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BY DAVID SINCLAIR: Managing Editor

Second of Three Parts

In February 2003, after voters gave Republicans a slim majority in the state House, GOP lawmakers thought they could take control of the chamber for the first time since 1998.

But Rep. Richard Morgan, a Moore County Republican, knew from past experience that a two-vote majority was not enough of a margin to allow his party to govern effectively. It would take a bipartisan coalition, he said.

Morgan campaigned against Rep. Leo Daughtry, an old political enemy who was the party’s favorite candidate for speaker. Morgan made a deal with Democrats to share the speakership with Rep. Jim Black of Mecklenburg County.

Some in his party now call Morgan a traitor and a bully and aim to strip him of power this year. They say he sold out his party purely for personal gain.

But Morgan and his supporters say the power-sharing arrangement worked well. They point out that the General Assembly enacted a budget in record time and that a redistricting plan received bipartisan approval.

“Republicans and Democrats worked together,” Morgan says. “We put aside political bickering and gridlock and replaced it with cooperation and progress. We accomplished a great deal for North Carolina.”

Morgan had seen firsthand what happened during the 1997 session, when Republicans held a 61-59 edge over Democrats. Rep. Harold Brubaker was speaker of the House at the time.

“He was held hostage by his own party the whole time,” Morgan says. “That’s no way to govern and make good policy.”

Republicans held the same two-vote margin after the 2002 elections. The GOP caucus chose Daughtry, who had served as both majority and minority leader in the House, as its candidate for speaker.

Rep. John Blust of Guilford County says Morgan never campaigned for the post in the caucus and would not say who he would back.

“He just didn’t like who was chosen and decided he was going to shoot him down,” Blust says. “He now talks about bringing people together. He wouldn’t come together. He was belligerent.”

Bad Blood

Neither Morgan nor Daughtry will say why there is so much bad blood between them. It goes back to the days when Morgan’s friend, Brubaker, was speaker. Morgan pledged then that he would stop Daughtry from getting the job.

When Republicans won control of the House in the 1994 elections, Daughtry, who had been minority leader, was interested in being speaker. Brubaker won out, and Daughtry was elected majority leader. Brubaker appointed Morgan as chairman of the powerful Rules Committee.

Blust says he is no “Leo Daughtry disciple,” but that he felt the Republicans should have stuck together in backing a candidate for speaker last year. Daughtry eventually stepped aside, and Rep. George Holmes became the party’s nominee in an attempt to bring Morgan and his four supporters back into the fold. Morgan saw Holmes as nothing more than an extension of Daughtry.

Then came the defection of Rep. Michael Decker, a Forsyth County Republican, to the Democratic Party just days before the 2003 session convened. The loss of Decker wiped out the GOP’s fragile majority. That forced Republicans and Democrats to negotiate a power-sharing agreement.

They would be charting new territory.

Decker, who switched back to the Republican Party several months later, says he was fed up at the time with what he calls the “arm-twisting” and “brow beating” in the caucus by people such as Daughtry, to get them to vote the party line.

“I couldn’t stomach it,” Decker says.

Logjam Broken

After the party won the slim 61-59 majority in the 2002 elections, Decker says, Republicans were expected to sign a loyalty oath that included supporting Daughtry for speaker.

“I wanted to be a good Republican, so I signed it,” he says. He later regretted it. Morgan refused to sign it.

Decker says he didn’t trust Daughtry, who he says claimed to have support from a handful of Democrats. Decker also had designs on the job of speaker pro tem.

“They promised me speaker pro tem if I would support Leo,” he says. “That was like trying to bribe me. I told them I couldn’t do it.”

Decker says the main reason he switched parties was to help elect Black as speaker.

“I thought the only way to stop Leo was electing Jim Black,” he says. “Otherwise, it would have been more of the same. I didn’t think that would be good for our House or for the state. They vilified me. I did what I thought was right.”

Decker, who says he had spoken with Morgan briefly about his bid to be co-speaker, jumped ship from the Republican Party on the Friday before the session was to open the following Monday.

“I didn’t know how long he (Morgan) would be able to stick it out or whether he could pull it off,” Decker says.

Blust says Morgan’s refusal to support anyone but himself for speaker made it impossible for Republicans to unite behind one candidate for speaker.

The 60-60 division led to a series of votes on the House floor for speaker — 60 for Black, 55 for Holmes and five for Morgan.

In negotiations with Democrats, Blust and Holmes say, a majority of the Republican members insisted on a 50-50 power-sharing deal that included co-speakers, with each having equal responsibilities, and co-chairmen on all committees, including the powerful Rules Committee, which controls the flow of legislation.

Holmes says Black told them that he did not think Democrats would go for that.

The logjam was finally broken when Democratic Rep. Bill Culpepper, who wound up chairing the Rules Committee, made the motion to nominate Black and Morgan as co-speakers. It passed. The final vote was 89-31, as a number of Republicans, including several freshmen, joined them to give the House its first-ever co-speakers.

‘Pretty Good Bargain’

Representatives from both parties hoped the deal would bring about unprecedented bipartisan cooperation. Some Republicans didn’t see it that way. They felt cheated by one of their own.

“I presumed, as most I have to talked to, that after Richard Morgan saw that was our proposition, he would beat that offer by agreeing to something less than 50-50,” Holmes says.

Culpepper, who is from Chowan County, says the 60 Democrats were faced with two deals, one from a group of 55 Republicans and another from a group of five Republicans.

“It doesn’t take a Phi Beta Kappa to figure out which one the Democrats wanted,” he says. “It seemed to us that it was better going with a smaller group than trying to satisfy 55 of them.”

Culpepper says more Democrats were appointed as committee chairmen than Republicans. He says that was only fair considering there were 60 of them and Morgan had five. He points out that as co-speakers, Morgan and Black appoint equal numbers to all special committees.

“I’d say Richard struck a pretty good bargain, considering the numbers,” Culpepper says. “As far are the Democrats, we took the game like we found it. In the beginning, it was probably more to our favor. But I think it is fair. It wasn’t our problem that Richard had a problem with his caucus.

“Everybody in the Democratic caucus, whether they admit it or not, has to agree that this (power-sharing-arrangement) worked well. … And these folks are saying this was a bad bargain he struck. Give me a break. That is ridiculous.”

Culpepper says Morgan did exactly what he said he was going to do.

‘A Crying Shame’

But Blust says, “Jim Black would have been a fool not to take their deal. He took the best deal possible. Richard says it was to save the GOP gavel. But he gave away some of the power. It was not equal power-sharing. That is what we wanted. That was what was fair.

“It is just a crying shame that people who have worked so hard get the rug pulled out from under them by one of their own people.”

Blust says one of things that angered many Republicans was that Morgan’s deal gave Democrats sole chairmanship of the Rules Committee.

“The Democrats controlled what legislation moved and what would get killed,” he says. “Of course, everyone will think things worked well when bills that one side or the other opposes don’t get brought up.”

He says Republicans were effectively blocked from bringing up bills that were unpopular with Democrats, such as curbing wasteful government spending and cutting taxes rather than raising them.

“We weren’t allowed to do the things we were elected to do,” he says.

‘Political Sideshow’

Republicans in Mecklenburg, Forsyth and Wake counties have passed resolutions asking that the state GOP find Morgan “culpable of disloyalty” to the party and that he be removed from the 500-member executive committee in May, because of the deal he made with Democrats to be co-speaker.

Morgan, who is serving his seventh term in the House, continues to believe that a small group of people who did not get their way is behind what he calls “a political sideshow.”

Rep. Julia Howard, a Davie County Republican and longtime supporter of Morgan, says Morgan’s deal was good for Republicans. She says Republicans co-chaired the key committees, such as appropriations, finance and redistricting. She says the power-sharing arrangement worked well.

“It was absolutely the smoothest process I have ever witnessed,” says Howard, who has served 16 years in the House. “I can’t criticize it. It came down to the point where we could not have a sole speaker. I think the co-speakers have worked well together. Both respect each other. They are men of integrity. That has filtered down to the committee chairs.

“People expect us to go to Raleigh to take care of important things, to get the budget out. They don’t care about this behind-the-scene fighting. They want us to do the job and go home. We could not have governed without this arrangement. As time passed, Richard has reached out to them (the ones who opposed him) and treated them with as much respect as they show him.”

Blust says the opposite is true. He says Morgan has punished his enemies and operates through intimidation.

Rep. John Rhodes, a Republican from Mecklenburg County and a freshman, says he does not like the way Morgan operates. He was one of the eight representatives who lost their secretaries during the times in between sessions.

“This guy is whaling on Republicans,” says Rhodes, who started his career in public service as a volunteer firefighter. “That is not right. I am not going to cower in the corner. He relies on intimidation. I am not worried about retribution from him. I’ve been shot at on the streets of Charlotte, and I have been in burning houses. A kitten like Richard Morgan is not going to scare me.”

The question of whether the power-sharing arrangement was a good thing for the House, and in particular Republicans, could ultimately be decided by the voters in this year’s elections.

For the first time since 1998, Morgan faces a primary opponent. Peggy Crutchfield, former executive director of the United Way of Moore County, resigned her job to run against Morgan. She says on her Web site that “Morgan has betrayed and abandoned the conservative Moore County voters who sent him to Raleigh.”

Some of Morgan’s opponents have vowed to help her financially. Morgan says he is not worried.

Friday: Political fallout.