By Rob Schofield

There have been many times throughout American history in which so-called “lame duck” legislative sessions — gatherings that take place after an election, but prior to the seating of the new Congress or legislature — have been used successfully by elected leaders to find bipartisan common ground and get things done.

Sometimes, with the next election far off in the distance (or for those retiring or recently defeated, something that’s no longer even a concern), lawmakers feel liberated from the pull of partisanship and/or the threat of a primary challenger and respond instead to the pull of their own consciences.

Unfortunately, this has not been the case with lame duck sessions in the North Carolina General Assembly in recent years.

Rather than using these sessions as opportunities to bridge divides and deemphasize partisanship, Republican legislative leaders have generally tacked in the other direction by using lame duck sessions as opportunities to ram through legislation that: a) enhanced their own power, and b) they calculated they might not be able to get enacted in the New Year.

One of the most infamous examples of this approach occurred in the weeks following the 2016 election, when Republican majorities rushed to strip the governor’s office of powers in the wake of Roy Cooper’s defeat of Republican incumbent Pat McCrory — legislation that McCrory himself cravenly signed into law.

State lawmakers return to Raleigh this week for another lame duck session and while we’ve yet to hear publicly of plans to — as the saying goes in the political vernacular — “kneecap” newly elected Democratic Council of State members like Josh Stein, Rachel Hunt, Jeff Jackson and Mo Green with new cuts to their powers and/or funding, it’s a distinct possibility that bears watching.

And with it looking increasingly likely that Democrats have ended (or at least weakened) the GOP veto-proof supermajority in the state House, the holiday season could also be a time for new and controversial proposals championed by the political right that might be harder to pass in 2025. Stay tuned.

Regardless of whether either of these distasteful things comes to pass, however, it seems fairly certain that this week’s reconvened legislative session will come up short of what it could and should be.

That’s because the overriding policy issue in our state right now is the massive economic and environmental disaster wrought by Hurricane Helene. Estimates place the total damage in the neighborhood of an astounding $53 billion. If ever there was a crisis that deserved nearly every available resource and funding stream at our disposal, this is it.

Unfortunately, as Gov. Roy Cooper — who shares this view of the situation — noted in a news release distributed on Nov. 15, Republican legislators apparently disagree. Their plan instead is to use the session to override his veto of House Bill 10 — a conservative “Christmas tree” bill passed late in the summer that, among other problematic and unrelated provisions, provides for a huge expansion of the state’s private school voucher program.

This is from Cooper’s release:

“Helene was the most devastating storm our state has ever seen and there is a long and expensive road of recovery ahead for western North Carolina,” said Governor Cooper. “Next week, legislators should invest billions of dollars in Western North Carolina recovery instead of locking in billions for private school vouchers.”

While legislators plan to spend $463 million in taxpayer money on unaccountable private school vouchers, western North Carolina faces major funding needs to continue the rebuilding process in the wake of Hurricane Helene.

Expanding private school vouchers would disproportionally hurt rural counties, including many in Western North Carolina where access to private education is limited and public schools serve as the backbone of communities. Twenty-eight counties have only one or no private schools participating in the voucher program, eight of which are disaster-declared counties.

It’s hard to imagine the GOP plan will go over very well in the west.

As N.C. Newsline’s Brandon Kingdollar recently reported, numerous businesses in areas damaged by Helene are, if they’re even still alive, on life support. Many — particularly restaurants and hotels — have been spending thousands of dollars per week to ship in potable water. And while recent progress on this front in Asheville will help, it won’t repair the economic damage that’s already been done. The need for large amounts of direct grants — both to rescue businesses and to help rebuild the region’s devastated housing stock — is enormous and urgent.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t appear to be the plan. While lawmakers are expected to appropriate additional relief, the legislation will likely follow the comparatively modest efforts of previous sessions this fall.

And as a result, at a time in which hundreds of businesses and thousands of workers and their families are in desperate need of emergency aid, the General Assembly will vote to take funds that could be used for that critical public purpose and hand them instead to millionaires to subsidize their kids’ private school tuition.

“Lame” is an entirely appropriate moniker for such a session.

N.C. Newsline Editor Rob Schofield oversees day-to-day newsroom operations, authors and voices regular commentaries, and hosts the ‘News & Views’ weekly radio show/podcast.