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North Carolina experienced a smooth election kickoff last week. Just kidding. That is no longer the North Carolina Way. Instead, filing for candidates for everything from dogcatcher to U.S. Senate was set to begin Monday morning, with state legislative and U.S. congressional candidates lining up to vie for seats in new maps drawn by the N.C. General Assembly following the 2020 Census. With caravans of congressional and state House and Senate candidates converging on election boards, a three-judge N.C. Appellate Court panel essentially told them to turn those caravans around. It halted filing for those races due to lawsuits saying the new districts were unconstitutionally gerrymandered. Later that day, the full 15-member court, to paraphrase “The Price Is Right’’ host Bob Barker, overruled that move and told candidates to “Come on Down!” And thus, the Herald reported in last week’s edition, which rolled off the press around noon on Wednesday. Well, Wednesday wasn’t over. Later in the day the N.C. Supreme Court ordered an end to filing for everyone, and moved the 2022 primary from March 8 to May 17. The court says the delay will give the state time to settle lawsuits regarding the new maps, and ordered the judges in those cases to make rulings by Jan. 11. Of course, there’s no telling if that will actually settle things, as the map issue seems destined to ping-pong around every court proponents and opponents can find. “Anything’s possible on Opening Day and in North Carolina redistricting,” said Chris Cooper, the Robert Lee Madison Distinguished Professor and Director of Western Carolina University’s Public Policy Institute. “We’ve been down this road before and we’ve seen the suite of outcomes — from the court throwing out maps and starting over, to the court saying the maps were just fine as they were. Sometimes the court splits the difference and says that the maps aren’t fair, but it’s not under their purview to decide whether they should be fair or not. Any of this is possible. There’s no doubt that the current maps are better for the Republicans than the Democrats, the question is whether the court will decide that they meet a legal standard of gerrymandering.” Cooper says the timeline for the election should come into focus, quickly, in January. “It seems like the court is trying to move quickly. The hearing will take place by January 11. We can safely assume that no matter the outcome, there will be an appeal, but I would expect that appeal to be filed and heard quickly. Another way to approach the question is to move backwards-mail balloting should start 50 days before the election, which would put it at March 28 (or April 1, if the State Board moved it to day 45, which they technically have the ability to do). Candidate filing needs to end at least 21 days before that, which would put it at around March 7. So, put all of that together, and it seems likely that we’ll have the ‘final’ maps by the end of February at the latest. But, lest we get too excited, ‘final’ just means ‘final’ for 2022. As to what we could expect in 2024, your guess is as good as mine.” This guessing game is one we’re playing in pretty much every election in North Carolina, and it does a huge disservice to voters, who after all are the people who matter the most in elections. Litigation over redistricting resulted in delays to all or some of state primaries in 2002, 2004 and 2016. New maps were ordered to be drawn in 2016 and 2019. This jerking around of the electoral calendar impacts even the folks who have the time to figure out their new district lines and field of candidates to choose from. Average folks who are busy with their jobs, their kids, their church and their lives can easily miss those details and other important information such as the deadline to file, etc. There’s a fix for this: independent, non-partisan commissions that split up maps fairly and let the voters choose the politicians, not the other way around. These commissions have been tried with success in a number of states. It’s worth a try. As is, the number of non-competitive races, featuring districts weighed heavily in favor of one party or another, have reached an appalling number in North Carolina. The result means many seats are barely even competed for; who wants to mount a challenge against an incumbent flush with cash sitting on a built-in 10-point lead? The result also is entrenched politicians who can go to bed at night confident they really don’t have to bother listening to their constituents. That’s not the way a representative system should work. And it has a corrosive effect on service to the people, which is the whole point of a government. We’re paying a price for years of this. And that price, as Bob Barker might say, is wrong. This article originally appeared in the Sylva Herald.

Broadband access is a critical resource for all Americans to participate in today’s technology-driven society. Access to educational information is vital. It is imperative for educators, students and parents to have reliable broadband or a creative approach to ensure students in rural areas have a level playing field with high speed broadband and access to the world. The United States has made progress in expanding high speed internet access to rural areas by adopting reforms by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). North Carolina has addressed some of the more significant issues relative to broadband. A positive for North Carolina is the fact that 93 percent of the state has broadband coverage. A challenge is to increase the percentage of households that have access to speeds greater than the low-end speed of 25 megabits per second (mbps) and 3 mbps upload. In some areas, there is a need for cable and telephone connections. North Carolina does rank 15th in the nation for connectivity, with over 16 Internet providers, according to the FCC. However, the FCC reports that more than 48,000 residents in 16 counties of Western North Carolina do not have access to high- speed internet service. At issue is who will build the infrastructure to accommodate rural communities lacking access. Local governments that cannot legally build their own systems are challenged with convincing private sector companies to invest in rural areas. In 2008, Wilson, North Carolina built its own high speed broadband network. But a federal appeals court reinstated a 2011 North Carolina law that blocks local governments from building their own broadband service in competition with telecommunications providers. Another factor to consider in expanding broadband to rural areas and cities is the resistance cities face from opponents who are fighting access. The situation that took place in Louisville, Kentucky is an example of a stifling strategy. The city of Louisville proposed $5.4 million to expand Louisville’s ultra-fast internet access. Dave Williams, president of the Taxpayers Alliance opposed this proposal. The Taxpayers Alliance is part of the Koch brothers’ political donor network. Williams said, “fundamentally, we don’t believe that taxpayers should be funding broadband or internet systems.” The digital impact on education is certainly a major issue in North Carolina. The North Carolina General Assembly passed Session Law 2013-12/House Bill 44. The bill is intended to transition public schools funding from textbooks to digital materials including textbooks and instructional resources for all learners by 2017. As we enter into the New Year, the question: Where does the implementation on House Bill 44 stand relative to switching from traditional textbooks to digital materials and instructional resources in schools located in rural North Carolina? Myra Best of digiLEARN, the Digital Learning Institute, a national non-profit established by former Gov. Beverly Perdue, says, “Teachers need support to make that transition and the digital resources and the quality digital content to meet the expectations for higher education. We have come a long way, we have the infrastructure and network for schools, now we have to get students ready to personalize this learning opportunity and close the digital achievement gap. A major accomplishment in North Carolina is that all public and private schools and universities are connected to the same network.” MCNC, a nonprofit organization, was part of the research network that was used to build a ring to connect all of the public schools. This bodes well for the state going forward. But Best added, “In June of 2018, every classroom will have unlimited access to Wi-Fi. Despite this, it does not solve the problem for kids who go home and do not have access to the internet.” Kevin Smith, Schools-Community Relations Coordinator for Transylvania County Schools, highlighted what is being done in his school system to address the problem for children lacking internet access. Educators and community leaders have made a conscious effort to ensure students without home internet service are not disadvantaged in their educational learning. The initiative in Transylvania County Schools makes a good attempt to close the digital gap for students. Even without internet access at home, they can open their documents offline using school-provided Chromebook computers. Students can create, view and edit files, with changes synced back to their online profile at school. This is an innovative concept to address the rural gap for internet access. This concept provides a degree of equity and fairness to children by putting devices in their hands. Smith says the effort requires constant oversight and coordination, and he gives great credit to the Golden Leaf Foundation for their investment in this initiative. Another partnership has been implemented by Sprint and their public service act of providing 10,000 North Carolina high school students with wireless devices. Buncombe County Schools is partnering with Sprint to ensure all of their high school students have Internet connectivity by utilizing a “Homework Hotspot” from their school. The Homework Hotspot enables school-issued devices to connect to the Sprint Network. Both of these initiatives are stopgap measures and do not alleviate the need for real time internet access to the homes of students. North Carolina businesses would not accept the lack of real time capability for their operations, nor would lack of real time communication benefit first responders, who need the capability to contact with homes and businesses in rural areas. The network connection for public and private schools and universities demonstrate what can be done with public-private partnership. The stop gap innovations noted above are to be commended for the short time frame, but the public and private sector must continue to work together to provide real time internet communication capabilities for all areas of North Carolina and the nation. Jane Smith Patterson, Partner, Broadband Catalysts contributed to this commentary.

It’s Sunshine Week, the annual event held to “promote open government and push back against excessive official secrecy.” Sunshine Week is a nationwide initiative spearheaded by the American Society of News Editors. While the seven-day campaign began in 2005, its roots go back to 2002 when journalists in Florida were fighting attempts to enact massive exemptions to that state’s public record laws. Why is Sunshine Week important? Simply put, citizens of this country have a right to know how decisions are reached by the officials representing them, all the way from Pennsylvania Avenue down to Main Street. In many cases that knowledge keys on access to records of deliberations and meetings. It’s about accountability. If the sheer moral aspect of expecting such accountability isn’t enough, we’ll appeal to baser instincts: The decisions those leaders make affect your life. And you’re paying the salaries of those leaders through your taxes. They’re your servants, not the other way around. As such, you have a right to know what they’re up to. This isn’t a conservative issue, or liberal, or libertarian. It’s everyone’s issue. If we know what leaders are up to, they’re far less likely to be up to no good. Judge Louis Brandeis framed the issue well when he said, “Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.” The sunlight/policeman analogy hits home in these parts in that it sums up the controversy surrounding the biggest story of the year thus far: the Feb. 28 release of a video that showed Asheville Police Department Officer Chris Hickman beating and tasering an Asheville man following an escalation in the wake of a man who was stopped for alleged jaywalking. The affair highlights a serious flaw in North Carolina law, which does not regard police bodycam video as a public record. If you’re someone who appears on such footage you can request access to look at it, but to get the footage released you’ll need a court order. That serves neither the public nor law enforcement well, and the Asheville incident is a textbook case of that. The incident involving Hickman occurred on Aug. 25, 2017. The bodycam video was reviewed by Asheville’s police chief the following day; the officer’s badge and sidearm were taken from him. An internal investigation occurred, and the officer resigned shortly before the chief was ready to fire him. That was in January, more than 130 days after the incident occurred. The public had no idea. In fact, it would still have no idea if someone hadn’t broken the law and leaked the video to the Asheville Citizen-Times, which broke the story on Feb. 28. The value of bodycam video is that it can bring rogue officers to justice, but also that it can exonerate officers from accusations at the hands of rogue citizens. That is, if it’s public record. This case is at best a public relations disaster for the APD. With a lack of sunshine, rumors are flying wild in the public regarding what happened regarding the investigation, and with a lack of sunshine questions are flying regarding whether the public would’ve heard about this case at all were it not for the leak. The FBI has taken an interest in the matter. The APD may be being treated unfairly in the court of public opinion; we just don’t know. We do know it feels like a cover-up occurred in many corners of the community. In the end, it’s safe to say the whole affair could have been prevented if North Carolina had written its law in a more sensible fashion. Certainly, bodycam footage shouldn’t be released in an indiscriminate manner. But this case vividly illustrates that it needs to be public record. Otherwise, what’s the point in having it at all?

The proposed amendment that would change the rules for who appoints North Carolina judges when vacancies occur between elections started as a 101-word sentence with two semicolons. The Flesch Reading Ease formula gave it a score of -52.3 and termed it impossible to comprehend. Faced with the herculean task of trying to decipher it, it’s easy to see why voters would toss a coin or just give up. That’s one way citizens can be robbed of any real say in how their government operates. Incomprehensible amendments are only one difficulty for voters. It’s been a year of lawsuits and chaos surrounding every aspect of voting as the Republican-controlled General Assembly spent much of its time defending gerrymandered districts, trying to strip power from the executive and judicial branches and trying to make voting more challenging. The most recent installment in this ongoing outrage occurred in late August when three federal judges, for the second time, ruled Congressional maps drawn by state lawmakers an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander that favors Republicans. But even the League of Women Voters and Common Cause, groups that sued to have the maps overturned, agree it’s too late to redraw them before the November election. That decision came right after a federal court ruled the wording of two constitutional amendments, including the one mentioned above, was so misleading that they could not appear on the ballot. However, the court allowed GOP lawmakers to rewrite the amendments. In a hastily called special session the General Assembly scaled back one and barely changed other. They did this just days before the deadline for printing absentee ballots. The two were among six constitutional amendments GOP lawmakers placed on the ballot in June during the last week of the 2018 session with virtually no debate or public input. Two, including the judicial vacancies one, are blatant power grabs that would undermine the executive and judiciary. Two fix problems that don’t exist. Two should be addressed by legislation after all their implications are thoroughly debated. None should be amendments to the state’s constitution. All five of the state’s living governors, two Republicans and three Democrats, jointly condemned the two amendments that would have stripped from governors and given to the legislature the power to appoint members to hundreds of boards and commissions and to appoint judges and justices to vacant seats. There are outliers, but most citizens want a government that is efficient, free of corruption and supportive of business. One that stays out of people’s private lives so long as they do not harm others. And one that keeps tax rates as low as is compatible with the functions government must perform, such as providing public education, ensuring public safety, building a safe and adequate infrastructure, protecting the environment that sustains us and providing a safety net for those who cannot care for themselves. To some, it may seem that business friendly government and some of those objectives are mutually exclusive, but quite the opposite is true. An educated workforce, a dependable infrastructure, a clean environment and a culture of compassion are all objectives that support a healthy and enviable marketplace. But keeping government efficient and business friendly while meeting those objectives requires an ongoing balancing act, one that demands a collaborative approach with many competing interests at the table. Imperfect as it is, the fact that ours is the richest and most successful nation in the world is testament to its success in achieving that balance. One person, one vote. A fair playing field where all interests have a chance to be heard. An attempt to find compromise that takes them all into account. These principles were built into our system of checks and balances. But these principles are at risk in North Carolina. The Republican-controlled legislature has tried everything its members could collectively think of in recent years to take power from voters and from the judicial and executive branches and gather it to themselves. The confusion that has generated as the midterm election approaches is a powerful incentive for voters to throw up their hands and stay home on Election Day. But if voters tolerate such behavior, we risk putting far too much power in the hands of far too few and losing the principles and the balance that supports our freedom and economic strength. There are resources to help us learn about candidates and ballot initiatives before the election. One is ballotpedia.org, a non-profit, non-partisan encyclopedia of American politics and elections. Another is the state Board of elections website ncsbe.gov. This may be the most important state election in a generation. It’s a critical time for voters to claim their power.

The effects of the opioid crisis on North Carolina are far-ranging. According to CDC estimates, the cost of unintentional opioid-related overdose deaths in the state totaled $1.3 billion in 2015. But those hurt most by the crisis are inevitably those on the front lines: the opioid users themselves, their children, and the caregivers who pick up the pieces. According to a new report by North Carolina Child, addiction has thrown thousands of children into foster care. Some 16,556 North Carolina children lived in foster care last year. For 39 percent of foster care cases in 2016–2017, parental substance misuse was a contributing factor, up 50 percent since 2007–2008. North Carolina Child cites a lack of affordable health care for parents as a major contributing factor. According to the report, most North Carolinians with a mental health diagnosis or substance abuse disorder in 2014 fell into a “coverage gap,” meaning they would gain access to health insurance only if the state expanded income eligibility for Medicaid. By the parents not getting treatment, the children are at increased risk of becoming addicts themselves. North Carolina moved to the national forefront of the opioid crisis after a 2016 study from the health care information company Castlight found that 22 out of the top 25 cities for opioid abuse were in the South, with four in North Carolina: Wilmington in the number one spot (11.6 percent opioid abuse rate); Hickory fifth at 9.9 percent; Jacksonville 12th at 8.2; and Fayetteville 18th at 7.9. In its study of prescription opioid drug use in the workforce, the study found that in Wilmington, more than half, or 53.8 percent, of all opioid prescriptions in the city were abused. That year, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services, nearly four North Carolinians died each day from an unintentional opioid overdose. The North Carolina Action Plan, developed last year with input from the state’s Opioid and Prescription Drug Abuse Advisory Committee, laid out a strategic approach for combating the opioid crisis. The plan called for creating a coordinated infrastructure, reducing oversupply of prescription opioids, reducing diversion of prescription drugs and flow of illicit drugs, increasing community awareness and prevention, making naloxone (Narcan) widely available, linking overdose survivors to care, expanding treatment and recovery, measuring the impact and revising strategies based on results. A dashboard of metrics tracked by the state provides details on progress toward goals established last year. Two areas show promising results: Reducing the oversupply of prescription opioids. This is essential. According to Politifact, quoting Steve Marshall, an epidemiologist and director of UNC-Chapel Hill’s Injury Prevention Research Center, “When we talk to people who are injecting heroin, they all got there through prescription opioids. It’s not some of them. It’s all of them.” In the last quarter of 2017, under 121 million opioid pills were dispensed in North Carolina, down from over 141 million dispensed in the same quarter of 2016. Also, in the fourth quarter of 2017 20.3 percent of patient prescription days had an overlapping benzodiazepine and opioid prescription, compared to 25.1 percent in the last quarter of 2016. Increasing access to treatment and recovery. This metric can be an indication of increased access to treatment, since buprenorphine is administered in medication-assisted treatment to help treat opioid addiction. Over 154,000 prescriptions for buprenorphine were dispensed in North Carolina during the last quarter of 2017, up from 128,000 in the last quarter of 2016. Gov. Roy Cooper agrees that access to affordable health insurance is a vital component to combating the crisis. In a letter to Congress in January, he wrote “One in five adults with an opioid addiction is uninsured, and in our state, like others, there is a correlation between areas with a large uninsured population and rates of addiction. Making health care more accessible and more affordable helps people struggling with substance use disorders and their families as well as those at-risk of developing addictions. At least 150,000 North Carolinians could benefit if Medicaid were expanded to cover people with substance use disorder.” By looking at what has worked elsewhere, North Carolina can not only save lives, but save families. The North Carolina Child report states that millions of Americans have found help for their opioid addictions through health care coverage provided under Medicaid expansion in other states. North Carolina’s failure to provide this for our state means that more families will be torn apart by addiction, with children paying the ultimate price. ————————— The Carolina Commentary team would like your feedback on our first year; what we did well, what we can do better, and what issues may have fallen through the cracks. Go to survey here and help shape the face of Carolina Commentary in the coming year.

Sample ballots are now available for viewing in North Carolina, and it would pay to take a moment and peruse your choices before stepping into the voting booth. That’s because ballots will look a little different this year due to actions taken in Raleigh. Wrinkles in the ballot have a long history in North Carolina. For example, there was a time when you could simply choose to vote a straight party ticket instead of voting in individual races. That option has gone the way of the dodo. Even this wrinkle had its own wrinkle. Through the 2012 elections you could cast a straight-party vote, but that didn’t include casting a vote for U.S. president and vice-president. That plan was hatched by state Democrats to boost local candidates as the GOP began to gain national popularity in the 1960s. However, the plan has a serious flaw; a significant number of voters cast straight-party votes but failed to mark a choice for president. In 2000 the state recorded a 3.15 percent undervote – i.e., 92,000 Tar Heels went to the polls but failed to cast a vote for president. In 2004, that number was 75,000. Straight-party voting was allowed through the 2012 election. The GOP-dominated legislature passed a bill in 2013 eliminating the option, a measure that went into effect in 2014. When it came to electoral engineering, they didn’t stop there. The new twist this year goes a little like this: Roy Cooper, a Democrat, had the temerity to be elected governor in 2016. Under law at the time, candidates in the governor’s party would be listed first on the 2018 ballot. That clearly wouldn’t do, so the legislature, under HB 496, decided candidate names would appear in random order. In February, the State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement held a random drawing determining the alphabetical order of candidates in the May primary. The letter “F” was drawn, meaning a candidate with a last name starting with F would appear in the first ballot position, cycling through the alphabet and ending with “E.” In previous elections, candidates in the governor’s party were listed first. This year the order will be under the alphabetical drawing regardless of party. So, does ballot order matter? The short answer is yes. The long answer was provided in an article by University of Virginia Center for Politics director Larry Sabato. In poring through eight research essays on voting order, it was found that for voters who walked into their polling place without well-defined determinations voted as much as 5 percent more in favor of the first name listed. Of course, there are plenty of caveats. Well-known candidates, such as those running for president, governor or U.S. Senator, tended to produce fewer additional first-name-listed votes. Lesser-known candidates in the middle and toward the bottom of the ballot gained more of an advantage by being listed first. Partisan races have a lower first-name bias than non-partisan races. Primaries have a larger bias than general elections. In races with multiple candidates, those listed first or last tend to fare better than the crowd in the middle. First-place bias will likely tilt the vote for the six constitutional amendments appeared on North Carolina’s ballot. “For’’ is the first option, and undoubtedly many people will choose it despite some of the … creative wording that appears, such as in the following measure: “Constitutional amendment to change the process for filling judicial vacancies that occur between judicial elections from a process in which the Governor has sole appointment power to a process in which the people of the State nominate individuals to fill vacancies by way of a commission comprised of appointees made by the judicial, executive, and legislative branches charged with making recommendations to the legislature as to which nominees are deemed qualified; then the legislature will recommend at least two nominees to the Governor via legislative action not subject to gubernatorial veto; and the Governor will appoint judges from among these nominees.” That’s about as clear as mud. It’s easy to see voters puzzling over it, and then simply punching “For’’ and moving on to the next amendment. It’s our responsibility to vote, and our responsibility to know what/who we’re voting for. Take a few minutes to check out your ballot. Go to www.nc.gov/voter-lookup-sample-ballot to see the political landscape you’ll be facing come early voting or Election Day.

More than three weeks after Hurricane Florence made landfall on the North Carolina coast, only a light breeze kept the smell of mold from being overwhelming along the streets in Fairfield Harbor. The community near New Bern no longer had a functioning gate, which probably makes it easier for cleanup crews trying to dry out the lovely homes surrounding the golf course. They have disgorged their first-floor furnishings along with wallboard, insulation, appliances and wiring onto lawns, where it sat in careless heaps, souring. Some homeowners are living on the second floor of their homes. One or two appear to be living in recreational vehicles parked in their driveways. A bad situation got worse when local officials asked people to cover debris piles with tarps to keep them from being scattered after warnings that Hurricane Michael could cause tropical storm force winds in New Bern. Hurricane Michael packed winds of 155 miles per hour when it hit the Florida Panhandle last week. How long will it be before life gets back to normal for those who live here? A long time by the look of things. And at what cost, especially for those with children and the elderly? Or to counties and municipalities who must haul all that debris away and dump it into landfills at taxpayers’ expense? Or to those without flood insurance? A Washington Post analysis comparing the number of policies in National Flood Insurance Program with the number of housing units in counties hit by the storm found that in Craven County, home to New Bern, only 9.9 percent of homes are covered by flood insurance. Home insurance doesn’t usually cover flooding, something many people don’t realize until their home floods and they try to make a claim. Most flood insurance is purchased through the National Flood Insurance Program administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In Wilmington, located in New Hanover County and also the scene of severe flooding, 14.2 percent of homes have flood insurance, according to The Post analysis. Reporting by the Houston Chronicle following Hurricane Harvey in 2017, that while the National Flood Insurance Program was designed to insure properties vulnerable to flooding, only half of such properties carry flood insurance as required by law. The program, created by Congress in 1968, was intended to reduce the costs of disaster relief, but those costs have exploded, the Chronicle found, and while it was supposed to be self-supporting, premiums don’t come close to covering the expenses, requiring repeated bailouts by taxpayers. The Chronicle reported that numerous attempts to reform the program have been thwarted by real estate developers and builders bent on developing coastal property and some coastal leaders who covet the tax revenue that development brings. The failure of this legislation isn’t just in its cost to taxpayers, it’s in the misery it causes homeowners enticed to buy in flood-prone areas by low cost flood insurance, which rarely covers all the costs associated with the damage. To make matters worse, even those who would like to move often find themselves trapped because the value of their homes, once flooded, plummets. Sadly, the debris-lined streets of Fairfield Harbor create a scene observed far too often these days. Extreme flooding from Hurricane Matthew in October 2017 killed 28 people and damaged or destroyed more than 90,000 homes in North Carolina at a cost of $4.8 billion. But Matthew paled by comparison to Sandy, Harvey, Irma, Maria and other storms that have wreaked monumental damage on U.S. soil during past few years. And then there’s Michael, which came ashore at Mexico Beach, Fla., last week as the strongest storm to make landfall in the continental US since Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Two converging factors appear to be escalating this devastation. Scientists believe rising ocean temperatures may be contributing to more powerful hurricanes with more rainfall and higher storm surge, which is compounded by rising sea level. That, along with denser development in low lying coastal areas, creates a recipe for calamity. A report issued on October 8, 2018, by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of scientists convened by the United Nations to guide world leaders, warned that if greenhouse gas emissions continue at the current rate, the atmosphere will warm up by as much as 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) above preindustrial levels by 2040. Among the many results will be rising sea level and more extreme weather. The scientists conclude that only by dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions over the next 12 years can the direst consequences be avoided and they concede that’s politically unlikely. The failure of flood insurance reform is only one example of unworkable policies that short-sighted lawmakers indebted to special interests seem unable to address. At a time when we need visionary, principled leaders to deal with the challenges that confront us in North Carolina and the nation, the North Carolina General Assembly and Congress seem trapped in old models of economic prosperity and development that are not sustainable. And they are enslaved to special interests by campaign finance laws that favor big money over constituents’ interests. As a state and nation, we are consumed in a partisan fray we can ill afford. Our best hope is to use every means available to tell lawmakers and candidates for office that we expect them to stop demonizing and start reaching across the aisle, to stop putting party and special interests ahead of the state and country. And we need to vote against those who fail to do so, whatever their party. Additional reading: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Build-flood-rebuild-flood-insurance-s-12413056.php https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/09/17/only-percent-have-flood-insurance-hard-hit-carolina-coast/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.e52b43b84d53 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/07/climate/ipcc-climate-report-2040.html

Anyone looking for evidence that the intense rain events, droughts and hurricanes increasingly impacting North Carolina are going to damage the state’s economy should consider Bubba O’Leary’s General Store in Chimney Rock. In February 2017, about three months after the nearby Party Rock Fire burned for 25 days, scorching 7,142 acres of state park and private land and blanketing the town with smoke, the Asheville Citizen-Times interviewed the store’s owner and Chimney Rock’s mayor, Peter O’Leary. “It’s not like people are desperate, but it certainly had a negative impact and everyone is feeling the pinch,” he told the newspaper. O’Leary estimated an evacuation at the peak of the November fire cost him about $30,000 in profits, or about 25-30 percent of what he was hoping to accumulate for the winter. This was a tame fire compared to those that raged across the Great Smoky Mountains in 2016 and to this year’s California wildfires, but even though no one died and no homes or businesses burned, Chimney Rock suffered an economic hit. Ecologists pointed out afterwards that fire is a natural part of the Southern Appalachian landscape and that overall, the forests would benefit. Even so, the Party Rock fire was a historic fire that started during a historic drought, like the 2016 Great Smoky Mountains wildfires that killed 14 people and burned more that 17,000 acres in Tennessee. In that fire, more than 2,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed. The Fourth National Climate Assessment, released by the Trump Administration on the day after Thanksgiving, predicts that the frequency and intensity of wildfires will become more common in the Southeast and that the 2016 Great Smoky Mountains wildfires may have been just the beginning of an unwelcome trend. It appears we are already experiencing the impact of climate change and though the environmental consequences have long been the focus, the impact on the economy gets its due in this new report. “In the absence of significant global mitigation action and regional adaptation efforts, rising temperatures, sea level rise, and changes in extreme events are expected to increasingly disrupt and damage critical infrastructure and property, labor productivity, and the vitality of our communities,” the report says in its summary findings. In addition to more wildfires, the report predicts more intense hurricanes like Hurricane Florence, the monster that made landfall in September and dumped almost 36 inches of rain on some regions of the North Carolina coast. That deluge, coupled with extensive wind damage and a strong storm surge, caused massive flooding and an estimated $17.9 billion in damage. On Nov. 28, Gov. Roy Cooper sent a request to North Carolina’s congressional delegation for $6.3 billion, bringing the state’s full federal request to $8.8 billion, to help the state and communities recover from the disaster. Among the needs Cooper identified in the request were repairing highways and interstates, reviving businesses that lost workers, income and stock, and helping farmers whose crops were ruined. Florence was the wettest tropical cyclone ever recorded in North Carolina. In the face of these and other extreme weather events, it is certainly possible to continue to deny human-caused climate change is occurring, as President Trump did when he told reporters “I don’t believe it,” referring to the federal climate assessment. Most of the rest of us would rather not believe it either. For starters, the consequences of climate change aren’t yet having a significant impact on most of our lives. For many non-scientists, the whole idea is still pretty abstract. Besides, believing it forces us to accept that humans have, for the most part inadvertently and unintentionally, unleashed the prospect of a world that will be significantly less hospitable in less than a century. It also forces us to confront the fact we ought to do something about it, and that something will be complicated and fraught with hard choices. Maybe that’s what prompted the North Carolina legislature, at the behest of a group of businesses and property owners, to pass HB 819 in 2012. That’s the law that bans state and local agencies from basing coastal policies on long-term scientific models indicating an accelerating rise in sea level. But even those who don’t accept the implications of climate change science can’t ignore the reality of the extreme weather events it predicted and the devastation they’ve wrought in North Carolina over the past few years. The impact these events have had on people’s lives is wrenching and the cost, not just to local economies but to all of us as taxpayers, is enormous. Refusing to acknowledge this reality or adapt public policy accordingly is foolhardy and has already proved not only costly, but catastrophic for many in the most vulnerable areas. The Fourth National Climate Assessment says that “more immediate and substantial global greenhouse gas emissions reductions, as well as regional adaptation efforts” are needed. It goes on to say that mitigation and adaptation actions present opportunities to improve local economies, for example, infrastructure investment. Would it not be wiser to seek out and grasp those opportunities rather than continue on a path that looks increasingly perilous?

Race continues to be the primary determinant of K-12 public education. Nikole Hannah-Jones, an award-winning New York Times Magazine reporter and former reporter for the News & Observer of Raleigh, spoke recently at Duke University in front of a large gathering o kick off the Color of Education Initiative. Hannah-Jones asserts that integration has been the most effective strategy for closing the achievement gap between white and black students. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) conducted the research to support Hannah-Jones’ position. The NAEP analysis says; “White students attended schools that were 9 percent Black, while Black students attended schools that were 48 percent Black, indicating a large difference in average Black student density nationally.” The analysis showed schools in the highest density category (60 to 100 percent Black students) were mostly located in the South. Prior research by NAEP indicates six reasons why Black student density is related to achievement and the Black-White achievement gap in schools that serve large percentages of Black students: More likely to employ less experienced teachers. More likely to have low-socioeconomic-status and have one parent/guardian. Oppositional culture – the burden of “acting white’’. (Fordham and Ogbu 1986) Lower expectations from teachers for student performance. Tracking of Black students tends to differ by the density of Black students. The number of school disciplinary reports increases as the percentage of black students in a school increases; and Black students are more likely than White students to face discipline. A result of this analysis trend back towards segregation and the Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka decision, a landmark 1954 Supreme Court case in which the court ruled unanimously that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional. The decision established that “separate-but-equal” education and other services were not equal. In North Carolina, House Bill 514 was ratified in June 2018 and is now the law in North Carolina. For those of you who may have missed this new law, HB 514 allows municipalities to grant enrollment priority to their residents should they open charter schools. Kris Nordstrom of NC Policy Watch, commented: “Authorizing the creation of racially separate and unequal charter schools is not only immoral, it’s educationally harmful, and almost certainly unconstitutional, to boot.” Make no mistake about it, North Carolina, by passing this law, has positioned the state for resegregation, and has federal funding to support the continued growth of charter schools, having been awarded $23.6 million over five years from the Department of Education’s Expanding Opportunities Through Quality Charter School Program to help the state’s 185 charter schools meet the needs of economically disadvantaged students and to promote the continued growth of charter schools in North Carolina and perpetrate resegregation of schools. As stated by Hannah-Jones and the NAEP study, we are creating a separate and unequal outcome for our students in North Carolina. The NC Department of Public Instruction reports charter school membership has increased to a high of 97,111. The number of private schools has almost doubled since 1991-92, according to the Division of Non-Public Education and Home Schools; and the number of NC students has increased by 48,386 over the past ten years to a high of 135,749. The top five NC counties with the highest number of Home-schooled students in 2017-18 are Wake with 7,834; Mecklenburg, 6,417; Guilford, 3,233; Buncombe, 2,962; and Forsyth with 2,857. Fifty-eight percent are listed as religious and 42 percent are listed as independent. Funding for school choice has also increased with the Personal Education Savings Accounts (PESAs), a voucher program for private schools that is projected to reach over $1 billion dollars in ten years. So why the growth of charter schools and private schools? Parents wanting what they consider the best education for their children, reprioritization of state funding, housing segregation and as Hannah-Jones cited, the increase of charter schools in mostly white suburban communities and the fact that white parents often choose schools based on the percentage of Black students that attend, making integration more difficult. We believe Hannah-Jones is correct in her assertion that the seeds for undoing public education are in place. Her message rings true, “We lost the moral message of public schools; that they are about the common, not an individual, good.” Segregated schools take us back as a nation to a time and period where racial strife, fear and discrimination were prevalent and not forward to the needed atmosphere of racial harmony necessary for a nation that will become more diverse for years to come.

Rep. Chuck McGrady, a Henderson County Republican, along with other bipartisan sponsors, recently introduced a bill that would place on the ballot in March 2020 an amendment to the state constitution establishing a nonpartisan redistricting process. If the bill, called the Fairness and Integrity in Redistricting or FAIR Act, passes and voters approve the amendment, it will surely be the most important legislation McGrady or any of its co-sponsors ever introduce. Getting the amendment on the ballot will be an uphill battle, given that the Republican leaders of both the House and Senate say they don’t see a need to change the way things are done now, but the impressive and bipartisan group of North Carolina leaders behind McGrady’s bill suggests a consensus is forming that will be hard to buck. The proposed amendment resulted from the work of a group called North Carolinians for Redistricting Reform (NC4RR), co-chaired by McGrady and former UNC System President Tom Ross. NC4RR is supported by all of North Carolina’s living governors and former chief justices along with an impressive list of other business and political leaders that includes Art Pope, an influential Republican who co-founded the John Locke Foundation. More importantly, polling indicates that reform has the backing of a majority of North Carolinians. A 2018 poll by Public Policy Polling found that 59 percent of respondents supported changing North Carolina law so that districts are drawn in a non-partisan fashion. Only 15 percent were opposed, with another 27 percent unsure. The proposed amendment would establish redistricting standards that would have to be followed whether lawmakers, staff or an independent commission redrew district maps after each decennial census. Any partisan political consideration would be prohibited. No use could be made of data that could identify the “voting tendencies of any group of people.” The amendment would require that districts be drawn to be compact and contiguous, keeping whole counties together in the same district to the extent possible. It would require that the process be transparent and that the methods and data used be made public. And it would require a public hearing before the new districts were approved by the General Assembly. As it stands now, whichever party holds the majority in the year after the census is completed is free to manipulate districts to protect their party’s power, depriving voters of choice. The practice results in endless court challenges and court orders that maps be redrawn, costing voters millions of dollars. Since 1980, courts have had to intervene as a result of more than 40 challenges to NC redistricting maps, according to the North Carolina Coalition for Lobbying and Government Reform. That leaves voters dismayed and sometimes unsure even which district they’re in. It creates a huge disincentive to vote when you know that your district is drawn in such a way that only one candidate has any chance of winning. It promotes polarization and it cheats voters of government that is truly representative. Gerrymandering is a blatant and unrepentant power grab by the majority party. Whether it’s legal or not (something the U.S. Supreme Court has been reluctant to decide), it’s a cynical and increasingly outrageous corruption of the democratic process. Going back to 1992, about half of legislative races in North Carolina have had only one candidate on the ballot. In the 2016 campaign, about one-third of the 170 N.C. House and Senate seats were essentially decided by the filing deadline, giving voters no choice. It is under authoritarian governments, not democratic ones, where voters have only one choice – the one dictated by the regime in charge. Partisan gerrymandering is not new, but new technology allows map-drawers to target voters with pinpoint accuracy and to design districts to virtually guarantee that a given party will prevail. Even though Democrats got 48.35 percent of the 2018 Congressional vote, they elected only 3 representatives. With 50.39 percent, barely more than half, Republicans elected 10. House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate leader Phil Berger are among Republicans who co-sponsored redistricting reform legislation during the 2000s when they were in the minority, but now say they don’t see a need for it. Even if they lack the statesmanship to do the right thing, if they fail to support the FAIR Act, in a state that’s almost evenly divided politically and where the demographics are changing, they may come to regret a missed opportunity to protect their own long-term interests. But it’s the voters’ interest they should be concerned about protecting. This bill is about wresting the power to choose their representatives away from manipulative and power-hoarding lawmakers and returning it to the voters. Whether they are registered independent, Republican or Democratic, voters should demand that the process be a fair one where one-person, one-vote means something. If serving the state’s rather than their own interests is lawmakers’ first priority, they will put this proposed amendment on the ballot. We should flood their offices with mail, email and phone calls demanding that they do so. Click here for a list of their names and contact information.

What teenager can resist the allure of the JUUL experience? The most popular vaping device in the United States has been designed to resemble a USB drive that fits in the palm of a 14-year-old’s hand and emits little vapor. A few puffs behind the teacher’s back and a sweet little buzz from nicotine follows (other brands marvelously offer cannabis products). When done, the child removes a pod on the device that contains nicotine and flavorings, and replaces it with a new one. Ahh. But other things are happening. That pod the child tossed out (JUUL’s flavors include mint and mango. Other companies sell unicorn and bubblegum.) contained as much nicotine as a pack of cigarettes. JUUL’s product allows users to inhale high levels of nicotine more easily and with less irritation. With this vaporized delivery system, fine particles of cancer-causing chemicals go deep into the lungs. E-cigarette batteries have caught fire and exploded, causing serious injuries. Adults and children have been poisoned by swallowing, breathing or absorbing e-cigarette liquid. And then there’s the fact that the nicotine is being delivered is highly addictive and damages the still-developing adolescent brain. What can follow that vaping experience is a trip to the emergency room and even death. As of Sept. 27, 2019, the CDC had reported 805 cases of confirmed or probable lung injury from vaping, including 12 deaths. More than two-thirds of the cases were male and 62% aged 18-34 years. Forty cases emerged in North Carolina, including one death in Greensboro Sept. 25. JUUL’s founders proclaim on their website that JUUL was all part of their quest to develop a product that would “invite its own ritual” for adult smokers. But the consumers who really latched onto the product in the U.S. were teenagers: JUUL has created a new ritual for them. Some brands emit giant clouds of vapor. Websites show how to perform tricks with the mist: Ghost Inhale. Dragon. Waterfall. Companies market colorful “skins” for the JUUL device. While smoking cigarettes among teens is down, use of e-cigarettes is up. Nearly 28% of high school students say they vaped in the last 30 days. Tobacco smoking among adolescents has fallen to 6%, as compared to 16% in 2011 and the peak of 36.4% in 1997. E-cigarettes first hit the U.S. in 2007. By 2014, they had found their niche whe n they became the most commonly used tobacco product among youth. This is about the time JUUL entered the market in 2015. By 2017-2018 one-fifth of all high school students were vaping. Only 3.2% of U.S. adults were using them during this time. JUUL markets itself as a product for adults who want to transition off cigarettes. But the FDA has never approved the device as an aid to help quit smoking. Also, vaping is cheaper than buying cigarettes, which, in addition to the flavors, is another advantage for kids. While cigarettes cost less in North Carolina than most any other state at $4. 87 a pack, the calculator on JUUL’s website says someone in North Carolina smoking one pack a day would save $365 a year by switching to JUUL. Buying the products is no problem for adolescents, either. While North Carolina banned sales of e-cigarettes to minors in 2014, a 2015 study by a researcher at the University of North Carolina found minors could easily buy e-cigarettes online. The response to the vaping crisis from the federal government has been painfully slow, even though the CDC warned of the dangers of e-cigarettes in 2013. Speaking before Congress, the FDA chief recently admitted a lack of inaction and vowed to do better. Now, even though the American Lung Association and others sued—including North Carolina’s attorney general—the FDA didn’t act until people started getting sick and dying. Now the FDA plans to banish all e-cigarette flavors except for tobacco and is drafting other rules aimed at curbing adolescent use. But this may be too late, since the nicotine products are highly addictive and the devices wildly popular. A generation of users is already vaping, getting sick, and dying. Companies still could reintroduce the flavors later, as long as they submit to the FDA’s premarket approval process. The CDC still doesn’t know what is causing the widespread lung injury from vaping. More study into which chemical exposure or brand may be involved is needed. Once this is targeted, it’s up to the FDA to act swiftly.

On Thursday, June 27, 2019, the nation’s highest court declared that it was too delicate a flower to deal with partisan gerrymandering. The issue, the court said, was beyond the scope of their authority. As this court routinely decides on issues that affect the lives of Americans – health care access, pollution regulations, women’s health issues, who can be armed how heavily and where, not to mention the death penalty – the decision smelled like a stretch. When you consider the court makes decisions that can in effect overturn the laws passed by those gerrymandered legislatures – and does routinely – the decision and its reasoning are even worse. So what does this have to do with North Carolina, and why is it bad? A lot, and a lot. North Carolina’s legislative districts have been gerrymandered for years, but gerrymandering on steroids is a relatively recent development. In the run-up to the 2010 election, the Republican State Leadership Committee created Project REDMAP. The plan was to seize control of state legislatures in 2010 races and implement gerrymanders in those states following the 2010 census. North Carolina was one of the top targets, and the GOP took control of both bodies of the state General Assembly for the first time since 1970. In the next step, gerrymandering guru Tom Hofeller was brought in to draw maps using sophisticated software to create new lines to drain every possible drop of partisan advantage out of North Carolina via new legislative lines. The new legislature approved the new lines, and it worked like a charm. Slim majorities in ensuing elections yielded supermajorities in the state House and Senate; newly drawn congressional lines turned a politically balanced state into a 10-3 GOP majority in the state’s congressional representation. GOP Rep. David Lewis, who famously said the 10-3 map was fine only because mapmakers couldn’t find a way to make it an 11-2 Republican edge, defended the redistricting thusly: “I think electing Republicans is better than electing Democrats.” As of June 22 voter registration numbers in North Carolina showed 2.47 million Democrats; 2.13 million Unaffiliated; 2.003 million Republicans, and a smattering of Libertarian, Green and Constitution Party members. If the GOP is in third place in North Carolina, why is it such a dominating first place in the legislature? Gerrymandering is the obvious answer. In response to the obvious unfairness of the situation, the Supreme Court basically said, “Well, what ya gonna do?’’ You can bet this will be seen as a green light for even more radical gerrymandering and political hardball from the GOP. This decision, in fact, can be put down to political hardball. The dots between Merrick Garland and the 5-4 decision aren’t very hard to connect. Will Democrats respond with hardball on their own, say by packing the Supreme Court? It’s doubtful. On Twitter, New York Magazine contributor David Freedlander wrote, “If history is any guide, Republicans in red states will respond to this SCOTUS ruling by gerrymandering Democrats to a fare-thee-well, and Democrats in blue states will respond by setting up a nonpartisan redistricting commission.” Responding to Thursday’s decision, Lewis said, “Today’s ruling establishes precedent that it is not the judicial branch’s responsibility to determine the winners and the losers.” Unsaid: The winners and losers will continue to be determined by an already-gerrymandered legislature. The next round of battle will be whether state courts have a say in the matter, a round that will likely come quickly in North Carolina. In the meantime, it’s worth reading Justice Elena Kagan’s dissent. “In North Carolina, however the political winds blow, there are 10 dissenting Republicans and 3 Democrats. Is it conceivable that someday voters will be able to break out of that prefabricated box? Sure. But everything possible has been done to make that hard. To create a world in which power does not flow from the people because they do not choose their governors. Of all times to abandon the Court’s duty to declare the law, this was not the one. The practices challenged in these cases imperil our system of government. Part of the Court’s role in that system is to defend its foundations. None is more important than free and fair elections… “If there is a single idea that made our Nation (and that our Nation commended to the world), it is this one: The people are sovereign. The ‘power,’ James Madison wrote, ‘is in the people over the Government, and not in the Government over the people.’ Free and fair and periodic elections are the key to that vision,” Kagan wrote. “The people get to choose their representatives. And then they get to decide, at regular intervals, whether to keep them.” In North Carolina, it’s the legislators who decide whether to keep … well, themselves. The Supreme Court said it’s up to Congress and the state to decide gerrymandering issues.