Politico: “The road to political morass began six years ago in North Carolina, when national Republican donors and strategists launched a concerted effort to create a bulwark against the emerging multiracial, center-left coalition that swept Barack Obama into the White House. They sank millions of dollars into cheaply bought local and state races, seizing control of the statehouse for the first time since a now-unrecognizable Republican Party that supported racial integration and voting rights for African-Americans held it during Reconstruction.”

“Because 2010 happened to be a once-a-decade redistricting year, the new Republican majority gerrymandered districts in which Democrats couldn’t win—which resulted in ever-more-hardline conservatives winning primaries in each election. A Southern economic powerhouse once known for a careful, if awkward, political balance (from 1999 to 2003, the state’s voters sent both John Edwards and Jesse Helms to the U.S. Senate) became a conservative lab experiment.”

Rick Klein: “With the North Carolina legislature keeping the so-called ‘bathroom bill’ in place, 2017 gets to deal with some more unfinished business from 2016. But the issue serves as a reminder that this new era of Republican dominance has severe limits. The tide has already turned in North Carolina, and new efforts to repeal the bill – under public and economic pressure – are likely to be more successful after Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper takes office. While there’s no predicting the president-elect’s Tweets, does anyone think Donald Trump will provide air cover on the issue next year? It’s a reminder – like the minimum-wage increases that passed last month – the country is shading red, but not necessarily moving right.”

Paul Waldman: “This isn’t just hardball politics. This is a fundamentally anti-democratic approach to government, one that says that when we win, we get to implement our agenda, and when you win, you don’t.”

“To put this in context, perhaps nowhere in the country have Republicans moved more aggressively to solidify power by disenfranchising their opponents as they have in North Carolina.”

“Republicans in the North Carolina legislature on Wednesday took the highly unusual step of moving to strip power from the incoming Democratic governor after a bitter election that extended years of fierce ideological battles in the state,” the New York Times reports.

“After calling a surprise special session, Republican lawmakers who control the General Assembly introduced measures to end the governor’s control over election boards, to require State Senate approval of the new governor’s cabinet members and to strip his power to appoint University of North Carolina trustees.”

Rick Hasen: “And here’s the kicker: any lawsuit over these alleged rules will end up before the state Supreme Court with its new Democratic majority, unless the special session itself produces a court-packing plan, and if that happens the Court itself would have to resolve a key question about its own membership.”

First Read: “It is one thing to lose a close race. It’s another thing to be bitter about it. But it’s ENTIRELY different to try to jam through changes to strip away your opponent’s powers. This is partisanship gone too far, and it’s corrosive to our democracy.”

“Since the North Carolina legislature last March passed House Bill 2, a controversial law restricting transgender bathroom access and limiting the civil rights and bathroom usage of the LGBT community, the state has lost the NBA All-Star Game, Bruce Springsteen and other concerts and conventions and an untold amount of revenue,” the Raleigh News & Observer reports.

“Now North Carolina is losing the NCAA tournament. The NCAA announced on Monday that the seven championships scheduled in the state during this academic year, including NCAA men’s basketball tournament games in Greensboro, would be relocated because of House Bill 2, better known as HB2.”

A new RABA Research poll in North Carolina finds that 50% of North Carolina voters disapprove of the new law requiring that transgender people use the public bathrooms that correspond to the gender on their birth certificate, while 35% approved and 16% weren’t sure.