenge their sentences on racial grounds. When he signed it, he called that provision a “loophole.” Some examples of this “loophole”: In one 2012 case, brought by three condemned inmates, a judge found that racial discrimination in jury selection “is further supported by statements by attorneys and judges acknowledging that the practice continues and is visible.” In the same year, a court found statistical bias in the use of the death penalty. Both cases were challenged under the Racial Justice Act. (CNN, June 20, 2013; North Carolina v. Robinson, 2012; North Carolina v. Golphin et al., 2012)
19. In 2015, McCrory signed a bill that removes the requirement for a physician to be present during executions and excluded the names of execution-drug manufacturers from public records. The death penalty is effectively illegal in North Carolina; the state has not executed anyone in a decade, due to legal challenges and the unwillingness of manufacturers to sell the lethal drugs, but McCrory wants to bring it back. (N&O, August 6, 2015)
McCrory & His Pals
20. Soon after winning four years ago, McCrory appointed conservative mega-donor Art Pope as the state’s budget director, where Pope oversaw, among other things, the elimination of public funding for judicial races and the slashing of funds for the UNC system. When Pope stepped down, McCrory replaced him with another Republican mega-donor, Lee Roberts. (The Charlotte Observer, August 6, 2014)
21. McCrory also tapped Aldona Wosanother Republican donor who contributed thousands to McCrory’s first two campaigns for governor to run the DHHS. During her two-plus years as head of the agency, Wos repeatedly said Medicaid was “broken” and laid the groundwork for its privatization, which was approved by the legislature (and McCrory) the month after she stepped down. (WRAL, March 26, 2014; INDY Week, August 12, 2015)
22. Wos once gave an employee of her husband’s company $228,000 to be an advisor for eight months, and paid $37,227 to a chief of staff who resigned after a month. During her tenure, she also gave a pair of twenty-four-year-olds who worked on McCrory’s 2012 campaign $22,000-plus raises to do jobs in which they had little experience: communications director Ricky Diaz got $85,000 a year, and chief policy advisor Matthew McKillip got $87,500. Diaz worked at the DHHS for less than a year; he’s now McCrory’s campaign spokesman. (WRAL, March 26, 2014.; N.C. Policy Watch, August 13, 2014)
23. Over the objections of secretary of public safety Frank Perry, McCrory instructed Perry to renew a $3 million contract with a political donor, Charlotte developer Graeme Keith. According to Perry, during a meeting with McCrory and Perry, Keith said that he had given a lot of money to candidates running for public office, and he was due something in return. McCrory said that he didn’t hear the comment: “Had I heard it, I would have walked out.” (N&O, October 30, 2015)
McCrory & Poor People
24. McCrory’s refusal to expand Medicaid has resulted in five hundred thousand residents remaining uninsured, six and a half years after the passage of the Affordable Care Act. In 2014, Harvard and City University of New York researchers estimated that, due to that decision, between 455 and 1,145 North Carolinians die each year because they don’t have health insurance. (N.C. Health News, May 26, 2016; Health Affairs, January 30, 2014)
25. McCrory signed a bill eliminating the state-earned income tax credit, a crucial benefit for working-class families. Nearly a million low- and moderate-income residents ended up paying more in taxes because of it. (N.C. Policy Watch, January 31, 2014)
26. Since McCrory took office, North Carolina has moved from a progressive income tax system to a 5.75 percent flat tax, which disproportionately benefits the wealthy. ThinkProgress estimated that someone who makes $1 million per year receives a $10,000 tax cut, while the bottom 80 percent have seen their taxes go up because deductions were eliminated. (ThinkProgress, January 14, 2014)
27. North Carolina has also drastically slashed corporate income tax rates from 6.9 percent in 2013 to 3 percent next year. “North Carolina’s business tax rate will now be the lowest in the nation among states with a business income tax,” McCrory boasted. (McCrory press release, August 2, 2016)
28. To make up for lost income tax revenue, budgets signed by McCrory expanded the sales tax to include things like auto repairs, which further shifts the burden to working-class families. A 2015 Institution on Taxation and Economic Policy report found that families making less than $80,000 per year80 percent of the state’s tax base were paying around 9 percent of their family income on taxes, while the top 1 percent were paying just 5.3 percent. (N&O, February 27, 2016; Institute on Taxation of Economic Policy, January 2015)
29. In 2015, McCrory signed a bill forcing food stamp beneficiaries to “prove” they were working, volunteering, or taking classes at least twenty hours a week. But, as a 2015 University of California at Berkeley study found, there is at least one working adult in 56 percent of families receiving welfare. The problem is these people don’t make a living wage and state law, signed by McCrory, prohibits cities from increasing the $7.25-an-hour wage floor. (N&O, January 9, 2016; UC-Berkeley Labor Center, April 13, 2005)
30. Soon after taking office, McCrory signed a bill that curtailed unemployment insurance in the state, even as the state’s workforce was recovering from the recession and its unemployment rate stood above 9 percent. The bill cut the maximum weekly benefit from $535 to $350 and reduced the number of weeks a person could receive it from twenty-six to twenty. (ThinkProgress, February 19, 2013)
31. Despite McCrory’s claims of a “Carolina Comeback,” upward mobility is lackluster at best. A 2016 report by the Durham-based research center MDC showed that “only about one-third of children born into North Carolina families making less than $25,000 annually manage to climb into middle- and upper-income levels as adults.” (MDC, “State of the South,” April 2016)
32. That same report also found that a single parent with one child “needs an income of $21 an hour to cover basic living expenses in North Carolina, yet only 26 percent of full-time jobs pay median earnings of that amount.” (MDC, “State of the South,” April 2016)
McCrory & Schools
33. When the recession started in 2008, per-pupil spending in North Carolina was $8,867; seven years later, the expected per-pupil spending in 2015–16 is $8,898an improvement of $31one of the lowest rates in the country. Public Schools First, a pro-public-education group, estimated that, adjusted for inflation, per-pupil spending is nearly $700 lower than it was pre-recession. Some of these cuts occurred before McCrory took office, and federal stimulus money propped up the schools for a while, but funding hasn’t returned to its previous level even after the economy recovered. Instead, McCrory signed bills creating and later boosting the school voucher program, which awards up to $10 million per year to private schools. (Public Schools First NC, July 27, 2016; INDY Week, June 1, 2016)
34. Textbook funding was reduced from $68 per student in 2007–08 to $15 per student in 2014–15, a 78 percent reduction; instructional supplies were cut by more than half, from $59 per student in 2007–08 to $28 in 2014–15. These cuts have sometimes forced teachers to pay for supplies out of their own pockets. The Asheville Citizen-Times reported in August that the money for supplies in Asheville schools had dropped from $215,530 in 2007–08 to $136,802 this year. One teacher estimated that she and her husband, another teacher, spend more than $500 for supplies. Here again, some of these cuts began before McCrory took office, but they’ve also remained stagnant under his watch, even as the economy has improved. (N.C. Department of Public Instruction, 2015; Asheville Citizen-Times, August 10, 2016)
35. North Carolina teachers are fleeing the state’s public schools. As EducationWeek wrote last October, “North Carolina lost about 2,700 teachers last year due to causes that suggest personal dissatisfaction with the state’s public schools, whether through outright exit from the profession, poaching by other states, or early retirement.” In 2009–10, 11.1 percent of North Carolina teachers left during or after the school year; by 2014–15, teacher turnover was at nearly 15 percent. (EducationWeek, October 13, 2015; INDY Week, September 28, 2016)
36. Since 2010, the Department of Public Instruction’s budget has been cut by more than $19.4 million, which led to the loss of more than two hundred jobs at the state’s education agency. This, despite the fact that, as DPI superintendent June Atkinson told N.C. Policy Watch, the agency only spends 6 percent of its budget on administration. (N.C. Policy Watch, August 4, 2016)
37. In 2016not coincidentally, an election year the legislature and McCrory raised teacher pay. But McCrory’s claims that average teacher salaries will reach $50,000 don’t tell the whole story; up to two-thirds of North Carolina teachers don’t make anywhere near that, and local governments are usually expected to kick something in, meaning McCrory is taking credit for local governments’ actions. (The Charlotte Observer, August 31, 2016)
38. Since 2008, state funding per UNC system student has dropped nearly 16 percent, even as tuition costs have shot up more than 42 percent. “I worry about the impact additional reductions will have on our ability to provide high-quality educational opportunities to our residents and to assist in North Carolina’s economic recovery,” UNC President Tom Ross said of McCrory’s first budget in 2013. Republicans then stacked the UNC Board of Governors with other Republicans, who forced Ross out less than two years later and replaced him with former Bush administration official Margaret Spellings. (N.C. Policy Watch, December 11, 2015; WRAL, March 20, 2013; N.C. Policy Watch, January 20, 2015)
McCrory & The Environment
39. In December 2012, McCrory appointed John Skvarla, the CEO of the Raleigh-based Restoration Systems, as secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. Skvarla, the head of an enforcement agency, erred on the side of industry: in 2013, Skvarla presided over just $518,000 in fines, down from an average of $2 million a year in the mid-2000s. (N&O, December 2, 2014)
40. Skvarlaagain, the head of an environmental regulatory agency in a state whose coastal areas are endangered by rising sea levels is something of a climate change skeptic. As he once told WRAL, “I think climate change is a science and I think science is constantly in need of scrutiny.” (WRAL, January 4, 2013)
41. McCrory feels much the same way: “I don’t get caught up in the ‘quote’ global warming debate because I frankly think there are some things that are out of our control. It’s in God’s hands,” McCrory told WHKY in 2008. In 2014, McCrory was pressed on it again on Face the Nation: “The debate is, really, how much of it is man-made and how much will it cost to have any impact on climate change.” (WHKY, April 17, 2008; WRAL, February 16, 2014)
42. A Center for Public Integrity analysis found that, although three North Carolina plants were among the top one hundred emitters of greenhouse gases, air-quality-related penalties at DENR (now the Department of Environmental Quality) dropped 93 percent from 2011–14, and enforcement actions were cut by more than half. (N&O, October 13, 2016)
43. The McCrory administration was one of twenty-four states to sue the federal government over the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, the Obama administration’s attempt to stem the emissions of greenhouse gases. Because Attorney General (and McCrory’s opponent) Roy Cooper refused to represent the state, North Carolina was the only state to be represented in court by its environmental regulatory agency. (Public News Service, October 27, 2015; The Washington Post, February 9, 2016)
44. McCrory was an executive for nearly three decades at Duke Energy before his election as governor including 13 years of his tenure as Charlotte’s mayor. After the 2014 Dan River coal ash spill, regulators fined Duke $25 million for “daily penalties dating back to 2012 for pollution violations.” Later, though, they reduced that to $6.6 million. Duke Energy is worth $57 billion. (Associated Press, August 22, 2016)
45. In 2015, McCrory had a private dinner with Duke Energy officials at the Executive Mansion. When asked about that meeting during a gubernatorial debate, McCrory claimed that the conversation was about a veto of a coal ash cleanup bill. That seems incorrect; McCrory vetoed a bill creating a commission to oversee the coal ash cleanup in 2014 (which was overridden, and later taken to the N.C. Supreme Court) and another this year. He didn’t veto anything related to coal ash in 2015. (WRAL, October 17, 2016)
46. McCrory failed to disclose his holdings in Duke Energy after the company’s coal ash spilled into the Dan River. McCrory sold his stock after the spill, which spokesman Josh Ellis said was done to “stop the constant, unfounded challenges of the governor’s character.” (N&O, August 13, 2014)
47. McCrory’s chief of staff, Thomas Stith, called a late-night press conference on August 1 to accuse state toxicologist Kenneth Rudo of lying in a sworn deposition. In that deposition, Rudo said administration officials misled the public about the safety of drinking water near Duke Energy’s coal ash ponds. It turned out that Stith hadn’t even read Rudo’s testimony; in his own deposition, Stith said that Ellis was his source. (N.C. Policy Watch, October 4, 2016)
48. That same week, two top McCrory administration officials, DEQ assistant secretary Tom Reeder and state health director Kenneth Williams, wrote a letter to media outlets criticizing Rudo for “questionable and unscientific conclusions.” Rudo’s crime? Suggesting that the DHHS should be more cautious about telling people whose water was contaminated by coal ash that the water was safe to drink. (WNCN, August 9, 2016)
49. After this “open editorial,” state epidemiologist Megan Davies Rudo’s boss resigned with a letter of her own: “Upon reading the open editorial yesterday evening, I can only conclude that the Department’s leadership is fully aware that this document misinforms the public,” Davies wrote. “I cannot work for a Department and Administration that deliberately misleads the public.” (N.C. Health News, August 12, 2016)
50. Last week, we learned through a newly released deposition that McCrory’s communications team had in fact ordered DHHS officials to tell well owners that their water met federal standards, over the objection of a state scientist. Previously, the governor’s office had said that agency experts had reached a consensus that the water was safe. (WRAL, October 20, 2016)
51. Although the McCrory administration said that cleaning up Jordan Lake was a “top priority,” McCrory’s regulators gave legislators the idea to buy SolarBees for Jordan Lake, in lieu of regulations to crack down on pollution entering the lake downstream. In March, the DEQ released a draft report saying that these devices don’t work; in response, officials pulled the report down from the website and from the agenda of the Environmental Management Commission. (N&O, November 24, 2015; INDY Week, April 6, 2016)
McCrory & Republicans
52. “There’s a lack of engagement; there’s a lack of relationships,” Representative Chuck McGrady, R-Henderson, said of McCrory last year. “It’s like he doesn’t understand what our job is. And some of my colleagues think he doesn’t understand what his job is.” (N&O, July 25, 2015)
53. Because of his strained relationship with fellow Republicans, McCrory has often exerted little influence over the policies coming out of the legislature and instead has become a willing participant to the extremism of Senate leader Phil Berger and the House leadership. For example: in an email to an opponent of HB 2, McCrory’s legal counsel said McCrory talked to a “large number of legislators” about his opposition to the bill but signed it anyway, because he knew his veto would be swiftly overridden. Presumably, he didn’t want to appear feckless when, in fact, that’s exactly what he was. (The Charlotte Observer, October 18, 2016)
McCrory & Transparency
54. Last year, the INDY, five other media outlets, the N.C. Justice Center, and the Southern Environmental Law Center sued the administration because McCrory’s staff doesn’t answer public records requests in a timely manner, as required by state law. (INDY Week, July 21, 2015)
55. It hasn’t gotten better: between March and August, this reporter made eight records requests to the governor’s communications director. Only one has been fulfilled. An example: Progress NC rented out the Executive Mansion for a Garden Party Against Hate on July 13. But a few hours before the event was about to start, the administration abruptly canceled it, citing the political nature of the event. The INDY requested records related to that cancellation two days later. We’re still waiting for a response. (INDY Week, July 13, 2016; INDY Week, October 12, 2016)
56. This year, McCrory signed HB 972, a bill that restricted body-camera footage so that a) only police could decide whether or not to show the footage to anyone, even if the person who requests it is on the recording; and b) the only way the footage can be released to the public is via court order. This, police accountability advocates say, undermines the very transparency and accountability body cams are supposed to foster. As ACLU policy counsel Susanna Birdsong told the N&O, “Giving law enforcement such broad authority to keep video footage secret even from individuals who are filmed will damage law enforcement’s ability to build trust with the public.” (HB 972 bill text; N&O, June 29, 2016)
McCrory & Good Governance
57. The administration of McCrory, who once said that “when the feds are investigating you, that is very, very serious,” has been investigated by the feds over the governor’s relationship with Duke, expensive contracts at the DHHS, and the aforementioned Graeme Keith prison contract. Those investigations ended without charges being brought. (WNCN, October 31, 2010; N&O, September 25, 2015; N&O, October 30, 2015)
58. McCrory eliminated a tax credit that helped bring film productions to North Carolina, which hit Wilmington especially hard. Between 2014 and 2015, Wilmington Film Commission director Johnny Griffin told the INDY earlier this year, the industry’s contribution to the local economy dropped from $170 million to $90 million. In August, McCrory replaced film posters at the Department of Administration with a poster bearing an image of a smiling McCrory with the text, “Teacher Pay to $50K.” (INDY Week, August 31, 2016; Raleigh Agenda, August 25, 2016)
59. Twice in McCrory’s tenure, the U.S. Department of Agriculture threatened to withdraw funding from the state, citing the DHHS’s failure to get food stamp benefits to needy families in a timely fashion. “The State’s chronically poor performance in timeliness is in direct conflict with application processing statutory and regulatory provisions meant to protect a low-income household’s right to receive nutrition assistance in a timely manner,” a USDA administrator wrote to the DHHS in 2015. (WRAL, May 26, 2015)
60. McCrory, who won in 2012 thanks, in part, to more than sixty thousand votes along the I-77 corridor, supported putting toll lanes on that interstate. The $650 million project’s contract will make it difficult for the state to add additional free lanes for the next half-century. In the last session, the House voted to rescind the contract with Spanish company Cintra, which was building the toll lanes (the first time the state has outsourced the building of roads to a private company), but the Senate didn’t act. (The Charlotte Observer, January 22, 2016; The Charlotte Observer, June 21, 2016; Charlotte Magazine, March 16, 2016)
61. In 2015, McCrory signed a bill that sought to ensure a Republican majority on the N.C. Supreme Court which, in turn, would create one less check on the legislature’s far-right ambitions through the invention of a retention election for conservative justice Robert Edmunds, meaning he would face no opponent. Under the law, had a majority of voters declined to retain Edmunds, McCrory would have picked his replacement. A state court ruled that bill unconstitutional, and earlier this year, in a 3–3 deadlock (Edmunds abstained), the N.C. Supreme Court declined to overrule it. (INDY Week, May 18, 2016)
McCrory & Donald
62. McCrory stayed neutral in the Republican primary, but on June 7 he endorsed Trump. This despite the litany of terrible things Donald Trump had said: implying a Mexican judge couldn’t be impartial, suggesting we ban Muslims from entering the country, saying there needs to be some form of “punishment” for women who get abortions, etc. (WRAL, June 7, 2016)
63. McCrory not only supported Trump, but he also appeared with him at rallies, including a July 25 Winston-Salem rally and an August event in Wilmington. During his speech in Wilmington, Trump said, “If [Clinton] gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.” Many observers saw this as Trump hinting at Clinton’s assassination. McCrory blamed Clinton: “I don’t think anyone in the auditorium even recognized there was controversy until Hillary Clinton tweets came out and made it into a controversy.” In fact, there was an outcry on Twitter well before the Clinton campaign joined the fray. (The New York Times, August 9, 2016; N&O, August 11, 2016)
64. After a tape surfaced in which Trump said that, because he was famous, he could do anything to women, including “grab ’em by the pussy,” McCrory, who has said both that he signed HB 2 to protect women and that he found Trump’s comments “disgusting,” still backed him. (WRAL, October 9, 2016)
65. Like Trump, McCrory has consistently said there’s no system to vet Syrian refugees. He was one of about two dozen governors to ask the federal government to stop sending them Syrian refugees after the attack in Paris last November. He’s wrong: refugee vetting is done by multiple federal agencies as well as the United Nations and takes up to two years. (The Charlotte Observer, November 16, 2015; Politifact, June 13, 2016)
66. In an October 11 debate, McCrory was asked if Trump was a role model. McCrory initially said no, but when pressed, responded with this doozy: “I think what makes him a role model is, uh, where he does stand strong on certain issues that need to be said, especially from outside Washington, D.C.” What does that even mean? (YouTube, October 11, 2016)
