EDITORIAL: Republicans behaving badly

We generally like to stick to policy in this space when it comes to politics: bills, votes, grassroots movements and the like.

But we can’t ignore a slew of reporting by the Assembly on two incidents involving North Carolina GOP lawmakers that read like the actions of frat boys run amok in all the worst ways.

The first, in a piece that came out on Tuesday, reported out a Reddit post from an employee at a distillery in Kentucky claiming that 33 NC legislators arrived for a bourbon tasting. Among the accusations: they arrived an hour late, already drunk from the bus ride; “loud, unruly conduct”; disrupting the vibe in the distillery; neglecting to tip the servers; and puking in the bathroom sinks.

The Assembly tracked down an invite from Greater Carolina, “A coalition of forward thinking, pro- free market conservative leaders from across North Carolina dedicated to ensuring a strong economic future  for ALL of North Carolina,” according to their website, for a 3-day Kentucky Bourbon and Churchill Downs event in Louisville, Ky., listing Sara Newby, finance chair for the NC GOP, as a contact. You might recognize her last name because her father is chief justice of the NC Supreme Court, Paul Newby.

Neither had a comment, nor did anyone else who might have been there.

More serious are the gaps in the story of a tragedy at the wedding of Rep. Dustin Hall (R-Caldwell, Wataugua), who is in line to be the House speaker in January. Over the wedding weekend in December, lobbyist Cory Bryson fell from the back of a truck on the way to the rehearsal dinner, suffering serious injuries — two weeks in the hospital and the loss of vision in one eye.

No one had much to say about this one, either, other than prepared statements signifying nothing. But because Bryson was wearing an Apple watch that called 911 as soon as it detected the wearer had been in a crash, a recording of the moment made it into public record. Most noteworthy is a male voice insisting that the other men “get the alcohol out of the car.”

We know a little something about drinking around here, the places it can take you, the poor decisions it can lead to, the messes it can leave behind in its wake. And while we don;t expect these incidents to affect the career trajectories of anyone involved — as long as they keep their mouths shut! — we feel comfortable in saying that there seems to be faction of the NC GOP that needs to lay off the booze.