State of the States

New Jersey and North Carolina have gone totally ga-ga.

In New Jersey, Governor Chris Christie attempted to get passed in the legislature a bill that would have ended the print newspapers' monopoly on legal notices, their last reliable source of revenue, in an act of revenge against all of the nasty things new Jersey newspapers have said about him.  Through controlled by the Democrats, the legislature was ready to go along with the governor, thanks to some deals he made with the Democratic leadership (the details and contents of which were never revealed.  The Democratic rank and file in both the Assembly and the Senate rebelled, though, and the bill was tabled. Defeated outright was a bill that would have allowed Christie to profit from a book deal while still in office.

Did I happen to mention that has-been comedian Joe Piscopo may run for governor of New Jersey next year?    

Meanwhile, in North Carolina, the Republican legislature stripped incoming Democratic governor Roy Cooper of his powers, such as reducing the number of appointments he can make by two-thirds, moving some authority to the incoming Republican state schools superintendent, stopping him from appointing trustees to the state university system.  The legislature pretty much made Cooper even weaker than North Carolina governors, including outgoing Republican governor Pat McCrory, already are. Cooper may sue.

And if that weren't enough, the legislature has been attempting to repeal the law forcing transgender people to use the public bathrooms of their birth sex rather than the won hey identify with, provided the city of Charlotte repeal its ordinance affirming the right of transgender people to use public bathrooms of the sex they identify with.  Charlotte stuck to its part of the deal, and so the legislators would have to stick to theirs especially if they wanted to end the economic boycotts against the state.

The statewide repeal failed.

The year is stumbling to an embarrassing close politically in the United States, but the politics will carry on into 2017.