The “Morgan Five” – Ten Years Later

 

01 Friday Jun 2012

Posted by in NC Politics

Reference

I was going to save this post until January, the tenth anniversary, but it is prescient that we address it now because the ringleader is trying to get back to the table.  Even though we’re in the middle of the NC GOP Convention, we need to remind ourselves of the battles we’ve been through so we don’t repeat them.  Now hang on, because we’ve got some ground to cover!

I try not to be petty.  No elected official is perfect and all are going to make a voting mistake here or there.  Usually it is the body of work that indicts one’s character, but occasionally a singular event is so egregious that it exposes a fatal character flaw.  Such is the case with Richard T. Morgan and his four co-conspirators.

The reason this must come up now is that Richard Morgan is currently in a runoff election on July 17 trying to become our next Insurance Commissioner. We must do everything in our power to make sure he does not succeed (vote for Mike Causey – http://gocausey.com/)

Richard Morgan and his co-conspirators sold the rest of the Republicans down the river in deals with Jim Black, the Democratic Speaker at the time.

A little background is in order for those who don’t remember that far back.  In 2002, North Carolinians elected a majority of Republicans to the NC House for only the second time since 1870.  It was a slim majority (61-59), but a majority nonetheless.  As the House Republicans caucused, they selected Leo Daughtry to be their nominee for speaker.  On the eve of taking power, however, Richard Morgan and his co-conspirators sold the rest of the Republicans down the river in deals with Jim Black, the Democratic Speaker at the time.

Michael Decker switched parties to become a Democrat leaving the House in a stalemate of 60-60 right before the vote.  Richard Morgan and his co-conspirators, Harold Brubaker, Julia Howard, Danny McComas, and Wilma Sherrill, made a deal with the Democrats to elect Morgan and Black as co-Speakers in a power-sharing agreement that ended up with the Democrats back in power for the next 8 years, Jim Black as Speaker until 2007, and left the Republican party in disarray.

We must do everything in our power to make sure that [Richard Morgan] does not succeed

This is further significant because after the 2000 census, Democrats had fraudulently redrawn the congressional and legislative districts across the state.  Upon challenge, the courts struck down the new maps.  This debacle spilled over into the 2002 election cycle and contributed to Republicans winning a majority in the state House.  The “Morgan Five” and other Republican conspirators like Michael Decker, and David Miner not only thwarted the will of the people, but handed the re-redistricting process right back to the Democrats.  They botched it again producing lawsuits that had them re-redrawing parts of the maps for the remainder of the decade.

Because of this, we must remind each other continually of who these traitors are.  To that end, we will now tell you where each of these untrustworthy “Republicans” are in our system.  Thankfully, Michael Decker went to prison for his part and David Miner and Wilma Sherrill are no longer in or running for elected office.  Here’s the breakdown on the other four:

Richard Morgan was thrown out of the NCGOP Executive Committee and finally defeated in 2006.  However, in 2008 he ran for Superintendent of Public Instruction, a council-of-state seat.  Now, in 2012, he’s running for another council-of-state seat as Insurance Commissioner.  Morgan has never apologized, recanted, or acknowledged his error.  To this day, he defends his actions.  He must never be allowed to hold the reigns of power again!  Don’t let your neighbors unwittingly vote for him – support Mike Causey for Insurance Commissioner – http://gocausey.com/ (Learn more about Morgan at http://www.mooregop.org/)

Harold Brubaker conspired with Morgan, yet remains a member of the NC House in a seat he has held since 1976!  In fact, the new Republican leadership under Thom Tillis made him head of the Appropriations Committee as well as the House Select Committee on State-owned Assets.  Being a long-serving Republican in the Democrat-controlled Legislature for 36 years is not an indictment by itself, but it sure makes you wonder how he survived through nearly four decades of Democrat re-districting when they notoriously ousted effective Republicans by drawing them into unwinnable districts.  His partnering with Morgan reveals his true nature.

Julia Howard also conspired with Morgan and remains in the NC House occupying a seat she has held for 24 years.  Like the others, she survived numerous Democrat re-districting efforts as well as any repercussions by Democrats after Republicans had a majority for four years in the mid 90′s.

She currently stands as the Senior-Chairman of the Finance Committee, and Chairman of the Ethics Committee as well as the House Select Committee on Legislative Program Evaluation.

Danny McComas conspired with Morgan against other Republicans, yet still served in the seat he has held since 1994.  He is Chairman of the Commerce and Job Development and House Select Committee on Tort Reform, and is Vice-Chairman of the Banking and Finance committees.  (Note: McComas announced in February that he would not seek re-election to a 10th term.  He did not rule out running for another office, but has not done so in this election cycle.)

Each of these legislators has been kind enough to vote the right way most of the time in recent years when they needed to.  They’re certainly politically savvy enough to ride the recent Republican wave.  They’ve established themselves as political survivors.  However, the role that they played in setting Republicans back is enough for them to make our upcoming “Wall of Shame”.  To my knowledge, none of them have ever apologized or acknowledged their error and the bitter wounds dealt to the North Carolina Republican party.

Many “establishment” Republicans have urged unity.  Well, I’m all for unity, but I like the example of Jim Bakker.  Remember him?  The disgraced televangelist is back on TV, but not before he 1) apologized and admitted his wrong, 2) showed true repentance (working with and even adopting inner city children), and 3) did his time.  Even though he’s back, it will never be in the capacity he was before.

Even though they’re still in office (or seeking office), the folks above are merely political opportunists.  If you’ve read this blog very long at all, you know that’s a big problem for me!  If any of the above folks would like me to print their apology, I will be glad to do so.  After that, they need to step out and do their penance and show us they’ve really changed.  Until they do that, let’s just be honest, they’re untrustworthy.