(May 25, official Washington Examiner editorial): In a single speech on Monday, Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC) exemplified two of his party’s worst attitudes: contempt for parents and disdain for representative democracy.
Cooper declared a “ state of emergency ,” fortunately a toothless one, for public education in his state. He did so to try to rally support against what is likely to be a successful move in the state legislature to implement expanded school choice . Cooper vetoed the bill, but the legislature seems poised to override the veto.
In inanely overheated rhetoric, Cooper said that expanded choice would drop “an atomic bomb on public education.” What he is calling an A-bomb, though, is what nearly 70% of North Carolinian voters want — namely, the chance to decide where to send their children to school rather than have bureaucrats assign them to schools that other bureaucrats control and with which the children’s parents or guardians have no say.
By trying to stop the will of a supermajority of North Carolinian voters, Cooper shows himself disdainful of representative democracy itself. At least he is not claiming authority to stop it by executive order or by flagrantly ignoring court orders, which is a trend among Democratic officials nationwide. President Joe Biden is the worst culprit: forgiving student loans after admitting he had no authority to do so, mandating “diversity” and “equity” by unaccountable executive fiat , and improperly trying to halt sales of energy leases, among myriad other examples…. [The full editorial is at this link.]