Local News Roundup: County Commission approves $10 million for Discovery Place Nature; Dante Anderson is new mayor pro tem; Patrick McHenry not seeking re-election; CMS approves budget

On the next Charlotte Talks Local News Roundup…

More plans are ahead to replace Charlotte’s Discovery Place Nature Museum in Freedom Park — with a hefty price tag. We’ll hear about the contentious debate that led to county commissioners agreeing to pay $10 million more towards the museum, and why that still may not be enough.

Dante Anderson is the new mayor pro tem after a contentious debate at City Council this week. We’ll talk about the vote.

We learned this week that North Carolina Congressman Patrick McHenry will not run for re-election. We’ll discuss what this might do to the political picture in the state.

We’re near the end of the second academic quarter for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, but the school board this week approved the budget for the current school year. We’ll discuss the reasons for the delay.

Most North Carolina Democrats voted in favor of an antisemitism resolution this week. We’ll talk about what the resolution says and who voted.

And former North Carolina Senator Fountain Odom has died. We’ll have a remembrance.

Mike Collins and our roundtable of reporters delve into those stories and more, on this week’s Charlotte Talks Local News Roundup.

GUESTS:

Nick Ochsner, WBTV’s executive producer for investigations & chief investigative reporter
Mary C. Curtis, columnist for Rollcall.com, host of the Rollcall podcast “Equal Time”
Joe Bruno, WSOC-TV reporter
Ann Doss Helms, WFAE education reporter

House Republicans wanted all the control, while doing none of the real work

In his pre-Sundance, Hollywood golden boy, leading man days, Robert Redford starred in a cynical, sometimes comical take on the world of political campaigns — and even if you haven’t seen the film, you know its memorable final line.

In 1972’s “The Candidate,” Redford, who plays “The Candidate,” sheds authenticity and conviction as he begins to taste a U.S. Senate seat. And after — spoiler alert — he wins, the senator-elect interrupts the triumphant, climactic moment, corners the campaign manager who has shepherded his unlikely ascent, and asks, panic rising in his voice: “What do we do now?”

Jacket or no jacket, Ohio GOP Rep. Jim Jordan, bless his heart, is never going to remind anyone of Robert Redford — except that both have a shockingly skimpy record of legislative achievements.

But more and more, as I watched the Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives try — and fail — to bring just a semblance of order to its caucus, that scene read as documentary, predicting party members so obsessed with winning the prize, they had no interest in nor inclination to figure out why they wanted it in the first place or what to do if they actually got it.

In Jordan’s case, I wondered about a candidate whose authenticity and conviction were always kind of shaky. Congressman, why would you want to be in charge of a body you always seemed more comfortable attacking, when you served as the first chair of the conservative Freedom Caucus — lobbing fireworks as an outsider — or treated a subpoena from a bipartisan committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection like trash?

You can’t paper over the lack of a reasonable and positive plan that might require compromise by raising the decibel level. And boy, does Jordan yell a lot, usually while interrupting anyone trying to answer one of his convoluted “gotcha” questions during hearings of the Judiciary Committee that he chairs.

Maybe Jordan just wanted to bang the gavel over and over again, or open up yet another Hunter Biden impeachment inquiry.

Some would say Jordan disqualified himself from any leadership post in this American democracy when he decided, after the Jan. 6 riot that endangered him and his colleagues, to join a majority of the House GOP caucus in rejecting President Joe Biden’s Electoral College win.

You can count me among the some, scared as I would be of what he might do if a similarly close 2024 election hinges on the integrity, patriotism and courage of a Speaker Jordan, who has been sketchy about his communications with former President Donald Trump about the 2020 election. Even now, he has not brought himself to definitively saying Trump lost.

Jordan’s power grab did not go as planned. Who could have predicted that his bullying tactics — demonizing skeptical GOP House members and enlisting online and on-air supporters to harass opponents — would have had the opposite effect?

The scenario, however, makes perfect sense for the party of Donald Trump. No Plan B? No problem. Trump wanted to be president so he could be president, in the same way House Republicans craved control but had no interest in doing the work, as long as it would create a meme, sound bite or fundraising appeal.

In dangerous times, that’s dangerous.

With scenes of death and devastation in Israel and Gaza, what wisdom does Trump offer? Well, the “rigged election” of 2020 is to blame, in his telling, as grotesque as that clearly sounds.

Local News Roundup: NC’s Patrick McHenry is interim Speaker of the House; CMPD and City Council talk ‘quality of life’ offenses; City works on response about CATS changes

In the aftermath of the ouster of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, North Carolina’s Patrick McHenry of Lincoln County, is now the interim House Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. We’ll talk about the role North Carolina’s delegates played in this week’s historical political vote.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police told City Council this week that it supports making offenses like public drinking and defecation arrest-able offenses. However City Council decided against that move. We’ll update what was said.

Charlotte Councilman Ed Driggs said on Monday the city is working to figure out a response to a letter sent by the mayors of Mecklenburg County towns who want to have a greater say in how Charlotte’s transit system is run. We’ll recap.

And in local sports, the Panthers continue their losing streak and go 0-4, Charlotte FC needs all wins in their final games to make the playoffs, and someone is once again whispering that Major League Baseball could come to North Carolina.

Mike Collins and our roundtable of reporters delve into those stories and more, on the Charlotte Talks local news roundup.
Guests:

Erik Spanberg, managing editor for the Charlotte Business Journal
Nick Ochsner, WBTV’s executive producer for Investigations & chief investigative reporter
Mary C. Curtis, columnist for Rollcall.com, host of the Rollcall podcast “Equal Time”
Ely Portillo, senior editor at WFAE News

Is this the leadership America deserves? Seriously?

“I think there’s some reason to doubt whether or not Matt Gaetz is serious,” said Rep. Dusty Johnson, Republican from South Dakota.

Talk about an understatement. When a member of your own party verbally spanks you, and another characterizes your immediate fundraising following Tuesday’s congressional chaos as “disgusting,” as Rep. Garret Graves of Louisiana made a point of doing, self-reflection might be a logical reaction.

But that is not what drives Gaetz, the Florida Republican who definitely got what he wanted — time in the spotlight and, yes, the ouster of now former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy.

What do Americans think, the people who don’t much care about the latest congressional preening, not when they came so very close to losing needed food aid, veteran counseling, education funding, access to parks and museums and all the meaningful and essential things in jeopardy when the government shuts down?

Well, of course some of those with worries about everything from the economy to the border who gave the GOP their current majority, albeit a sliver of one, might be pleased with the mess — as long as Gaetz and his tiny cohort disrupt. But what about those who wanted change, but not the drama of representatives such as Gaetz — and Majorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., George Santos, R-N.Y., and Lauren Boebert, R-Colo?