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The Tea Party sharks in North Carolina are chomping at the bit for an impeachment show at the expense of the State’s Attorney-General, Roy Cooper. It doesn’t matter if Roy Cooper did not commit an impeachable offense. It doesn’t even matter if in the end, the show is cancelled. All that matters is the Tea Party wants an impeachment show because Roy Cooper opted against wasting taxpayer’s money to make unwinnable legal arguments in defense of North Carolina’s ban on marriage equality.
At the inaugural meeting of Morehead-Beauford Tea Party, State Senator Norm Sanderson told his fellow Teabaggers, “If he’s not going to defend what we, the citizens of North Carolina, want him to defend, we need to probably impeach him because he’s been a vocal appointment of the marriage amendment ever since it was passed.” Sanderson went on to say, “Our leadership hasn’t made the final decision but everything is on ready, set, go if that’s what we want to do.”
The fact is that Cooper disagreed with the Tea Party’s destructive and retrograde ideology. He said so in an opinion piece for the Huffington Post . This is no surprise since Cooper is a Democrat. He was elected by the voters of North Carolina to serve as their Attorney-General as a Democrat.
For the first time since Reconstruction, North Carolina has a General Assembly and governorship controlled by the extreme factions of the Republican Party, and their legislative super majority means their power is unchecked. In ten short months, they have set out to deliberately and systematically undo fifty years of progress. It’s as if the Tea Party created its own playground of extremist fantasies.
However, regardless of how Cooper feels about the Tea Party, Cooper’s assessment of the legal realities is independent from his political views. His office was defending North Carolina’s ban on marriage equality. Last month, Cooper announced that he would not continue to defend the law after the fourth circuit struck down a similar law in a case involving Virginia because “It’s time to stop making arguments we will lose and instead move forward, knowing that the ultimate resolution will likely come from the Supreme Court.”
Since the same court would rule on North Carolina’s law, reasonable people would recognize that the likelihood of getting a different ruling on a similar law is non-existent. It’s just as reasonable to recognize the Supreme Court will provide the ultimate resolution.
In the year since the Supreme Court ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional, advocates of marriage equality won 19 other rulings, adding to the reasonableness of Roy Cooper’s legal assessment.
In Tea Party land, it is much better to waste taxpayer dollars fighting a ruling that is unlikely to be overturned on Appeal, because the law at issue is one the Tea Party wants. Accepting reality is like being elected the President of the United States while black. In Tea Party land, both should be impeachable offenses.
There is another reason for the Tea Party’s thirst to impeach Roy Cooper that has everything to do with politics and absolutely nothing to do with whether there is a basis to impeach him. Cooper is expected to run against Pat McCrory who is seeking a second term as the State’s governor. In short, the Tea Party wants to use impeachment as a preemptive strike against a man who’s “immpeachable” offense is running against Pat McCrory.
North Carolina serves as an excellent illustration of what happens when extremists get a taste of power. Reason and the constitutional are replaced by ideology, myths and standards that are all subject to change more often than Teabaggers change their clothes. What they are really saying is being a Democrat should be an impeachable offense. Currently, the thinking in North Carolina is saner Republicans will prevent the Tea Party from staging a circus style impeachment of Cooper.
Moreover, if the Tea Party is mad because it didn’t get it’s way, it’s going to stomp its feet until it gets an impeachment show.
However, North Carolina is instructive because if Republicans take control of the U.S. Senate, Republicans will impeach Barack Obama because he was elected President while black and because he is a Democrat. As is the case with Roy Cooper, the Tea Party doesn’t care if there is a constitutionally based reason for impeachment or not. , They just want a show as a consolation price for government’s failure to give them what they want.
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Former contributor.
