RALEIGH, N.C. — Democratic Sen. Linda Garrou used to have a key post in the Senate majority, a spacious corner office, extra research assistants and the ear of Senate leader Marc Basnight. People listened intently to what she said because she held sway on forming the state’s $19 billion budget.
Now, the longtime appropriations committee co-chair has to squeeze into one-quarter the size of her previous office. On the same day reporters peppered the GOP senator that took over her old office for hints on the budget, Garrou spent time vacuuming the dust stuck behind her credenza.
And Basnight is about gone, set to resign after 26 years in the Senate the day before Democrats officially lose their Senate majority for the first time since 1898. Basnight’s own corner spot awaits expected successor GOP Sen. Phil Berger.
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“I cannot bring myself to walk over and see Sen. Basnight’s office, I can’t do that. I know that I’ll have to, but I can’t,” said Garrou, D-Forsyth. “It’s … the end of an era.”
While power shifting is commonplace in other states, Democrats aren’t used to being the minority in North Carolina’s Legislature.
As the GOP takes charge of both chambers for the first time in 141 years, Democrats are trying to find their bearings, anxious to know how they’ll respond without any real power and how they’ll be treated by their political rivals. Will 2011 be about GOP revenge, or about cooperation and civility?
“It is the great unknown,” said Rep. Alice Bordsen, D-Alamance, who led two committees while in the majority. She’ll have no need for gavels the next two years – House Democrats aren’t getting any committee chairmanships. She said her new role is to speak out about GOP policies she believes will harm the state: “I have to become a little noisier.”
Berger and presumptive House Speaker Thom Tillis, who’ve been prepping for weeks for Wednesday’s historic opening session by hiring staff, moving offices and setting strategy, say people on both sides of the aisle will be treated fairly under their leadership. Although the majority party has inherent advantages, they say they’ll aim to treat Democrats the way they wanted to be treated while the GOP was in the minority.
“We’ve been there for a long time and we know how frustrating it’s been,” said Tillis, R-Mecklenburg. He said some people may think “once you get back in power, it’s payback, right? But from the rules, I don’t think you’ll see that.”
For example, operating rules for the House and Senate will remove provisions the GOP has complained for years they say stifles debate. But Sen. Tom Apodaca, the incoming Senate Rules Committee chairman, said the GOP won’t allow debate as simply a delaying tactic.
“We want to be fair in the process,” said Apodaca, R-Henderson, but “we still know that there comes a time to be quiet and move on.”
Republicans generally have followed the methods followed by predecessors Basnight, D-Dare, and House Speaker Joe Hackney, D-Orange, for handing out the prime perks of being in the majority – committee chairmanships and the distribution of office space.
GOP lawmakers have received all of the announced chairmanships in both the House and Senate, although the Senate has yet to announce leadership for all committees. Basnight gave chairmanships to a few Republicans.
As for office space, it’s tradition that the majority party moves to larger spaces and the minority to smaller ones. Still, new Senate Minority Leader Martin Nesbitt, D-Buncombe, said he was pleased how Republicans have handled the move that sent nearly every returning senator to a new office.
Republicans even replaced two small offices their members had to use in 2009 and 2010 with larger space for the Democrats to use. In the not-so-distant past, people in power punished political enemies by giving them office space Republicans complained resembled a phone closet.
Nesbitt said he’s had a cordial relationship with Berger and other Republicans and doesn’t expect that to change although the GOP will usually come out on top on issues.
“At the end of the day, they’re probably going to win,” Nesbitt said. “They’re supposed to win. It’s their turn, but it will be perhaps our job to persuade them and move them a little and make sure the public’s informed to what we’re doing down here.”
Ran Coble, executive director of the nonpartisan North Carolina Center for Public Policy Research, said it will be interesting to see the significant adjustments the parties must make in their new roles.
Republicans will have the responsibility of making budget decisions, instead of merely complaining about them. Democrats will have to draw the fine line of where to cooperate and where to fight the GOP.
“This is a chance to see something we’ve never seen before,” Coble said.
By GARY D. ROBERTSON – Associated Press
