RALEIGH – Did former Rep. Michael Decker switch parties back in 2003 in order to gain some political favors?
Naw. Couldn’t be that.
Decker, a thoroughly conservative Republican lawmaker for many years, represented a strongly GOP district in Forsyth County. When voters in November 2002 decided to elect 61 Republicans and 59 Democrats to the North Carolina House, Decker had a decision to make. Would he remain in his party, keeping the party label with which he had just been re-elected? Or would he switch to the Democrats, thus yielding a 60-60 split in the chamber and touching off a complicated scramble for power?
Decker chose the latter choice. The eventual result was that the reigning Democratic Speaker of the House, Jim Black of Mecklenburg County, retained the job. Republican Richard Morgan of Moore County brought enough GOP votes to the coalition to be named co-speaker (technically, both Black and Morgan bore the title of “co-speaker,” but the pecking order was clear enough).
Immediately, frustrated stalwarts of the GOP caucus smelled a rat. They asserted that Decker must have had ulterior motives. But he denied all allegations of rodentry. The Republicans had just become too overbearing, too pushy, too extreme, he said. The Democratic Party was his natural home. And his party-switch had nothing to do with gaining any political favors.
Naw. Couldn’t be that.
Shortly after the Black-Morgan coalition took power, however, Decker’s son – a former state director for the Christian Coalition – went to work as an administrative assistant at the legislature. See, GOP critics fumed, there’s your payoff!
Naw. Couldn’t be that.
By the 2004 election cycle, however, Decker had apparently experienced another political change of heart. A Republican he had once been, and a Republican he would be again. Remaining in a solidly GOP district, Decker re-registered and promptly drew a primary challenger. Republicans statewide assisted in the campaign against a man they still perceived as an unprincipled turncoat. Decker put up a spirited fight, gaining assistance from both Black and Morgan, but it was all for naught. He was easily defeated.
Rumors continued to circulated at the General Assembly, however, that Decker would still end up with something else for his trouble. Now, it is reported that he has been hired by the NC Department of Cultural Resources for a new position (wait, wasn’t there talk of a billion-dollar budget hole?) at the recommendation of Speaker Black. A spokeswoman for the department denied any allegation of a political payoff.
Naw. Couldn’t be that.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of Carolina Journal Online.