New York's Governor Cuomo Called Out for Interfering in North Carolina's Politics

When North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory signed the state’s so-called “bathroom bill” into law on March 23, 2016 it set off the predictable chain reaction of incensed outrage by liberal provocateurs within the state and social justice warriors around the country.

Advertisement

Among those who felt necessary to inject their opinion into the debate of whether North Carolina gets to enact commonsense laws to keep their citizens comfortable and safe was New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Cuomo joined several other liberal governors and mayors around the nation in condemning the bill, which restricts bathroom access to natural gender, calling it a civil rights issue.

Despite the dust up, Governor McCrory stood firm, even in the face of threats by President Obama and his Department of (social) Justice. Whether in spite of or because of, April was one of the more successful months, economically, that North Carolina has enjoyed in years.

Now it seems Cuomo has meddled a bit too much in the business of a state far removed from his own, and it’s coming back on him.

A former North Carolina Supreme Court judge has filed complaints with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel and a New York state ethics panel alleging that taxpayer-funded ads Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration has run in North Carolina violated the Hatch Act by interfering with the gubernatorial and legislative races in that state.

The commercials, which reference the state’s so-called transgender bathroom law, among policies by other states, “mention North Carolina and its leadership in a transparent attempt to criticize, interfere and affect the impending North Carolina elections,” according to the federal complaint filed by the retired judge, Robert F. Orr.

Advertisement

Governor McCrory is up for re-election in November, and has waged a tight battle with the state’s Attorney General Roy Cooper – an otherwise ineffectual AG who disagrees with the law to keep bathrooms gender specific.

The Hatch Act was designed to keep federal employees, like Governor Cuomo, from inserting themselves into the elections in other states, in an attempt to disturb the outcome.

The ads began running in North Carolina in June, but have since been pulled, according to Cuomo’s office.

When the narrator says “as some in America seem to be forgetting exactly what freedom means,” the screen flashes with headlines critical of other states’ policies on issues related to transgender people, refugees and gays.

One of the headlines reads: “North Carolina Bans Local Anti-Discrimination Policies,” a reference to a law signed in March that bars transgender people from using bathrooms and other facilities that don’t correspond to the gender on their birth certificates.

The federal complaint criticizes the ads as going “beyond appropriate economic-development recruitment,” saying: “By using public funds to promote New York as supporting certain policies and implicitly criticizing contrary political decisions made in North Carolina, an ethical imitation has been breached.”

The complaint specifically identifies Mr. Cuomo as having violated the Hatch Act, along with several employees of Empire State Development, New York’s economic-development agency.

Advertisement

While Cuomo’s efforts may be pleasing to the bleeding hearts and soft heads that make up the cultural Marxists set of the left, McCrory’s team remains unfazed.

A spokesman for Mr. McCrory’s campaign, Ricky Diaz, said that “despite Gov. Cuomo’s efforts to trash North Carolina with boycotts and false ads, his residents continue to move here for lower taxes and job opportunities because New York is the second worst state for business while North Carolina is one of the best.”

This is where I point north and laugh.

Just out of curiosity, Mr. Cuomo – have they arrested the man who raped a transgender woman in one of your fine establishments’ gender neutral bathrooms, yet?

You might want to look into that.

 

Recommended

Join the conversation as a VIP Member

Trending on RedState Videos