Morgan Ouster Ignores Political Realities
Scott Mooneyham
May 27, 2004

RALEIGH -- Not all that long ago, one of North Carolina 's most prominent Republicans conspired with Democrats to raise taxes.  Standing on the floor of the state House, he endorsed an increase in the local option sales tax as a way out of the financial mess then facing government. Democrats who controlled the legislature used the statement as political cover to eventually raise taxes by $600 million, money used to dig out of a budget shortfall.

It's a good thing former Gov. Jim Martin isn't in office today. The North Carolina Republican Party would likely excommunicate him. Heck, they might even strike his name from any documents linking him to their organization.

That's essentially what the state party recently did to House Co-Speaker Richard Morgan, ousting him from its 533-member executive committee.  In its resolution, the party found the Moore County legislator guilty of "disloyalty to the party" for entering into a coalition with Democrats. It determined that his political agenda is "different from and injurious" to the party.

The resolution also concluded that Morgan helped design unconstitutional legislative district maps that could prevent the GOP from obtaining a majority. (Never mind that President Bush's Justice Department found the maps to be constitutional.)

Many of the Republican Party activists who dominate the GOP's executive committee might tell you that Jim Martin governed in a far different era, one in which the balance of power overwhelmingly tilted in the Democrats' favor.

Martin's power was largely limited to the executive branch agencies that he controlled. He had no veto. Democrats dominated both chambers of the legislature.

But has the political landscape really changed that much? Sure, we hear all the time how North Carolina has become a two-party state. The electorate often sends Republicans off to Washington, and the state House and Senate are controlled by the slimmest of margins.

Even so, the changes of the last decade or two haven't altered this simple fact: Republicans control practically none of North Carolina 's political institutions.

Republican Party activists bent on Morgan's ouster for the past year seem unable to grasp that reality. Democrats still control the governor's mansion, the state agencies and the Senate. When Morgan was elected co-speaker, the House was evenly divided at 60-60 among the two parties.  The state Supreme Court is about the only thing that Republicans can claim to control.

Republicans in positions of power, like Morgan, have to cooperate with Democrats to accomplish anything in this state.

But the resolution pushing Morgan out of the GOP's executive committee implies that, if he were a better Republican, he could somehow get around House Democrats and fashion more favorable redistricting maps. If he were a better Republican, he could make Mike Easley eat his veto stamp. If he were a better Republican, he could make the Democratic Senate disappear while repealing the 2001 sales and income tax hikes.

Morgan knows politics doesn't work that way.

So did Jim Martin.

Some North Carolina Republicans still don't.