Differences between Legislature, McCrory, cities deepen

RALEIGH Here is today's legislative weather report: Storm clouds and increasingly higher winds between the Legislative Building and the governor's office with waves of cold air emanating to the state's cities.

It's also last year's weather report, last week's and probably next week's and next month's.

Even casual observers have noticed the growing policy differences between Gov. Pat McCrory and the state Senate and the continuation of a trend in both chambers of legislation urban areas see as hostile to their interests.

It shouldn't have been shocking to urban residents that Republicans took several steps cities didn't like after gaining majorities in the House and Senate in 2010. The state Republican Party's power base is in rural counties and suburban areas that ring the state's larger cities. There are genuine philosophical differences between GOP legislators and those who hold office -- mostly Democrats -- in places like Asheville, Charlotte, Raleigh and Wilmington or who held power in Raleigh before the Republican sweep.

It's hard to sift out how much of the motivation behind changes in laws affecting cities that the General Assembly adopted has been a belief in smaller government, how much might be a desire to get even after decades of being in the minority and how much stems from disagreement over a specific issue. Ending involuntary annexation and curbing cities' ability to impose land-use controls on areas just outside their limits, for instance, are steps certainly consistent with mainstream Republican thinking.

Other moves that cities opposed do not fit in so well: Undoing specific annexations that had already taken effect, changing the way public bodies like the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners are elected, taking control of Charlotte's airport away from that city, doing the the same with the Asheville water system and Asheville Regional Airport and trying to block a deal to turn much of the former campus of a state mental hospital in Raleigh into a grand city park. That's not to say the moves are good or bad, just that they don't necessarily follow from what people understand Republicans stand for in general.

Some people who thought there was a heavy dose of score settling in the legislature's actions in the years right after the GOP took over predicted that the flow of "anti-urban" legislation would slacken this year. There may be fewer proposals floating around in 2015 to take steps affecting specific urban areas, but there are some big ones under consideration, including bills that would change elections for Greensboro City Council and Wake County commissioners in ways generally expected to help Republican candidates.

Then there is the statewide measure to change the way sales taxes are divided up to take money away from urban counties and give it to rural ones. It is interesting to watch Republicans advocating a measure to redistribute the wealth from rich to poor and Democrats arguing that's unfair. Adding to city officials' angst are the apparent lack of progress by the General Assembly on coming up with a source of revenue to replace what they will lose when a law allowing them to levy business license taxes expires this summer and strong resistance in the Senate to reinstating tax credits for preservation of historic properties, a program used the most in cities and towns.

Sen. Tom Apodaca, R-Henderson, probably spoke for several of his colleagues when he cautioned against growing urban power during a recent debate over the Wake County commissioner bill, which backers say would keep the county's outlying areas from being dominated by Raleigh. "As we grow, we see what the cities do. They take over everything," he said.

"I do think there is hostility to urban areas among some of my colleagues," Sen. Terry Van Duyn, D-Buncombe, said this week in a bit of an understatement.

There is also hostility to McCrory, at least in the Senate, albeit less openly expressed.

McCrory had a tough time getting the Senate to buy into his agenda during his first two years in office and that pattern has continued in 2015.

Leaders in both chambers reacted sharply when McCrory won the first round of a legal battle over whether the governor or the legislature gets to appoint a majority on state boards dealing with coal ash and other environmental issues. Lawmakers initially said they would stop action on gubernatorial appointments needing legislative confirmation, although they have softened their position since.

Disputes between McCrory and the Senate on other issues seem to be heating up. Earlier in his term, McCrory seemed a little passive and more content to let the legislature take the lead at times.

On Wednesday, McCrory left little doubt in a speech to university officials he is unhappy with the Senate position on three issues: economic development incentives, the historic preservation tax credit and the sales tax bill.

Disagreements on how or whether to replenish incentive funds are hurting industrial recruitment efforts, he said, expressing frustration with the slow pace of legislation McCrory had hoped would be dealt with early in the legislative session.

"I've got to have a strategy we can sell, and right now I don't have that," McCrory said.

On the tax credit, he said there is "no reason" legislators "should deny this opportunity for small towns and large cities alike to continue to rebuild and revitalize" their downtowns.

The sales tax proposal, he said, "will cause great harm to the economic engines of this state" and would raise taxes.

It would "decimate" tourism-oriented communities that have spent money to lure visitors, McCrory said, and pits one part of the state against the other. "We must unite North Carolina, not divide North Carolina," he said.

McCrory might have the best chance of derailing the sales tax bill. As people dig into it, odds are more counties will find it would have negative impacts on their share of tax revenue than was first apparent and there are questions about what it would do to fire departments and city school districts. The governor could probably convince enough lawmakers to sustain his veto.

Senators' position on tax breaks and spending they feel amounts to undue government interference in the marketplace may be harder to change. It helps their case that a lot of previous incentives spending has ended up in the Charlotte and Research Triangle areas, not in the state's poorer communities. On the other hand, abandoning incentives altogether would cause an uproar in the business community, so there's room for the sides to compromise.

It's common for governors and legislators to disagree, even when they are from the same party. The divide between McCrory and the Senate is partly philosophical, partly political. A former big-city mayor, McCrory seems to be more comfortable with the traditional, pro-business wing of the Republican Party, while senators have a more conservative orientation.

Plus, the Senate's Republican leadership doesn't have to worry much about what people in cities think of them because most represent districts made up of smaller towns and rural areas. The way legislative districts are drawn, even Democrats don't hold out much hope of taking control of the Senate in next year's election.

McCrory has to run statewide. He doesn't have to get a majority of the vote in Raleigh and Charlotte to get re-elected, but he can't lose so badly there that he can't make up the difference in North Carolina's more conservative rural areas. If urban voters decide he's a patsy for more conservative legislators, that's a problem for the governor.

All of this creates an interesting dilemma for Republican senators. If they push too hard against McCrory, they will weaken his re-election prospects and increase the chances they will have to deal with a Democratic governor come 2017. If they don't push hard enough, they will be forced to swallow legislation they don't like.

Who will win these arguments? Hard to say, but if you are visiting the capital, pack your umbrella.