A stark reminder that the far-right still rules in Raleigh

Just when you think there’s a glimmer of hope that the flood of reactionary ideas in the General Assembly is finally slowing down and the abuse of the democratic process is waning comes a stark reminder otherwise, that folks running things in Raleigh are still far outside the mainstream of North Carolina and are willing to use almost any heavy-handed tactic to advance their far-right agenda.

The glimmer of hope came when a House committee narrowly defeated an attempt to roll back renewable energy standards that require utilities to generate a percentage of their power from renewable sources.

That common sense move came after heated debate and intense outside pressure from right-wing advocacy groups and think tanks that are now beside themselves that lawmakers again sided with environmentalists and the green energy industry that is creating thousands of jobs in the state.

But the moment of clear-headed thinking didn’t last long. Another House committee considered legislation to impose a 72-hour waiting period on women seeking an abortion and to put more restrictions and requirements on doctors who perform the legal procedure.

The current waiting period is 24 hours thanks to an anti-choice bill passed by the General Assembly in 2011.

An earlier version of this session’s bill would have also banned physicians at medical schools at UNC-CH and East Carolina from performing abortions and teaching medical students how to perform them.

That provision was removed after university officials said it would affect the schools’ accreditation, though bill sponsor Rep. Jacqueline Schaeffer told the News & Observer she remained committed to “addressing those issues.”

But the revised bill is certainly oppressive enough, forcing women to wait three days for a legal medical procedure and offensively assuming that women hadn’t already weighed all the consequences of their decision.

Rep. Tricia Cotham had it exactly right in a floor debate on the bill after sharing her personal story of a miscarriage, calling the longer waiting period a barrier for low-income women and an attempt to perpetuate shame as well as an example of politicians playing doctor.

During the floor debate, several lawmakers supporting the 72-hour waiting period mentioned the debate in the Health Committee and all the testimony from supporters of the legislation.

But only one opponent of the bill was allowed to speak, as committee chair Rep. Brian Brown repeatedly called on supporter after supporter of the legislation, ignoring doctors and other experts who had come to the committee meeting to explain the problems with the longer waiting period and new requirements on physicians who perform abortions.

Finally, after a half an hour of testimony from supporters of the new abortion restrictions, Brown abruptly called for a vote and the bill passed along party lines with committee members never hearing from medical professionals who had serious concerns about what the legislation actually means for patients and doctors.

The Republicans had the votes to easily pass the bill, but refused to allow committee members and the public to hear all the information about the ramifications of what they were considering.

The bill was then rushed onto the House Calendar, bypassing a judiciary committee to which it had also been referred for more thorough debate, and it passed the full House early Thursday afternoon.

It now goes to the Senate, a place where open debate is even less likely, and then on to Governor Pat McCrory, who promised in his 2012 campaign not to sign any further restrictions on access to abortion, a promise he broke by signing an anti-choice bill in 2013.

It was another frustrating day in a long line of frustrating days at the General Assembly, as Republican lawmakers once again showed that any notion of moderation was mistaken.

So don’t be fooled. The far-right still rules in Raleigh. And they rule with an iron ideological fist.