So what is a caucus anyway?
In any legislative body, there are groups of members who might share an issue or basket of issues. They are not necessarily from the same party and don't always see eye-to-eye on other things.
In Washington, D.C., forming a caucus is both a way to draw attention to an issue and to quickly amass some political capital. And they're more Congressional caucuses than Baskin Robins has flavors. I kid you not, there is a Congressional Congressional Zoo and Aquarium Caucus.
In Raleigh, there hasn't been quite the proliferation. (More after the jump.)
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There are, of course, the Republican and Democratic caucuses in the House and Senate. Member to one or the other is pretty much guaranteed based on a member's election and party affiliation, but not always. In 1999, High Point Republican Steve Wood got tossed from his caucus for voting for former House Speaker Jim Black.
Party caucus meetings are typically closed door affairs and used to hash out broad policy issues. Will we vote for the budget? Is it time for session to end? What else is on the "must get done" list?
Aside from the party's, the next most prevalent caucus is geographic. Big urban counties (Guilford, Mecklenburg, Wake) have pretty active caucus as do some regions (Piedmont Triad, Western NC).
These are strange critters, but because they include legislators from both parties with interests all over the ideological map.
Not to be Mr. Obvious here, but geographic caucus tend to advance items of interest to their areas. Sometimes that's a change that authorizes a local government to do something. Because cities and towns are creations of the state government, the legislature can monkey around with their charters and give them more or less leeway in terms of what local laws they can create and enforce.
Often geographic caucuses will push for specific budget items. Guilford County's, for example, perennially champions funding for the High Point Furniture Market. More rarely, a geographic caucus will have a take on a specific policy issue, but often that comes down to funding formulas or other money related items.
Beyond that, there are several "interest" caucuses in Raleigh, groups formed to push a particular basket of items or interests.
The N.C. Legislative Black Caucus is one of those. Currently made up of the General Assembly's 28 African American legislators, they generally push for issues that they perceive are of interest to African Americans in general, and particularly those who are lower income.
For example, the caucus has been a staunch proponent of the Earned Income Tax Credit, which returns money to the taxpayers on the lowest end of the income scale.
As far as other interest caucuses go, the legislators haven't gone nutty creating a bunch of them - who needs that many more meetings right? But here are two examples of others that have been active this year:
- The Military Caucus has members who are current and/or former military or from areas with large military populations. They have pushed through a number of smaller bills this year, most of them aimed at making family life for deployed soldiers a bit easier.
- The House Democratic Business Caucus, which is essentially the conservative end of the House Democratic party. It would be unfair to call them anti-regulation, but they definitely favor less regulation. They provide a counterweight to the progressive end of the party on things like environmental rules.
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