North Carolina state representative Chuck McGrady (R-Henderson) did not take kindly to a challenge from an anonymous employee at WRAL who was running the TV station's Twitter feed last night.
It all started with a tweet from Democrat consultant and blogger Thomas Mills - blaming Republicans for not surrendering to Gov. Roy Cooper's latest demand to expand Medicaid and eliminate school vouchers. McGrady challenged Mills. And then WRAL white-knighted for Mills:
McGrady replied, "Give me a break, we didn’t have a veto proof majority under Perdue, but had one for the first two years of Cooper’s term. Why would Republicans worry about that under McCrory?"
And the person running the WRAL account responded: "Because lawmakers don’t always have the same priorities as the governor, even when they’re from the same party. Ds didn’t either."
"Go check your statistics," McGrady said. "Hunt never used his veto. Easley and Perdue didn’t use it much, except when the legislature was controlled by the opposite party during the last two years of Perdue’s term. Not many vetos from McCrory. How about budget vetoes? Just Perdue and Cooper.
WRAL replied:
I'd submit that Gov. Mike Easley's nine vetoes over eight years probably qualifies as "not using it much." But Gov. Bev Perdue's 19 vetoes in her single 4-year term is a lot. And McGrady is correct - she never issued a single veto when Democrats were in control of the legislature (2009-2010). Her vetoes all came after the GOP won control of both the House and Senate. At this time, the Republicans did not have super majorities to ensure successful overrides along party lines, though.
Republican Gov. Pat McCrory issued six vetoes during his four year term.
Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper has issued 32 in his first two and a half years - about an average of one veto per month.
Twenty-eight of those vetoes were issued when the GOP had super majorities in the House and Senate.
At this point, you might be wondering why any of this matters. I tend to agree.
It also appears as if Rep. McGrady and the anonymous WRAL employee are arguing different things...