The North Carolina Legislature voted Wednesday to override Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto against three bills that would ban gender-affirming health care for transgender minors, prevent transgender women and girls from competing on female sports teams and limit classroom instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity.
Cooper vetoed all three bills last month, writing in the veto message that “Republicans are serving up a triple threat of political culture wars.”
The fact that people like Sinema and Cotham are brazenly cheating Democrat voters proves that the party isn’t doing enough to enforce loyalty. These people are worms who should be put out of a job irrespective of the cost and have their careers obliterated.
Loyalty isn’t the issue. You either represent the interests of the voters who voted for you or you step down, regardless of party. Otherwise, it’s tantamount to (and potentially actually is) fraud.
Not in any way that’s legally enforceable. That’s why it has to be enforced through party apparatus.
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You’d have to change the constitution. Legislators also have individual rights to free party identification under the First Amendment.
I don’t know about enforcing loyalty or what that would even look like. Democrats (at least at the national level) vote more in lockstep than they ever have. The problem is when you have margins so small that one vote is the difference between having or not having a veto-proof majority, a single flip makes an enormous difference.
People defecting on single votes isn’t really what I’m looking at regulating here- though voting with the party certainly is an element of party loyalty. What I’m saying is that there should be a will among the activist, voter, and donor class of the Democratic Party to make an example of people who do what Cotham did. The fact that she did it proves that we’re not doing enough to nail these fucking worms to the wall.
How would the party do this?
Stonewall them when they get in office. Spend more political and financial capital to make sure they don’t get elected and don’t pass policy. Ensure constituents know they’re a cheater. Support primary challenges against them. Go out of their way to make sure that they don’t succeed in their new party.
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Leave calls for violence to the demented right-wing. Don’t feed into their false narrative of the “violent left.”
This logic could be used to say that Bernie should be punished for wanting to support unions. Enforced loyalty is not loyalty; it’s bootlicking. Note that I’ not saying that these people (not Bernie) aren’t assholes and liars who cheated to get elected.
Bernie can’t be punished by his party because he doesn’t have a party.
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