Republicans Lose Leverage on a Traditional Issue

GOP Vote On Budget Gives Love Cover

For years, and especially the last several sessions, the democrat-dominated state legislature has adopted rapidly increasing budgets and loaded them up with pork. The Senate is much more notorious for this than the House, but both played the pork game. The Republicans have voted pretty much as a block against them and used the wasteful spending argument as a key part of their campaign to unseat incumbents.

It is a potentially potent issue. So much so that two years ago our Representative Jimmy Love voted for the House version (keeping the speaker happy) but voted against the final budget after the Senate loaded its pork onto the bill. It was a clever move. The kind of move that won him a ranking as the second most effective freshmen legislator.

This year, however, on Thursday, a majority of Republicans in the House joined with Democrats in passing the bill by a vote of 104-10. "There are good things in the budget that can be supported by both sides," said House Minority Whip Bill McGee, R-Forsyth, adding that he would vote for the budget. "The overall (growth) rate this year is acceptable. It's less than the cost of living." With so many Republicans voting for the budget and remarks like that, Republican challengers like Linda Shook lose a lot of leverage on the spending issue. Of course there are plenty of differences between the two candidates, and Shook is a ferocious campaigner.

That kind of support from Republicans gives Love a lot of cover. In fact, he can deflect any criticism of his vote on the budget with the simple line, "I voted for it and the Republicans did, too. (click here to read article or view story) (click here to see highlights of budget)

Before publishing this post last week, The e-Lee Dispatch learned that House Minority Leader Skip Stam had taken the unusual step of obtaining permission to abstain on the budget vote. As House Minority Leader it is his job to help get more Republicans elected. Did this loss of campaign advantage have anything to do with his abstention? After some digging into House records, the reason was that his family and his clients would be effected by a provision of the bill funding the Triangle Expressway.