Jason Zengerle: “Welcome to North Carolina circa 2017, where all the passions and pathologies of American politics writ large are played out writ small — and with even more intensity. Ever since 2010, when Republicans seized control of the General Assembly for the first time in a century, and especially since 2012, when they took the governor’s mansion, the state’s politics have been haywire.”

“In just a few years, North Carolina Republicans have not just run quickly through the conservative policy checklist; they’ve tried to permanently skew the balance of power in the state in their favor, passing some of the most restrictive voting laws in the country and drawing some of the most egregiously gerrymandered congressional and state legislative districts in modern American politics (though their moves have repeatedly failed to pass muster with the courts).”

Mississippi state Rep. Karl Oliver (R) said that Louisiana leaders should be lynched for removing Confederate monuments, the AP reports.

Said Oliver: “The destruction of these monuments, erected in the loving memory of our family and fellow Southern Americans, is both heinous and horrific. If the, and I use this term extremely loosely, ‘leadership’ of Louisiana wishes to, in a Nazi-ish fashion, burn books or destroy historical monuments of OUR HISTORY, they should be LYNCHED! Let it be known, I will do all in my power to prevent this from happening in our State.”

He later apologized: “I am very sorry. It is in no way, ever, an appropriate term.”

Texas GOP Chair Tom Mechler stepped down with a year left in his term, citing the “time commitment, financial commitment, stress and overwhelming responsibility” of the job while warning that “a party that is fractured by anger and backbiting is a party that will not succeed,” the Texas Tribune reports.

Mechler’s replacement will be chosen June 3.