Today at 4:00, the House annexation study committee will likely approve legislation that will be recommended to the full House.

A few weeks ago, this committee voted to place a moratorium on
involuntary annexations and satellite annexations until June 30,
2009.  Legislative staff was supposed to codify, in a draft bill,
exactly what had been approved.

As Clint pointed out,
it appears that the language to be considered today ignores the
previous vote and excludes satellite annexations from the
moratorium.  As I wrote
a few weeks ago after the vote, I figured there would be some “funny
business” between the vote and today’s meeting, but even this goes
beyond my wildest dreams.

Forget about whether you love or hate annexation.

Is it appropriate for a legislative body to simply ignore a formal
vote?  I know some people will just say: that is the NC
legislature being the legislature (and laugh).  There are some
sleazy things that may be part of the process, but this type of action
isn’t something that should be passed off as just part of the process.

If the results of voting may or may not be respected (depending on the
whim of a few legislators), then the legislature is not a functioning
legislative body.

So what should happen today?

The committee should review draft
legislation that codifies what they voted on.  If someone wants to
remove satellite annexations out of the bill, then they can introduce
an amendment to do so.  It isn’t that complicated.

Instead, it appears that the legislature has decided to ignore the vote
and do exactly what it wants or felt pressured to do (note that the
vote was something like 10-2 in favor of a moratorium on involuntary
and satellite annexations).

What’s worse?  A legislator getting paid to vote a certain way, or
a few legislators in backroom deals deciding to veto the democratic
vote of an entire committee and then imposing their will on the
committee?  I’ll leave that as an open question.

The sleazy actions that some on this committee appear to have taken to
ignore a vote may or may not be illegal, but it should be.  Let’s
hope the committee and legislative staff will actually respect the vote
when the legislation is presented to the committee today.