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RALEIGH — House Republicans used a hastily called 12:45 a.m. session Thursday to override a gubernatorial veto and score a political victory against the state’s teacher’s union.

The action outraged Democrats, who said neither they nor voters had official notice of the session until close to midnight on Wednesday.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Sen. Martin Nesbitt, a Democrat who tried to help his House colleagues stave off the late-night veto override.

The measure in question strips the N.C. Association of Educators, a 60,000-member group that functions similarly to a teacher’s union, of their “dues check off” privilege. Under current rules, school systems will take money for dues from NCAE members’ paychecks and transmit it directly to the organization. This is a practical boon to an organization that would otherwise have to collect thousands of checks every month.

Senators had voted to override Perdue's veto in July but House members could not muster the votes until today.

Under the bill that will now become law despite the governor’s veto, NCAE no longer has that ability, making it harder for the teacher's group to operate. However, other state worker groups retained the right, including the State Employees Association of North Carolina.

"I urge our members to take politics out of the classroom," said Rep. Paul "Skip" Stam, the Republican majority leader. He said the legislature was merely taking away a special privilege, not something that was a right. 

Democrats countered that the bill was a political one, aimed at settling scores with an organization that had opposed Republicans during the election and during the summer's budget votes.

“This session was a sham and a shame,” said Rep. Rick Glazier, a Fayetteville Democrat. “It was of no value to the citizens of this state, continues a path of demoralizing professionals in public education … and in the end really does little but seriously harm the institutional integrity of the House of Representatives and the confidence people have in their government.”

Republicans said they were well within their rights to pursue the early morning session and that nobody should have been surprised by the actions.

“Everybody knows that any time we come into a general session, that those matters are on the calendar and that this should be a learning experience,” House Speaker Thom Tillis.

But in fact, when lawmakers returned to Raleigh on Wednesday, they were not anticipating a “general session.”

Lawmakers had been called back to Raleigh on Wednesday to handle a veto override on a completely separate bill.

In 2009, the General Assembly passed the Racial Justice Act, which allows death row inmates to challenge their conviction with statistical evidence of racial bias. At the time, Democrats controlled both the House and Senate.

When Republicans took control of the General Assembly in January of 2011, repealing the Racial Justice Act was a goal, if not a top priority. The Senate put the finishing touches on a repeal measure in early December.

Gov. Bev Perdue, a Democrat who signed the original bill into law, vetoed the repeal measure. Lawmakers were called back to a “reconvened session”  Wednesday to decide whether to override her veto.

In order to win an override vote, each chamber needs a supermajority of three-fifths of those present and voting.

The vote was never in doubt in the Senate, which voted along party lines, 31-19, to override.

By contrast, the House vote was a dicey proposition all day.

Republican leaders maneuvered to find the votes they needed to accomplish the veto, but gave up shortly after 7 p.m. In stead, House leaders referred the racial justice bill to a Judiciary Committee and appointed a special working group to look at potential to the still-standing Racial Justice Act. Those two actions were an admission that the GOP didn't have the votes to accomplish the override.

Two conservative Democrats, Reps. William Brisson of Dublin and Jim Crawford of Oxford, brokered the deal with Republicans to send the measure back to committee.

“It’s not something that’s going to be a quick thing and a quick fix,” Brisson said. He added that the working group may be able to find ideas that satisfy both Democrats concerns about unequal use of the death penalty and worries by District Attorneys and victims’ families that convicted murderers might go free under the law.

Brisson didn’t specify how he convinced Republicans to back off the Racial Justice Act Wednesday night, when two more GOP members were on their way to Raleigh and could have delivered the winning votes.

However, he and Crawford were the only two Democrats to vote with Republicans on the override of the NCAE check off bill.

Brian Lewis, a lobbyist for the teacher’s group, says Brisson told him he traded the delay on the racial justice bill for a vote on the dues check off legislation.

Tillis denied Republicans cut such as a deal, and staff members for the speaker dismissed the claim as “ridiculous.”

As late as 11 p.m., there was a still a great deal of confusion and speculation as to what the Republican-lead House might want to take up instead of the Racial Justice Act and how they might legally do anything else.

The state constitution says that when the governor recalls the General Assembly to consider a veto, lawmakers “may only consider such bills as were returned by the Governor.”

House Republicans got around that strict limit on what could be heard by passing an adjournment resolution that called for a new special session to begin at 12:45 a.m. Thursday morning.

A resolution, House leaders said, is not the same as a bill that is destined to become a general statute.

The Senate also needed to vote for that resolution for it to take effect. While members in that chamber agreed to let the House move forward with its bills, Republican Senate leaders refused to take up any more business of their own.

According to the head of the legislature’s bill drafting division, there is precedent for lawmakers to tweak adjournment resolutions during reconvened veto sessions.

However, Democrats argued that the circumstances in those cases were different and neither had the effect of allowing the General Assembly to take up measures with no notice.

Lewis vowed that NCAE would take the newly enacted law to court, claiming the procedures used to pass it were unconstitutional.

“It is absurd to say that any of us standing back here as members, or of the public could have thought these other veto overrides could be coming forward … this morning at 1 a.m.,” said Rep. Paul Luebke, a Durham Democrat.

In fact, before lawmakers adjourned their early morning session, they were told two other matters might come up.

•  Talking points on S 709, the Energy Jobs Act, were placed on all members desks prior to the 12:45 a.m. session. That measure would push the state toward allowing off-shore energy exploration as well as fracking, a way of extracting natural gas on land.
  
  Proponents of the bill says the state needs to create jobs by exploiting its energy resources. Opponents of the measure say that the environmental harm done by drilling would offset any economic benefits. Senators had already voted to override Perdue's veto of this bill but House Republicans have thus far been unable to muster the votes.
   
•  Lawmakers were also preparing to debate a bill that would require voters to show photo identification at the polls. This has been a key legislative priority for Republicans, who say the state needs to do more to secure its elections. Democrats say a photo ID requirement would disenfranchise many poor and minority voters. Again, the senate has already voted to override Perdue's veto but House Republicans have never gotten the votes needed to pass it. 

“If they could have done more, they would have done more. Believe me,” said Rep. Larry Hall, a Durham Democrat. He said Republicans would have pressed their advantage if they could have rounded up enough Democrats to support the other veto overrides. 

But Tillis said that just because House leaders didn’t call for votes on the issue doesn’t mean they couldn’t have won them.

“I don’t think you should necessarily assume that,” Tillis said.

So why single out NCAE?

The teachers group has used their organization’s funding and membership to oppose House Republicans both during the 2010 elections and when the General Assembly convened in 2011. In particular, the group worked to pressure five Democrats who sided with Republicans on the state budget to flip their votes. It was particularly vocal about cuts to education funding.

During a House Republican Caucus meeting, which would normally be secret but was accidentally broadcast to the state legislative press room in June, Tillis made clear that the check off bill was constructed to punish the teacher’s group.

“The reason we’ve decided to do that is the NCAE has gone into all five districts with mailers hammering these Democrats,” Tillis said. “We just want to give them a little taste about what’s to come.”

Lewis said he was told by House Republicans that its group had become a target because of its political advocacy.

“The Republicans in the General Assembly didn’t have the votes to get what they wanted legally," Perdue said in a written statement. "So, in the dark of night, they engaged in an unprecedented, unconstitutional power grab. I am saddened for the people of North Carolina that the Republicans abused their power and chose this destructive path.”

Democrats complained that Republican House leaders were taking advantage of the absence of key Democratic lawmakers due to illness.

For example, his House colleagues reported that Rep. Larry Womble, a Winston-Salem Democrat, is in a coma or near-coma-state following a car accident in late December. And Rep. William Wainwright, a Havelock Democrat, was forced to leave the legislative building due to illness.

Tillis said those absences didn’t matter because they were, in part, offset by the absence of Rep. Rick Killian, a Charlotte Republican who is serving in the military overseas.

And in fact, Republicans would have needed 69 votes whether Wainwright was able to make the session or not.

However, they did benefit from Gov. Bev Perdue’s appointment of Rep. Trudi Walend to fill the term of Rep. David Guice, who left the legislature to work as the head of the state’s probation and parole agency.

In fact, it was a scuffle over Walend’s appointment that promised to be the political story of the day before the House’s late-nigh shenanigans.

On Monday, a committee of Republican officials in Henderson, Polk and Transylvania counties selected Walend, a former representative, to fill Guice’s term.

Under state law, Perdue must accept that recommendation and make the appointment, but she had seven days. As of Wednesday morning, she had not yet signed the paperwork appointing Walend.

This sparked outrage among Republicans, who accused Perdue of political brinkmanship and depriving voters of their proper representation. Some thought Walend might have provided the crucial vote that would allow the House to override Perdue on the racial justice bill.

GOP leaders dismissed assertions by Perdue’s office that she could not make the appointment until Walend filed an economic disclosure form.

“There’s no legitimate reason for the governor to delay,” Tillis said shortly after 2 p.m. He added that Walend had filed the form and that even if she had not, it was a matter for the House to handle.

Perdue’s staff replied that the disclosure form had not been filed as of 1 p.m. And they pointed to a statute that prohibits her from making such an appointment until a disclosure form is filed.

“Perhaps Speaker Tillis was not aware of the requirements of North Carolina law when he held his press conference this afternoon,” Perdue spokeswoman Chris Mackey said.

Shortly before 5 p.m., a Perdue staffer hand-delivered the appointment to the General Assembly and Walend was seated in time to take the evening’s votes.

In the end, it made little difference to the racial justice bill. However, her vote was critical in passing the override of the NCAE check off measure.

Contact Mark Binker at (919) 832-5549 or mark.binker@news-record.com