According to the Raleigh News and Observer:
Republicans successfully overrode Gov. Bev Perdue’s veto of a fracking bill during a quick vote taken just after 11 p.m. Monday.
The override effort gained the 72 votes necessary only because a Democrat accidentally voted for it and was not allowed to change. Immediately when Rep. Becky Carney of Mecklenburg County said she’d like to change her vote, Republican Rep. Paul Stam of Wake County called for a procedural vote to prevent vote changes. Under normal circumstances vote changes are routine.
The procedural vote gained 71 votes, enough to lock in the first vote but also showing that the Republicans lacked enough votes for a veto had Carney not pressed the wrong button.
Read the full article
Republicans successfully overrode Gov. Bev Perdue’s veto of a fracking bill during a quick vote taken just after 11 p.m. Monday.
The override effort gained the 72 votes necessary only because a Democrat accidentally voted for it and was not allowed to change. Immediately when Rep. Becky Carney of Mecklenburg County said she’d like to change her vote, Republican Rep. Paul Stam of Wake County called for a procedural vote to prevent vote changes. Under normal circumstances vote changes are routine.
The procedural vote gained 71 votes, enough to lock in the first vote but also showing that the Republicans lacked enough votes for a veto had Carney not pressed the wrong button.
Read the full article
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"House rules prohibit changing your vote if doing so would effect the outcome. (In other words, you can change your vote on a bill, but only if won't make any difference.) So the override stays in effect and fracking is now legal in North Carolina."
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2012/07/north-carolina-lawmaker-presses-wrong-button-accidentally-legalizes-fracking/54160/
By timothypeck
07/03/2012
Not exactly true. Stop reading the rag run out of the Watergate Hotel in DC, and read the reporter who covers the NCGA, and was there:
"A maneuver by Wake County Republican Paul “Skip” Stam prevented her from changing her vote, giving the GOP a historic one-vote margin of victory.
"Democrats denounced Stam’s quick parliamentary maneuver as a dirty trick that resulted in the passage of a landmark energy overhaul that could create a natural gas production industry in the state."
http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/07/03/2174842/state-senate-overrides-gov-perdues.html
By bsummers
07/03/2012
Bye bye, Becky.
And if changing your vote on a bill is only possible if it does not change the outcome, then the legislator's own rules underscores the fact that voting is all about perception and not much to do with what is right, fair or moral. Another reason politics is in gridlock.
By zen
07/03/2012
What the FRACK?
By Jeff
07/03/2012