NC worse than GA

Here in Georgia, in our Republican dominated state government, we have things like the governor's refusal to expand Medicaid, expanding "carry everywhere" gun laws, ethics shenanigans, manipulation of the process to amend the constitution to let the politicians and corporate interests control charter schools.   And a few other bad things.

But in North Carolina, here's what they've just done.    According to a state legislator interviewed last night by Chris Hayes on msnbc, within a 10 day time frame -- and without any public notice or hearings -- Republicans rushed through a bill that (1) legalizes fracking in NC, where it had not be allowed before;  and (2) makes it illegal, punishable by jail time, to disclose the contents of the fracking fluid.

Reportedly, the governor has said he will sign the bill.   In both houses, committees held no public hearings and didn't even include the issue on their official agendas;  it bypassed the environment committee altogether;  and they seem to be letting the fracking industry write the regulations.

This is clearly an outrage, and the Moral Mondays protest group has been staging sit-ins in the offices of House Speaker/Republican candidate for U. S. Senate, Tom Tillis, who is trying to unseat Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC).    Not only is the railroading process an outrage, Chris raised the question if the criminalization of disclosure even violates the 1st amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

When I was growing up in Georgia (and college/med school in North Carolina), we used to say "thank God for Mississippi -- meaning that we weren't the worst of the backward states.   NC always seemed the most liberal of southern states, and I didn't realize how fragile that progressive slant was until Republicans gained control of the state government.

The ray of hope here is that the process of railroading this fracking bill is so outrageous that maybe it will backfire and energize the Democrats to defeat Tom Tillis and re-elect Kay Hagan.

Ralph