North Caroliina’s Republican-dominated legislature will give voters a chance to cap their exposure to income and property taxes come the November mid-terms. While such caps may lower taxes for the rich, for the rest of us it will likely have the opposite effect. In May, the GOP mustered the three-fifths majority to put two constitutional amendments on the ballot in November. One would cap the state income tax rate at 3.5 percent. The other would require lawmakers to set a lim

Another North Carolina elections bill, approved by a House committee, has stalled amid opposition from protesters and lawmakers who object to several provisions, including one that would allow the State Board of Elections to conduct certain hiring decisions in closed session. Wait. What? As lawmakers pursued competing approaches to election reform—with Republicans seeking to tighten voting requirements and Democrats advocating for fewer barriers to voting—the bill appeared

The Supreme Court’s recent voting rights decision is part of a broader trend of rulings that have gradually narrowed the scope of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. What changed here is not simply a technical legal standard, but the practical way race may be considered in drawing political districts and how discrimination must be proven in court. Those changes affect representation, public policy, and the enforceability of civil rights protections. The most immediate consequence