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You’ve heard the term, “home is where the heart is.” Everyone wants and needs a place to call home, where they can go for shelter, a safe place to relax and place to house their belongings and in many cases live with their spouse, children, relatives and friends. Your home in many cases is the asset that drives individual and family wealth for most people who live anyplace in the world. In America, we have a problem with homelessness, where thousands of people live an unsheltered environment in many parts of the United States, according to USA FACTS. USA FACTS reports the homeless population in America in 2020 was 580,466, which surprisingly is down 30.8% compared to 2006. California is first in the nation for homeless population, with 161,548, followed by New York with 91,271. North Carolina was 15th in the nation with 9,280 homeless people in 2020. In San Francisco, the homeless rate as February 2022 was 0.54% of the total population. Only Los Angeles had a higher rate of 0.67%. Who are the homeless? They represent a cross section of America, with 48% White, 39% Black, 6% Multi-racial and a combined 6% of Asian, Pacific Islander and Native American. They are veterans, children and families. Their average income is $15,000 and the largest age group is over 24 years old. When comparing the United States to our neighbors to the north and south the homeless numbers per 10,000 is 17.6; Canada is 10 and Mexico is 35.4. World Atlas, reports the United States is the 8th wealthiest nation in the world based on GDP, or the Gross Domestic Product, which is comprised of export revenues, incomes, consumption, and the value of goods and services the nation produces in the span of a year. “The GDP per capita is the wealth divided by the number of inhabitants in the country, which is a helpful measurement that can provide insight into the quality of life in a country.” The question is, why is there homelessness in the 8th wealthiest nation in the world and what is being done about it? The two cities in the nation for homelessness, Los Angeles and San Francisco are taking practical and prototypical approaches for addressing the issues. San Francisco is offering a podcast called "Fixing our City" that offers real stories and solutions to address the issue of preventing homelessness to reduce the growth of the unsheltered population. The Skid Row Housing Trust, which is designed to provide permanent housing along with to support sustainable living and wellness. Los Angeles County has developed a comprehensive and humane strategy for address the unsheltered issue for people in Los Angeles. The strategy is not a one a total solution, however it is a great start at addressing an issue that is faced by nations around the world and it many urban areas across America. or individuals and families, with restrooms, showers and counseling to assist people in transitioning from unsheltered to sheltered and potential employment. The Los Angeles County’s homeless services system began in 2017 with a legislative initiative designed to provide funding from a ¼ cent sales tax approved by voters to address and reduce homelessness. The model provides This is a model that can be replicated in cities across the nation and the world. Kudos to the people of California for their compassion and realizing the importance of finding a home for its residents. Homelessness can be reduced and eliminated in the 8th wealthiest nation in the world and two of the wealthiest cities in the world. .

There was a time not so long ago when North Carolina’s top judicial races, while still certainly containing a stiff shot of politics, were more genteel. For a while there were no party labels appearing on the ballot, and for a while there was a degree of public funding. Those days are gone. The state Supreme Court is composed of six associate justices and one chief justice, with Democrats holding a 4-3 edge. Two of those Democrats, both associate justices, are up for election, so only one has to be picked off to give the GOP a majority. If you haven’t heard about these races, you will. Outside money in the tens of millions of dollars is expected to flood into the state, meaning no airwave, mailbox or social media channel is going to be safe. There’s a lot at stake, as the Supreme Court is the final arbiter in many matters of justice in North Carolina. But in the background, there’s a legal case that has surfaced in North Carolina that has the potential to defang the state’s courts in some very fundamental ways. Welcome to Moore v. Harper. To back up: Many voters likely noticed the election was a bit of a mess this year, with filing deadlines and election dates jumping around, and state legislative and U.S. congressional maps in a state of uncertainty. Much of the latter can be traced to a map passed in a party-line vote by the state’s GOP-dominated legislature that would have given Republicans 10 of the state’s 14 congressional seats, despite an essentially even political balance in North Carolina. In the past legal action against extreme gerrymandering would have been taken to the U.S. Supreme Court, but that body has ruled federal courts can’t hear such cases. So the maps were challenged in state court, and the N.C. Supreme Court struck them down. A second gerrymandered map was passed, and a state court ordered a special master to draw fair maps for 2022. Two state GOP legislators (House Speaker Tim Moore being one) asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate the gerrymandered map under a legal theory known as the “independent state legislative theory,’’ which holds that the U.S. Constitution’s Election Clause gives state legislators the power – virtually exclusive power – to regulate federal elections. The federal court didn’t reinstate the maps, but it did agree to hear the broader argument in its upcoming term. Opponents of the state legislative theory fear that, should the U.S. Supreme Court accept the base argument being put forward, state legislatures would have the power to run free of the traditional checks and balances – no state court or governor’s veto, or conceivably any wording in a state constitution could stop partisan gerrymandering or conceivably other mischief. If the court endorses the doctrine, the question is how far will it go? The most extreme interpretation of the independent state legislature theory was dear to the heart of Trump lawyer John Eastman, who advocated for Georgia legislators to replace Biden electors with Trump electors. As federal law frowns on state legislatures overturning election results, it’s doubtful anything like that could happen. But should the Supremes put any validity to the theory, it could usher in an era of chaos where elections, voting procedures and who knows what else are challenged up and down the legal ladder, eroding trust in the process. In an opinion piece published in the Washington Post, three legal experts wrote, “The theory would disable state courts from protecting voting rights in federal elections by eliminating state constitutional protections in those elections. And it would do so at a time when voting rights are under attack, including at the Supreme Court itself.” Our government was set up with a system of checks and balances, with courts, legislative bodies and executives expected to take their turn at putting things back in balance when one branch exercised a power grab. In the case of the independent state legislature theory, that raises a question: What if they couldn’t? That would be a good question to ask state Supreme Court candidates. Not to mention General Assembly candidates. This commentary was first published in the Sylva Herald.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent overrule of its 1973 decision that upheld a woman’s right to abortion is not about motherhood or babies: It’s about controlling and subjugating women by denying women control over their reproductive future. If the issue were truly about children, wouldn’t we have high-quality universal childcare, health care, and paid maternity leave? We don’t. This fall, vote for candidates who support women’s reproductive rights. N.C. House and Senate Democrats have introduced legislation to codify the state’s current abortion rights, and would also lift abortion restrictions, passed by Republican majorities, such as the 72-hour waiting period, the counseling mandate, and the ultrasound requirement. Justice Samuel Alito based his opinion on a constitutional interpretation, though women had no separate legal existence apart from a husband during most of American history when a woman could not own property in her own name or control her own earnings. Women were chattel. Contraception and the right to a safe and legal abortion affect fertility and employment decisions. Those determine lifetime income streams, mobility, and well-being. Living in a state with oppressive restrictions can thwart women’s ability to move into higher-wage jobs, harm their health, and even send them to jail for stillbirths or miscarriages. The Roe decision will especially hurt women of color trapped in low-paying jobs, a legacy of race discrimination. Legalization has improved women’s lives through education, labor force participation, and earnings, according to an amicus brief filed and signed by 150 prominent economists supporting Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision. Some startling statistics include: • Nearly half of pregnancies are unintended, and nearly half of these end in abortion. • Contraception can be inaccessible and unaffordable, especially for young people; more than 15 percent of those aged 15 to 34 have no health insurance. • Legalization affected young women and Black women the most. Allowing young women to obtain an abortion without parental consent cut teen motherhood by 34 percent and teen marriage by 20 percent. • Maternal mortality also fell by 28 percent to 40 percent among Black women. This effect on Black women “aligns with historical narratives” suggesting that, pre-legalization, white women could access, or travel, to receive secret abortions. Effects were strongest overall for Black women. Delaying an unplanned pregnancy through abortion, according to one study, showed an hourly wage increase of 11 percent later in life; a 20 percent increase in the likelihood they’ll attend college; and a 40 percent increase in the probability that they’ll enter a professional occupation. Not only has legalization improved women's outcomes, it has also benefited children. Fewer children are born into single-parent households; fewer are abused or neglected; and more children graduate from high school and college. The Court's decision hurts everybody. We the people will pick up the tab for this expensive, short-sighted, and shameful abrogation of women's rights. The overrule helps no one but will cost everyone. Especially women, who have lost the right to privacy guaranteed in the 14th Amendment. BettyJoyce Nash reported for the Greensboro News & Record and the Hendersonville Times-News before moving to Virginia where she worked as an economics writer for the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. She co-edited Lock & Load: Armed Fiction, an anthology of literary short stories that probe Americans' complicated relationship to firearms. (University of New Mexico Press, 2017.)

In the mid-1990s, along with an adventurous companion named Kitty Boniske, I traveled by train from Moscow to Vladikavkaz, a beautiful city in the Caucasus Mountains. We were participating in a newspaper exchange arranged through Sister Cities. An intrepid traveler, Kitty wanted to take a 36-hour train ride rather than fly from Moscow to our destination. Besides being fearless, she’d been to Russia before and had hosted a Russian student while he attended Warren-Wilson College. He was now back in Moscow and did his best to dissuade us from taking the train, but Kitty and I were eager to see the Russian countryside. In the end, he took charge of getting us to the right platform in the monstrous Moscow train station, where there were no signs in English, and he spent a considerable amount of time talking to the Russian woman who was in charge of our sleeping car. Kitty later speculated that money changed hands. We spent what daylight we had glued to the windows as we passed through a land that felt like a third-world country, despite having recently been the world’s other superpower. We saw what appeared to be huge rusting industrial complexes, old women in headscarves tending gardens beside the tracks, and people in every train station hustling clothing and other items out of duffle bags. When darkness fell, we changed into night clothes and were lulled to sleep by the rumbling train. Sometime after midnight we awoke when the train stopped. Before long someone banged on the door of our compartment. I reached out and slid it open. A tall young man in uniform filled the space. Another man in uniform stood behind him. The young officer proceeded to say a whole bunch of words rather loudly and emphatically in what I assumed was Russian. I explained that we didn’t speak Russian. He said a bunch more words. I explained again that we didn’t speak Russian. Kitty said, “Joy, he doesn’t understand loud English either.” The second time through, we had grasped three words, “Ukraine Exit Visa,” and figured out that he was asking for a document we did not have. Repressing a mild attack of panic, I took my reporter’s notebook and drew a couple of stick figures. I pointed to one and then to myself. I pointed to the other and then to him. He grinned and nodded. Between the two figures’ outstretched arms I drew a circle, wrote the word VISA, and drew a slash through it, hoping he would understand. He frowned and conferred with his colleague. Kitty suggested that I offer him money, since that was how things got done in Russia. I drew two more stick figures, he nodded and grinned again. This time, I drew a dollar sign between their outstretched arms. His smile turned to a scowl. “Nyet! Nyet!” he said angrily. He turned and conferred with his colleague again. He looked back at us, shrugged his shoulders, and walked on down the aisle. Kitty and I looked at each other and I slowly closed the door. Until the train pulled out some time later, we sat wondering if we would be taken off and detained. We would later learn, through our own experience, that bribing officials was part of daily life in Russia. But this was Ukraine. Ever geographically challenged, I hadn’t known the train passed through Ukraine and I suspect Kitty didn’t either. This would have been soon after Ukraine declared its independence when the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991. I think about that experience at the Ukrainian/Russian border every time I read Vladimir Putin’s claim that Russians and Ukrainians are “one people,” his justification for invading a sovereign nation. One day recently a story about a Ukrainian soldier in his 50s killed in the fighting left me wondering about the fate of that young soldier who would be about that age now. On the day I read that story, my husband and I were heading home to the mountains from the North Carolina coast. As we crossed the Neuse River Bridge, the view of New Bern laid out before us caused me to think what a lovely city it is. North Carolina’s second oldest town after Bath, New Bern lies on a spit of land at the confluence of the Neuse and Trent rivers. It is home to Tryon Palace, North Carolina’s first capitol, and beautiful Christ Church, established in 1715, whose spire can be seen rising above the town. On that fine morning as the blue river and the green riverfront park created a splendid vista, I tried to imagine it being bombed as Ukrainian cities have been, and the engineering feat that is the Neuse River Bridge being smashed into the river. I can’t fully comprehend what the Ukrainian people feel as they watch their homeland being destroyed and their loved ones killed. But my heart aches for them, and for a young Ukrainian soldier that I met a long time ago who had a sense of humor and of honor. Joy Franklin is a journalist and writer who served as editorial page editor of the Asheville Citizen-Times for 10 years. Prior to that she served as executive editor of the Times-News in Hendersonville, N.C. Franklin writes for Carolina Commentary.

The proposal to arm teachers in Texas to solve gun violence in the schools is preposterous. While there may be individuals with the ability and training and know how to effectively guard their classrooms in addition to teaching children and performing the myriad other tasks (counseling, discipline, reporting to parents and administrators) and are willing to accept the substandard wages and working conditions provided to most teachers, the fact is there is currently a teacher shortage without adding commando to the job description. I am a gun owner who has invested significant time and effort into training in the effective and safe use of a gun. I am proficient and confident of my abilities to defend myself in normal circumstances. However, this has taken years of both tactical and defensive training and if I were a teacher, there is no way I would consider attempting to both teach and defend myself, much less dozens of panicked children at a moment’s notice from a well-a rmed and armored, emotionally disturbed, mad man. I think about my dear friend Ellen. She is a 3rd grade reading teacher. A kind, gentle soul who has a passion for imbuing children with the ability to discover the magical world of books, she is petite and not entirely enthusiastic about firearms. I could never hope to replace her as a teacher. To expect her to suddenly become more adept at shooting than I am with the limited training offered by the state is ridiculous. I imagine being in a classroom full of 8-year-olds managing the daily mayhem and unannounced, a man bursts into the room with a long gun and starts mowing children down. My little 9mm handgun is in a lockbox under my desk as per sensible school guidelines. (Walk around school grounds with a loaded firearm on my hip? Not advisable. Two children of significant size could easily overpower me if I were caught unawares.) So, assuming that I am still ambulatory, I turn away and leave these children who are now presumably injured and dive for my lockbox. Oh wait, the key is in my purse, which is in the f aculty lounge or maybe it opens by combination and I can, amid all the chaos and with trembling fingers remember the combination and open it up. Time has passed and our shooter has loaded his second magazine. If I am very, very lucky he is a horrible shot or is taking his time. However, even if he is nervous and a bad shot, his weapon is built for combat and he will do a lot of damage even if he just sprays and prays. Now, I retrieve my 9mm or maybe, if I am not afraid of weapons or I have large hands, a .45. If it is a Glock, I probably have it on Israeli load which is to say I have to rack the slide and then steady myself to take aim. If it is 1911 I have to remember how the locking mechanism works and since I don’t fire this thing every day, I’ve got to fiddle with it. Oh…ok…NOW I am ready to take aim. Wait. Because there is a potential that a child might be able to get in the lockbox, the magazine is not in the weapon. I have to fish around in the box and find it , and, orienting the magazine…bullets are facing out, right? Seat the magazine (did I hear it click? I can’t hear anything) and then rack the slide before I can chamber my first round. I have barely the grip strength to do this standing calmly next to the range instructor but now I’m going to with shaking hands and wet palms. Ready! Okay, now to take aim. You have a highly limited number of tries here. A standard magazine will hold 10-15 rounds and then you have to reload, which means you need another magazine which you may not have or if you do, you probably do not have access to at this point. In the meantime, the intruder can use a high capacity magazine that will hold 60 rounds, and he probably carries several spares. Even if he is a terrible shot…or his weapon jams…or something lucky happens, he has probably done considerable damage before I am ready to take aim and shoot. I haven’t shot in a while so my first one is probably going to go to waste and piss him off…like swatting a bee. Oh…right…the sights on the weapon. Forgot about that. Yeah…the standard sights aren’t that good. Most of the time you are going to want com petition sights and the better ones are a bit pricey, perhaps beyond the budget? Oh…forgot about the trigger. Is this a single action or double action? Is this a Glock, which is neither? Do I remember? I don’t do this very often and my training class was a while ago…I am not sure, as even when I was on the range, it’s intimidating to shoot this thing and I only wanted that class to be over with. Unfortunately, now is not the time to make the distinction. Then there is form. I don’t train like a soldier every day so I’m a bit rusty and I have to adjust my stance a bit and remember to breathe in and keep the firearm close to my body and lean into the shot…not like they show on tv raring back on your heels like a horse getting ready to buck. Is my grip correct? Don’t stick the thing straight out in front of you. Geeze this is just so different than it was on the range where it was quiet and I had on “ears” and there was only the hum of others in the distance. The sound of children crying out in pain, shrieking in agony, was not how I trained but here I am. And…there are only two possible shots for me to take. One is center of mass and the other is a head shot…otherwise I’m not going to stop the threat. And I have to do this on a moving target that has FAR more firepower than I do and has effectively murdered just about everyone in the room and I’m looking down at young, lifeless, mangled bodies now covered in blood and I ready myself to take my shot. EVEN if you were a professional with hours and hours and days of professional training and indeed you trained every day…success in this scenario is a stretch at best. Anyone who is an honest firearms owner with sufficient training knows this solution is not viable. If you have had the opportunity to participate in mock scenarios in a “shoot house” it becomes quickly apparent that for the normal person it’s extremely easy to become confused and shoot the good guy or disengage with the target and si mply waste all your shots. You miss! You are full of adrenaline and scared…it is not going to go down like you think. And to all those blowhards who say “yeah, I could do it” …maybe. The only successful case scenario of which I am aware of was a church in Ft. Worth where the guy shot the gunman. He was a firearms instructor with thousands of hours or training and practice under his belt and he had the element of surprise…there is no surprise at an elementary school when someone with a mental issue walks through the door. But it is to the Ellen’s of the world that this “strategy” is directed. This is NOT a strategy. It is a macho pipedream for individuals who refuse to admit (because they do indeed know, whether they admit it or not) that until we put forward sensible gun laws (there is no way an 18-year-old should have possession of an AR-15, nor should people who are emotionally disturbed) we are going to pray, offer condolences and wring our hands when this scenario plays out again, and again, and again... Olivia Casey is a former journalist with the Detroit News and The Dallas Morning News. She lives in Dallas, Texas, and currently works in public health.

Suppose you own an investment portfolio that contains valuable, goods-producing assets, some of which are too costly to buy, or may not even exist in the marketplace. The United States Forest Service [USFS] manages many taxpayer-owned natural assets. Among the best-performing is the Pisgah-Nantahala Forest, the most visited national forest in the nation—seven million people annually. The USFS’s proposed new plan will establish a management agenda for the next two to three decades. Published in March, the proposal set a record for the number of objections. Among the most egregious insults to the forest ecosystem? Logging several old-growth tracts. The Southern Environmental Law Center laments that not only should some of these targeted areas be spared, but also, rather than restoring diverse species and ecological processes, the plan relies on “outdated and heavy-handed logging methods that produce unnatural results.” Our portfolio manager, the USFS, says the methods make “commercial sense.” But the traditional concept of “commercial sense,” like some logging methods, is outdated and clumsy, and needs an overhaul. There’s reason to hope the USFS will thoroughly revisit new evidence about the forests’ economic value before publishing a final draft. A new paper by scientists Jeannine Cavender-Bares and co-authors, including economist Stephen Polasky, both of the University of Minnesota, suggests that trees in the contiguous United States produce “far more valuable services as climate and air quality regulators than they generate as wood products, food crops, and Christmas trees.” The authors estimate the value of five eco-system services generated by forest in the United States at $114 billion annually in 2012. Trees in the pine and oak family provided 42 percent of that. Trees store carbon. This accounts for 51% of net annual value. Trees filter dirty air and mitigate damage to human health—respiratory illnesses and deaths. This tree service represented 37% of the annual net value. The remaining 12% of the net annual value came from “provisioning services,” such as wood products. The authors assessed these forest services to establish a base, as climate change threatens the services they provide, at risk from “pests and pathogens.” Compromises had been worked out among stakeholders during the public comment period. SELC worked with conservation groups in the The Nantahala-Pisgah Forest Partnership, including timber and hunting interests, in recommending some increases in timber harvests to restore “degraded forests, and it paired those increases with strong protections for our healthiest forests.” Those efforts may have protected old growth and rare habitats, to sequester more carbon. The USFS didn’t see it the same way. Common sense as well as $114 billion in services should make the USFS scrap original recommendations, targeted logging areas, and methods. Why not submit a plan to solve 21st century problems? The U.S. Forest Service manages our portfolio. Our resources deserve a thorough analysis to manage the earth's future. Betty Joyce Nash reported for the Hendersonville Times-News and the Greensboro News & Record before moving to Virginia. She writes journalism and fiction from Charlottesville. In 2017, the University of New Mexico Press published Lock & Load: Armed Fiction, a book of short stories she co-edited with a colleague. The stories probe Americans’ complicated relationship to firearms. For more information, see www.bettyjoycenash.com

When state lawmakers return to Raleigh this week, they are expected to introduce a stand-alone elections bill that will have huge consequences for North Carolina voters. That legislation should be their first and most pressing concern. With the election barely more than six months away, time to print ballots, train poll workers, plan logistics and purchase protective gear for poll workers and voters is rapidly running through the hourglass. The first order of business should be to allocate roughly $4.5 million needed to match federal grants totaling $22.5 million available to help cover additional costs of holding an election during a pandemic. The grants include almost $11 million from the CARES Act passed in March and another $11.6 million from the Help America Vote Act passed in December 2019. Depending on the severity of the pandemic in the fall, mail-in absentee voting could increase from less than 5 percent to as much as 40 percent, according to some estimates. The cost of mail-in ballots varies from county to county, according to an investigative report by North Carolina Public Press, but postage, paper and printing will increase election costs, as will masks for poll workers and voters, sanitizing kits and other items to help keep everyone safe. Dr. Anthony Fauci, a leading member of the White House Covid-19 task force, has predicted a resurgence in the fall and North Carolina needs to be prepared. That means lawmakers should do their part to make voting easier while continuing to guard against fraud. North Carolina already does a number of things right. Any registered voter can request an absentee ballot without having to provide an excuse. Voters also have the option of one-stop in-person early voting at specified locations in their county of residence. When it comes to security, North Carolina requires voting machines to have paper ballots, which should be in use in all 100 counties by the November election, making the machines much harder to hack. But voters confined at home without access to a computer could find it challenging to access a State Absentee Ballot Request Form, which is available on the Board of Elections website and must be filled out to request a mail-in ballot. Many states allow voters to request a mail-in ballot by phone, and while that would cost more in staff time, it could be done safely by requiring the same information the written form requests. North Carolina is also one of only a handful of states that require either two witnesses or a notary public to certify an absentee ballot. Most North Carolinians live in homes with no more than two adults, meaning most sequestered at home won’t have more than one available witness, and those who live alone won’t have any. Eighty percent of states don’t have any witness requirements, and North Carolina should join them. None of the five states that send every registered voter a vote-at-home ballot (Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah and Washington) require witness or notary signatures on returned ballots. Colorado’s system is often held up as a national model and it is among the states with the highest voter turnout (60 percent vs. 48 percent nationally in the 2018 midterm elections). Colorado relies on maintaining accurate mailing lists and signature verification to insure against fraud and despite its high turnout only .0027 percent of ballots were even suspicious enough to investigate. North Carolina already uses identity verification (address, birthday, last four digits of a Social Security number, driver’s license number, etc.), which an analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice listed as one of the most effective ways states can prevent mail-in ballot fraud. Others were barcodes on ballots, mail barcodes that allow tracking through the U.S. mail so voters and elections officials can tell whether ballots were delivered, secure drop-off locations and drop boxes, and post-election audits. As for the incidence of fraud, despite claims by President Trump that people cheat when they use mail-in ballots, the overwhelming evidence is that they don’t. And a huge plus for mail-in ballots is they can’t be hacked. It should be noted Trump votes by mail himself. In addition to making it easier to vote by mail, lawmakers also need to ensure the Board of Elections has the resources to hire and train enough poll workers to increase, rather than reduce, the number of polling stations. Poll workers tend to be older and many who have manned polls in the past may be reluctant to risk contracting Covid-19 and spreading it to other family members. But more poll workers, not fewer, will be needed to insure enough polling locations so long lines like those we saw during the Wisconsin primary April 7 don’t force people to choose between getting sick and exercising their most fundamental right. Nothing lawmakers do during the remainder of this short session is more urgent or more consequential than ensuring the integrity of the November election and the ability of voters to cast their ballots without risking their health.

The Covid-19 pandemic highlights long-standing social ills, but it also offers an opportunity for government to experiment with actions to correct some of the dynamics that undermine our social structure and threaten our stability as a nation. Widening income, wealth, education and health care disparities contribute to political polarization, but so far there’s little evidence the political will exists to improve conditions that keep some in society down while enriching others. The influx of Covid-19 stimulus money offers North Carolina an opportunity to address some of these problems. Failure to face them now imposes future fiscal and social costs on everyone. The pandemic exposes historical social dynamics, according to Jay Pearson of the Sanford Public Policy School at Duke. He researches structural inequality and its influence on health determinants. The dynamics “are playing out exactly the way those of us studying it have been arguing they would for the last 40 years.” The most at risk include African Americans, Latinx, essential workers, the elderly and people without enough food. This partial Covid-19 worry list demonstrates the crisis at hand: an expected rebound in Covid deaths, post-lockdown; a drop in U.S. spending: and a 14.7 percent unemployment rate. Frontline, essential workers, earning low wages in person-to-person high-contact jobs, sometimes without sick pay, are among the most vulnerable. Some are even penalized for calling in sick. They face a choice between working, and exposing family to a deadly virus, or not working and going without pay. Either could be life-threatening. North Carolina could implement public policies that benefit these high-risk workers—janitors, bus drivers, cashiers, and more. Such policies could not only lift the consistently marginalized, but also save taxpayers money down the road. For example, when meat packing firms refuse to pay, and may even penalize workers for sick time, it could be argued that this amounts to a business subsidy for a behavior that endangers others. Such practices cost taxpayers, even absent a pandemic, through lower productivityand higher healthcare costs. Besides helping workers, requiring companies to offer paid sick time, as a number of states do, could go far in preventing the spread of Covid-19 as the state’s economy reopens. Another option would be to make better use of existing social assistance. Unemployment insurance and Medicaid are designed to support the jobless and uninsured, but North Carolina’s programs have draconian eligibility standards. Almost 11 percent of North Carolinians have no health insurance, the tenth highest rate in the nation. That threatens the health and finances of the uninsured, who may forgo preventive care and accrue medical debt. Only adults who are elderly, blind, pregnant, or living with the certified-disabled or dependent children are eligible for Medicaid. Even uninsured parents of children who are covered often can’t qualify: the adult threshold is $8,004 of annual income for a family of three, less than half that of the poverty line. Fewer than 10 percent of unemployed workers receive unemployment benefits, ranking North Carolina fiftieth among all states; the average unemployment check is $277 per week, with an average span of 8.7 weeks, next-to-last in the nation. In terms of lives saved (‘human capital’ in econ-speak), improving conditions that perpetuate social ills is not only doing good, it saves money. Every dollar spent on air pollution control, for instance, generates $30 in benefits, largely in healthcare and worker productivity, owing to fewer respiratory ailments, especially among children and old people. The 1.6 billion in Covid-19 relief allocated by the N.C. legislature, in federal CARES funds, allowed for expanded SNAP (food voucher) benefits for the poor. The money has also added to unemployment benefits. But the legislators failed to expand Medicaid eligibility nor did they revise North Carolina’s barriers to unemployment benefits. These trillions of pandemic dollars could address structural changes in health infrastructure and employment. That could include living wages and paid sick leave that would benefit all North Carolinians. “People are calling it a stimulus check—it’s a legitimate response to a social service need,” Duke’s Jay Pearson says. “I’m not sure the funds coming from the [federal government] are going to have an impact on the populations bearing the brunt.” That would be the shame of the pandemic: that we not only lose valuable lives, but fail to reclaim those who are endangered all the time, through chronic poverty and lack of opportunity.

Two things are striking about the video captured by then Asheville Police Officer Chris Hickman’s body camera when he and an officer-in-training stopped Johnnie Rush for jaywalking near McCormick field in Asheville in the early morning hours of Aug. 25, 2017. The first is that their concern for his safety should have been the officers’ primary motivation for asking him to use the crosswalk, but there’s no indication in the video they conveyed any such concern to Rush. This was a jaywalking incident, not an armed robbery. Jaywalking is a crime because it endangers the life of the pedestrian who is doing it. It also risks upending the life of a motorist unlucky enough to come along and hit said pedestrian and risks causing related traffic accidents when a driver attempts to avoid the person in the highway. But without a doubt the pedestrian, who stands to be killed or seriously injured, has the most to lose. Yet nothing in the officers’ attitude implied they stopped Rush to protect him. Rush believed, as he said in the video that the officers were just harassing him when he was tired and trying to get home from a 13-hour shift at work. He undoubtedly knew that scores of people jaywalk in that area at times of heavier traffic during baseball games. The second thing that’s striking is how quickly, and without any threat on Rush’s part, the encounter escalated into a brutal beating. Rush was Tasered twice and Hickman used his fists to repeatedly beat him in the head after Rush was subdued and on the ground. The Asheville Citizen-Times published the video in late February after an unknown source turned it over to a reporter. Those who enforce the law represent one of the most important institutions in a civil society. Those who have visited or lived in countries without effective law enforcement know what it’s like to live in walled compounds, to find a guard with a shotgun at the entrance of a paint store or a bank or to take your life in your hands when you drive on a highway where the aggressive and fearless dictate the rules of the road. The presence of well-trained, dedicated law enforcement officers keeps us safe from that in America. For most white Americans, the presence of a law enforcement officer provides a sense of security. But if you are African American or Latino in America, that sense of security is compromised. Studies have shown that your chance of encountering officers ready to assume you have or are about to break the law is significantly greater than for white Americans. A 2015 analysis of five years of police data by The New York Times found that in Greensboro, North Carolina, police officers used their discretion to search black drivers or their cars twice as often as white motorists, even though they found drugs or weapons significantly more often when the drivers were white. “Officers were more likely to stop black drivers for no discernible reason,” according to The New York Times story about the analysis. “And they were more likely to use force if the driver was black, even when they did not encounter physical resistance.” The Greensboro police chief initially disputed the story, but when interviewed by the Greensboro News and Record a day after the story broke, he said, “The numbers, we believe at this point, are accurate.” The New York Times chose North Carolina for the analysis because it is among the states that monitor traffic stops most intensely. The Times reported that similar racial disparities were found across North Carolina and in seven other states with extensive data on traffic stops and searches. Other studies and analyses conducted throughout the country have consistently shown racial bias on the part of law enforcement. Confidence in public institutions is what makes civil society work. It’s what forestalls chaos. When members of a community become more fearful of those empowered to enforce the law than they are of those who break it, the prospects for civil unrest are greatly enhanced. But, if you are black, how can you watch the video of Johnnie Rush being beaten and not be frightened and outraged? We ask a lot of police officers, but the most important thing we ask of them is to keep us safe. How can we trust them to do that when we don’t feel safe from them? What kind of rage would compel an officer to severely beat a man guilty of nothing more than mouthing off and jaywalking? Law enforcement officers do a job that is dangerous, physically demanding, underpaid and that sometimes requires them to make snap judgments on which their lives or the lives of others depend. As is the case with other maligned professions, most are hard-working and conscientious. But one thing seems certain, the answer to why Johnnie Rush was brutally beaten isn’t just one rogue officer. It’s a systemic problem and solving it demands that law enforcement agencies become much more proactive in rooting out racist practices and behaviors. Everyone’s security depends on building law enforcement agencies that are as diverse as the communities they serve, where there is a culture of respect for all, and where the safety of all citizens is paramount

An important component of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) expanded Medicaid eligibility so low-income people living in households at 138 percent of the federal poverty level could get health care coverage. However, the Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that states could not be forced to expand Medicaid programs. Eighteen states decided not to expand, citing difficulty predicting and affording the costs. Federal funding covered 100 percent of the costs until 2016, with a reduction to 90 percent by 2020. North Carolina’s Republican legislature passed a bill in 2013 that outright banned the expansion. The state has a history of moving slowly on Medicaid, being one of the last states to adopt it, in 1970, four years after the funding became available. Most North Carolinians who have health insurance are covered by a private plan, either under an employer or marketplace exchange. Other coverage comes from Medicaid, Medicare, and military and veteran benefits. Yet 11 percent of the population remains uninsured. Out of the 10.1 million North Carolina residents, 31 percent are low income (less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level), according to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF). Eighteen percent of the population is covered under Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). While children and their parents/caregivers make up most of the enrollees, most of the funding goes to the disabled and the elderly. Some 69 percent of Medicaid in North Carolina pays for acute and long-term care. Click here for details of who is covered under Medicaid in North Carolina and how the funding is spent. If North Carolina were to expand Medicaid, 208,000 more low income people who have no other option for coverage could receive health care coverage, with a positive result for the state as a whole. A KFF review of 202 studies of the impact of Medicaid expansion published between 2014 and February 2018 found: Significant gains in coverage and reductions in uninsured rates, particularly among low-income and vulnerable individuals. Greater access to care, use of services. Positive relationship to affordability of care and financial security. Mixed results on capacity for providers to meet the need for services. Participants said their health had improved following the expansion. (Long-term studies will be needed to evaluate this.) Initial Medicaid enrollment growth and state and federal spending exceeded initial projections in many states. While state spending from state funds didn’t increase, that is expected to change as the federal share for the expansion drops to 90 percent through 2020. Reduced uncompensated care costs for hospitals and clinics and positive or neutral effects on employment and the labor market. Disproportionately positive impact in rural areas But were states like North Carolina that initially rejected Medicaid out of fear that costs would be difficult to predict and potentially overwhelm their budgets correct? A report from the Brookings Institution found that even as the federal contribution drops to 90 percent, state “costs are likely to remain modest, despite increased enrollment.” Over the next decade North Carolina stands to lose $36.1 billion by not participating in Medicaid expansion. In addition to providing basic health care, Medicaid funding could be used for targeted items such as funding substance abuse treatment in the fight against the opioid epidemic, tobacco cessation education and treatment and more. When Gov. Roy Cooper campaigned in 2016 on a platform to expand Medicaid, he said that he was “appalled by North Carolina’s failure to expand Medicaid to its neediest residents, especially when our tax dollars are already going to pay for it in other states.” Once he took office, Cooper was determined to expand Medicaid through executive action. He said the 2013 law banning Medicaid expansion violates the governor’s “core executive authority” to accept federal funding and protect the public’s health. The expansion remains in limbo following a challenge by lawmakers. However, as a result of the November elections for state House and Senate seats, Republicans no longer hold a supermajority under which they can overrule any gubernatorial veto. While Republicans still hold a majority of seats, the 2019-20 General Assembly is undoubtedly expected to be more moderate and potentially more receptive to expanding Medicaid access. Virginia (General Assembly bill) and Idaho, Utah and Nebraska (ballot initiatives) have recently reconsidered their positions on Medicaid expansion and determined that providing low income individuals with access to health care is a good thing for their states. North Carolina should join them.

Congress has been roundly criticized for its lack of ability to pass legislation. Yet it now has a golden opportunity to pass a commonsense bipartisan bill to help address the challenges family caregivers face. Last week the U.S. Senate unanimously passed the Recognize, Assist, Include, Support and Engage, (RAISE) Family Caregivers Act (S. 1028). The thrust of the measure is to develop a coordinated strategy to support family caregivers that would engage the private and public sectors. The Senate version of the RAISE Family Caregivers Act was sponsored by Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine and Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis. and Reps. Gregg Harper, R-Miss. and Kathy Castor, D-Fla. sponsored the bill (H.R. 3759) in the House. The importance of the 40 million Americans who help care for loved ones – and the moral and fiscal importance of supporting them – cannot be underestimated. Nor can the importance of enacting the RAISE Family Caregivers Act. Aging in place at home is a far less expensive alternative than a nursing home. In many cases that’s only made possible by family caregiver help with bathing, dressing, transportation, meals, and more, along with vital medical tasks from managing medications to giving injections and providing wound care. The moral imperative of caring for a loved one is obvious. The hard dollar value of such care often isn’t. It’s estimated that the value of unpaid care provided by this silent army of family caregivers is $470 billion a year. By way of comparison, that roughly equals the annual sales of IBM, Hewlett Packard, Apple and Microsoft in 2013-2014. Combined. The equation here is simple: If that $470 billion in care didn’t exist, either the care wouldn’t exist or the taxpayers could be picking up the tab to provide it. A look at America’s demographics show a level of urgency on this issue that might escape most Americans. On one hand we’re aging as a nation, with 10,000 baby boomers turning 65 every day (with up to 90 percent of that cohort dealing with one or more chronic health conditions). The fastest growing segment of the population is Americans 85 and older; that’s the segment most at risk for multiple and interacting health problems requiring higher levels of care. On the flip side, we’re running low on family caregivers. In 2010 there were 7.2 potential family caregivers for every American 80 and older. That’s expected to drop to 4 to 1 in by 2030 and 3 to 1 by 2050. Caregivers are going to need more help. They already need more help. Caring for a loved one is the right thing to do, and it’s rewarding, but it often comes at a cost to the caregiver including through elevated levels of stress and health problems of their own, particularly a greater incidence of chronic conditions like depression, cancer and heart disease. Here’s how the RAISE Family Caregivers Act will help: It calls for bringing together private and public sector voices to recommend action steps via an advisory council formed under the bill. The council would include veterans, family caregivers, social service and health providers and employers, among others. It would help identify actions already being taken or that ought to be taken to recognize and support family caregivers, related to: • Promoting greater adoption of person-and family-centered care in all health and other settings, with the person and the family caregiver (as appropriate) at the center of care teams; • Assessment and service planning (including care transitions and coordination) involving care recipients and family caregivers; • Information, education, training supports, referral, and care coordination; • Respite options; • Financial security and workplace issues. The unanimous, bipartisan support in the Senate sends a strong message to the House, where the legislation is pending in the House Education and the Workforce Committee, chaired by Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C. Another North Carolinian, former Sen. Elizabeth Dole, said “The unanimous Senate vote sends a clear and strong signal that supporting caregivers is an urgent national priority, especially as we experience the effects of an aging population, better understand the unique needs of our wounded warriors, and recognize the drastic personal, financial, and health challenges of caregiving. (The Senate) vote signals that help is on the way, and that the work caregivers do day in and day out for their loved ones is critically important. “Now it’s time for the House of Representatives to act, and I call on them to pass this legislation before the end of the year. “The Elizabeth Dole Foundation is proud to have joined with more than 60 national organizations in supporting this important legislation.” This is a nonpartisan issue that affects families across the country. And it’s a legislative accomplishment waiting to happen. The sooner, the better.

Filing for candidates seeking office across North Carolina begins Feb. 12. As far as certainty regarding the 2018 elections in the Tar Heel state goes, that’s about it. Seriously. As we rolled into February there were uncertainties regarding: Congressional district lines As it stands now, North Carolina could see its fourth straight election conducted with congressional district maps federal courts say are unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court paused a federal court ruling against those maps to consider partisan gerrymandering cases from Wisconsin and Maryland. A decision on the legality of gerrymandering is expected in June, long after congressional campaigns would have set sail. The high court has been hesitant to step in on partisan gerrymandering in the past, but hasn’t had to deal with maps as blatantly gerrymandered as the ones being turned out now, thanks to powerful computing technology. In North Carolina, registration runs Democrat, Unaffiliated and Republican, in that order. Yet the state’s maps have seen 10 of 13 congressional districts go to Republicans. GOP state Rep. David Lewis of Harnett County, in a defense of the map, said “electing Republicans is better than electing Democrats.” He also said the GOP holds 10 of 13 seats only because they couldn’t come up with a map guaranteeing them 11. State legislative lines A federal three-judge panel in 2017 decided state legislative district maps were racially biased and ordered them redrawn. In January, the redrawn maps were also thrown out, and the court used a map drawn by an outside expert to produce new maps. GOP lawmakers asked the Supreme Court for an emergency stay. As the filing deadline approaches, any number of hopefuls are uncertain of what district they could run for. If the matter stays tied up in court, it’s entirely conceivable maps deemed illegal could be used in this year’s election for state house races. State courts The Republican majorities elected in 2010 have been very busy on this front ever since. Public financing of campaigns has been eliminated; non-partisan races are now partisan. Shortly after Gov. Roy Cooper was elected in 2016 and two Republican judges neared retirement (as governor, Cooper had the power to name their replacements), the size of the appellate court was cut by three seats. Judicial tinkering has gone into high gear recently. A law was passed making every judicial race in the state partisan. All judicial primaries for 2018 were cancelled. Proposals have been floated to cut the length of judicial terms, to redraw judicial lines in a manner that would force sitting Democratic judges to run against one another and to replace elections with a legislature-controlled appointment process. On Jan. 31, U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles issued an order restoring primaries for statewide judicial offices. If that stands, it will prevent the possibility of a cluttered ballot and prevent the possibility of a judge being elected with a mere 30 percent of the vote. With the General Assembly still considering redrawing judicial lines for lower courts, the ruling doesn’t apply to district and superior court judgeships. Election boards This is one that has flown under the radar of most people, but it’s important. Following Cooper’s election, the General Assembly passed S.L. 2017-6, which merged the state’s ethics and elections board into the Bipartisan State Board of Elections and Ethics. It changed the makeup of county election boards. Previously, the party of the governor held the majority of the three-member county boards. S.L. 2017-6 changed the composition of the boards to an even number of Democrats and Republicans. In the current partisan environment that makes a recipe for gridlock in many counties. Cooper sued, and over the seven months of the suit county boards were left at three members with GOP majorities. In late January, the N.C. Supreme Court overturned S.L. 2017-6. No timeline for naming new boards was included in the ruling. The case will be back in the hands of a three-judge panel that is expected to determine the impact of the ruling, likely by mid-February. We may look back at those seven months as critical ones. Actions not addressed by an empty state board include replacing aging voting machines and making sure software that went haywire in 2016 has been decertified. (That software, by the way, was targeted by Russian hackers across the country in 2016). North Carolina’s 2018 elections are surely built on shifting sands, and those shifts could continue with the back-and-forth of court rulings and challenges and a state legislature that seems to have endless … creativity, shall we say … when it comes to rigging the game in one party’s favor. Voters will need to stay tuned to an unprecedented degree.