Tag: Phil Berger

Responding to Sandy: General Assembly plans session to ban coastal forecasts, news coverage

October 30, 2012 at 9:28 amCategory:Uncategorized

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(Satire alert: Please note that, as believable as the following story may be, it is not to the author’s knowledge, true — at least at this point anyway). 

In a follow up to its bold action last spring to ban scientists from predicting a significant sea-level rise along the North Carolina coast over the the course of the 21st Century, House and Senate leaders in the North Carolina General Assembly announced early this morning that they would take further action in the coming days to ban weather “forecasts” and news “reports” related to coastal weather events. 

Speaking at a hastily arranged press event in the offices of NC20, the pro-development group that spearheaded the anti-sea level rise bill, House Speaker Thom Tillis and Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger both described the move as “the next logical step” in their ongoing plan to forestall the ”scare tactics” of “climate and weather alarmists” who are causing North Carolinians ”unnecessary worry” regarding the future of coastal communities and investments therein.

According to Tillis (pictured above), the news media coverage devoted in recent days to Hurricane Sandy (a moniker that the Speaker refused to use) was the spur to this recent action. Read More…

Phil Berger’s tweet-happy son

July 16, 2012 at 2:38 pmCategory:Uncategorized

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The worldwide explosion of social media like Facebook and Twitter in recent years gives rise to some interesting questions about what is and isn’t appropriate for politicians and other public servants who use these platforms while on the job.

On one level, it’s obviously no big deal. If House Speaker Thom Tillis sends out a tweet during a legislative day promoting some House policy initiative, it’s really no different than if his staff sends out a press release. Especially in light of the fact that Tillis’ (and Governor Perdue’s) tweets are almost certainly authored by staff, it really doesn’t raise any issues that I can see. In fact, kudos to them for at least attempting to inform the public.

But what about some other situations? What if Tillis or Perdue sends out a campaign-related announcement on their Twitter account on a workday?  That would seem to necessitate some care on their part so that we can be assured that public funds are not being used to compensate someone for such time.

And then there’s the situation in which officials and their staffers are sending out tweets or posting comments on Facebook or blogs that are mostly or completely unrelated to their jobs. For instance, during the legislative session, Read More…

Senator Phil Berger rewrites the state constitution unilaterally

June 12, 2012 at 2:07 pmCategory:Uncategorized

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Here’s a fact that you probably didn’t know about the North Carolina Constitution: It was changed recently in a dramatic and important way.

Here’s what it used to say in Article IX, Section 4, Subsection (1): Read More…

Senate is being just plain dishonest about its budget proposal

June 11, 2012 at 11:56 amCategory:Uncategorized

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This simply cannot be allowed to stand: Senate Republican leaders are attempting to argue that they are helping the state’s K-12 education system by pumping more money into it.

Just a few minutes ago, Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger (his staff really) tweeted the following:

“Our budget adjustment restores $158 million to K-12 education and increases state funding for teachers/TAs #ncpol #ncga”

Now, anyone with any familiarity with the English language could only take this one way: that the Senate was “restoring” money that had been slashed from public education — either last year or, maybe, that had been proposed to be cut by the House of the Governor.

This however, is quite demonstrably NOT true. It is, in other words, an intentionally misleading statement. Read More…

Senate backs down – sort of – on budget process

June 6, 2012 at 1:47 pmCategory:Uncategorized

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Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger and his crew appear to have backed down from yesterday’s announced plan (that was first reported by my colleague Chris Fitzsimon) to unveil their version of the state budget without bothering to hold Appropriations subcommittee meetings.

But don’t count just yet on any kind of in-depth or truly participatory process. Annnouncements released this morning indicate that the subcommittees will meet tomorrow at 2:30 in the afternoon. In the legislative world, scheduling a meeting for the middle of the afternoon on a Thursday –a time at which most members are already well on their way back to their districts for the weekend — is a little like scheduling a public health lecture in Daytona Beach on the first day of spring break.

We hope to be proved wrong but remain skeptical that these meetings will amount to much.

Updated: Mark Binker has the full skinny here. Subcommittees will just review House budget tomorrow. Still no subcommittee meetings to review Senate plan becasue it will supposedly be much thinner.