North Carolina Lawmaker Switches Parties, Gives Republicans Unlimited Power | Abortion

Rep. Tricia Cotham was once a leading opponent of Republican abortion restrictions in North Carolina. As of yesterday, he is a Republican.

A Democratic North Carolina state lawmaker has switched parties just three months after being sworn in, giving North Carolina Republicans the ability to pursue their agenda with a veto-proof majority over Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.

The decision of Rep. Tricia Cotham has sparked fears that Republicans will use their new power to push through legislation like the abortion ban, in a state that has been an unlikely outpost for abortion access since Roe v Wade was overturned last year. year.

Cotham’s switch is Axios Raleigh first reported on Tuesday. He did not respond to a request for comment from VICE News Tuesday, but later that afternoon, his staff removed his desk from the Democratic side of the aisle and he took his seat on the Republican side.

At a press conference in Raleigh with Republican leaders on Wednesday, Cotham blasted his former party today and said Democrats are “undermining anybody who has free thinking, free judgment, has solutions, and wants to get a job to improve our state.”

“If you don’t do exactly what the Democrats want you to do they will try to bully you. They’ll try to get rid of you,” Cotham said.

Democratic party leaders strongly condemned Cotham’s move. He was criticized by Rep. Robert Reives, Cotham’s former caucus leader, in a statement Tuesday afternoon, said he betrayed his Democratic-leaning constituents and the values ​​he campaigned on, and called for his resignation.

“That’s not the person that House District 112 voters were presented with. That’s not the person that constituents campaigned for in a tough primary, and who they championed in a general election in a 60 percent Democratic district,” Reives said. “Constituents deserve to know what values ​​are most important to their elected representative.”

State party chair Anderson Clayton and Mecklenburg County chair Jane Whitley called the switch “deceit of the highest order” in a joint statement, and also called on him to resign.

“Rep. Cotham’s decision is a betrayal of the people of HD-112 that has ramifications not only for the people of his district, but for the entire state of North Carolina,” the statement said.

A former campaign adviser for Cotham, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told VICE News that Cotham is “a professional victim who takes no responsibility and is now at home in the Republican Party.”

“He was upset that the Democrats didn’t roll out the red carpet for him when he returned to the legislature after being a lobbyist for right-wing interests during the most important six years in American politics,” said the former counselor “Then he was triggered by some tweets after he voted for some bills that would directly hurt his overwhelmingly Black and brown constituents. That’s nonsense all there is to it… there’s no strategy behind it.”

Cotham was elected to represent a district in the Charlotte area last November. It was his second term in the legislature; he previously served 10 years before declining to run for re-election in 2016.

During his first term in the House, Cotham was mostly a liberal Democrat, and strongly opposed Republican efforts to limit access to abortion. In 2015, during debate over a bill to mandate a 72-hour waiting period to obtain an abortion, Cotham spoke of her own abortion of a non-viable fetus on the House floor, saying that the bill (which eventually passed into law) “probably cost me my life.”

He later said Time that he received harassment as a result of his opposition to the bill, including being called a “baby killer” by a GOP colleague. “I don’t think I’ve moved on,” Cotham said Time in 2015. “The real healing came that day on the floor.”

After the draft decision that overturned Roe was leaked in May, Cotham said in a tweet that North Carolina needs leaders who are “unwavering and unapologetic in their support of abortion rights,” and who will “fight back he to codify Roe to [General Assembly] and continue my strong record of defending the right to choose.” In January, he co-sponsor of a bill, introduced by Democratsto do that.

Cotham did not comment on whether or how his policy preferences have changed. Asked at the press conference about his earlier emotional support for abortion rights and whether he would now support a 13-week abortion ban, Cotham told the Associated Press, “I’m not going to put any kind of number on anything .” He added that he “will do what I believe is right” and “will pray on this issue.”

Pressed further, Cotham said she doesn’t believe “this is the bigger issue facing women in North Carolina” — a stark departure from her previous comments.

Abortion is currently legal in North Carolina up to 20 weeks. Since Roe was overturned, North Carolina has become a haven for abortion-seeking patients in the South—one that’s set to become even more important, considering Florida Republicans soon likely to ban all abortions after six weeks. A group that operates three clinics in North Carolina reported in November that more than half of its patients are from out of state, according to NC Policy Watch.

It is currently unclear how Cotham’s party switch will affect his support for abortion rights. North Carolina Republicans discussed several proposals including a six week ban, the AP reported in Februarybut so far have not been able to come together in a single strategy.

Cotham’s decision may also have implications for many other issues, such as LGBTQ+ rightseducation, gun laws, right to vote, and criminal justice. Cooper was first elected in 2016, and while Republican legislative majorities stymied him, he limited Republican priorities and even brokered some big deals, like a partial repeal of HB 2 and Medicaid expansion after a decade of Republican resistance to the Affordable Care Act.

Cotham faced criticism from Democrats last week after he and two other lawmakers was absent during the vote to override Cooper’s veto on a bill that loosens gun regulations. Cotham later said in a statement to WBTV that he was receiving treatment for lingering symptoms of COVID at the time and that he opposed the veto override.

During his five-year hiatus from elected office, Cotham, a former teacher and assistant principal, spent time as president of a charter school operator. After his election to the legislature for a second term in November, Republican House Speaker Tim Moore appointed Cotham as a co-chair of the House Education Committee, where he voting with Republicans earlier this week.

Cotham sought to reduce speculation about why Republican leaders would give the presidency to a Democrat.

“I stand strongly on my record for working with Republicans and Democrats and all different kinds of organizations,” Cotham told Spectrum News in February. “Does that make me a target? How do they determine what the target is? Because I’m practical and results-oriented?”

Source: https://www.vice.com/en/article/5d9pqa/north-carolina-tricia-cotham-abortion