Search Results

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.

As summer vacation for students nears an end, now is a good time to take a look at the state of K-12 schools in North Carolina, given the significant changes legislated over much of this decade by the Republican-led legislature. One notable is the change in control of the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) along with a number of other moves that are changing the face of public education in North Carolina. The overriding question the public has to ask is: Will legislative and administrative changes by State Superintendent Mark Johnson result in smaller class sizes, higher reading and math scores, graduation rates, and recruitment and retention of teachers? Give the Republicans credit; they have made a strong effort to improve public schools since they took control of the legislature. Remember, elections have consequences. At the end of the day every person in the state covets better schools. Better schools result in students being better prepared for college, careers and assuming the role of being responsible and informed citizens. Our democracy is predicated on having educated people who can lead the next generation. Johnson has put in place a web-based infrastructure for school and district performance accountability by providing access to a Report Card for the general public. The report card is comprehensive and covers a wide range of areas, including overall school and district performance, end of grade performance in math and reading, readiness of students, teacher qualifications, teacher turnover and much more. The Republicans have been strong advocates for preparing students to join the workforce. The report card site also offers a student readiness indicator for students who are interested in a technical education. The transparency of school performance is to be commended. Another significant change is the reporting relationship between the local district superintendents, DPI board and the state superintendent. Johnson informed DPI leaders that their reporting relationship had changed and they now report to him, the state superintendent, and not the State Board of Education. Johnson cited the N.C. Supreme Court ruling that upheld Session Law 2016-126, that gives the authority to direct education in the State to the State Superintendent. With the state superintendent’s new power and the lifting of the cap on the number of charter schools in the state, it is important for parents and legislators to watch the growth of state-funded charter schools. Charter schools are not fully accountable to many of the educational regulations that public schools must follow. Charter school enrollment now exceeds 100,000 and continues to grow. We can expect this trend to continue with taxpayer funding being tapped to allow families to send their children to alternative schools, which are often becoming more racially and economically segregated. No one can fault a parent for seeking the best education possible for their children in their neighborhood. However, policymakers need to ensure that the growth of charter and private schools does not diminish the educational opportunities for children who are less fortunate and live in rural and urban areas, which rely more heavily on traditional public education. The continued growth of charter schools will potentially lead to more separation and unequal education opportunities for children. The 2018-19 DPI budget is $9.60 billion dollars. Notable budget adjustments include an average 3.3 percent teacher pay raise, with raises for almost every step and an increase and bonuses of $385 for 25 years of service. Click here for more detailed budget information. Compensation for teachers and the importance of having committed and well-compensated teachers is an important component of a successful educational system. The state deserves some credit for increasing teacher pay by an average of 20 percent since 2013-14. However, keep in mind North Carolina’s legislature did not legislate the compensation increases willingly. Teachers pressured legislators, similar to the political pressure that took place in West Virginia, Oklahoma and Arizona. Despite the pay increases, North Carolina teacher pay is ranked an abysmal 43rd in the nation at $47,941 and below the national average of $58,353, according to the National Education Association and US Census. North Carolina ranks 9th in the nation in terms of student population with 2 million children aged 5 to 17, which speaks to the critical importance of fair educational opportunities for all children. The legislative requirements to lower K-3 class size to 17 students per class within three years is laudable, and the fact that legislators have earmarked $61 million for art and PE teachers demonstrates a commitment to executing the smaller classroom policy. Many systems were looking at the prospect of eliminating those positions in order to find dollars to meet the smaller class size mandate. Funding needs to be a priority to ensure classroom space is made available and teachers are recruited and competitively compensated to fulfill this worthy and timely educational policy. The next few years will position North Carolina to move up the rankings for educational achievement and teacher pay. Not doing so would be a doing a disservice to the teachers and students of the state.

Many Americans, both Republican and Democrats, agree on one thing. The Russia investigation should be allowed to be completed. As we concern ourselves with a president who attacks our institutions as he seeks to satisfy his base, we need someone to trust and give us an unbiased analysis of what happened with the Russians. That person is Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller. America’s democracy is being challenged by partisan politics that are designed to maintain a white superiority in our fast-changing, ethnically diverse nation. The 2016 election was not about voters feeling economic deprivation. It was about their cultural fears that their status was at risk as a result of the changing racial demographic trends of the nation, according to a study published by PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). America is projected to be a “minority-majority” nation by the year 2044, according to numerous demographers. This cultural shift contributed to Donald Trump’s election as president. Trump and other Republican elected officials are using this racial and cultural anxiety to their advantage and to the detriment of the nation — a nation of immigrants. A quick look at recent history illustrates the fierce dismantling of democratic processes and fair government in our country. North Carolina is considered a political microcosm of the country’s hyper-partisan politics and growing mistrust among political parties, according to Duke law professor Jedediah Purdy. When you examine the political warfare in North Carolina, the list of issues the state has faced, including Republican racially motivated voter suppression, voter ID laws, gerrymandering of voter districts, and the push to end Sunday and same-day voting, has resulted in Republicans holding supermajorities in both the N.C. House and Senate. Progressive pastor and former North Carolina NAACP President William Barber says “systemic racism” in restricting voter participation is a threat to our democracy. Barber goes on to say that 22 states passed voter suppression laws since 2016. Moreover, the political maneuvers to restrict the authority of newly elected Governor Roy Cooper with regard to his responsibilities as governor of North Carolina are also meant to keep power with the Republicans. Trump has demonstrated authoritarian tendencies by attacking America’s institutions, including the media, the courts, the justice system and anyone that he sees as a threat to his authority. Trump has demonstrated that he will not tell the truth and is embolden by a weak Congress that refuses to execute their responsibility to hold the executive branch accountable. The president has refused to acknowledge the Russians impacted our elections and continues to call the investigation of the Russian tactics a “witch hunt.” He fired FBI director James Comey and on national television admitted that he fired him because of the Russian investigation. Trump’s actions and those of his elected supporters should give American’s pause. U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), chair of the House Intelligence Committee, closed off the House Russia investigation without allowing a minority dissent report, and U.S.. Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), is pushing attention away from the Russian investigation and calling for an investigation into the FBI in an attempt to distract from the issue. These activities and many more, including the president’s infatuation with dictators and strongmen, call for an evaluation of the direction of the nation. Trumps supportive comments of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has positioned himself as president for life, demonstrate his infatuation with dictators. Trump was quoted by CNN as saying, “And look, he (Jinping) was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot some day.” Another example: Trump called Putin, America’s chief opponent, to congratulate him on his re-election, drawing bruising criticism from members of his own party, including a leading senator who scorned the election as a “sham.” The nation needs Mueller, an American icon, a man who has served the nation as a decorated soldier. He served as the sixth director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 2001 to 2013. A Republican, President George W. Bush, appointed him. President Barack Obama gave his original ten-year term a two-year extension, making him the longest-serving FBI director since J. Edgar Hoover. He is our best hope to help our country find out how the Russians attacked our electoral process and what we need to do to prevent it from happening again. We also need a Congress that lives up to its constitutional responsibilities as an equal branch government. Enablers such as Rep. Nunes and Rep. Meadows should be voted out of office. Our president is challenging America’s democracy and Congress is not holding him accountable, while he continues to attack our institutions of government and our sense of checks and balances. America needs Mueller to complete his work and to provide answers to the role Russia had, if any, in the president’s campaign.

There couldn’t be a more compelling example of the urgency to vote in the upcoming midterm election than President Trump’s recent threats to overturn the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution with an executive order. This is America’s foundational document. A change can only be initiated by two-thirds majorities of Congress or the states and can only take effect after three-fourths of the states have ratified it. There is no path for a president to change the Constitution. Yet this president boldly asserts that he can. The founders anticipated someone like our current president being elected, and built checks on runaway executive power into the Constitution by setting up co-equal branches of government. They never anticipated one of those branches, Congress, would forgo exercising that power. Yet, to date, the Republican-controlled House and Senate have shown little inclination to challenge President Trump. That’s something North Carolina voters need to keep in mind when they select the 13 men and women from this state who will represent us in Congress come Nov. 6. With the Republicans in control of the executive branch, Congress and now the majority on the Supreme Court, there is grave concern that the current president believes and demonstrates he is in control of the entirety of government. Additionally, he attacks the free press calling it the “enemy of the people” and attacks all of his critics and anyone who challenges his authority. He attacks the nation’s historical allies, embraces the authoritarian regime in Russia, tells lies continuously and threatens to end the probe that is investigating him and his presidential campaign. With the control that our 45th president holds over the branches of government that are designed to provide checks and balances, we have the makings of a government where far too much power rests in the hands of one man. A dictatorship is an authoritarian form of government where power rests with one ruler. Today there are at least 24 dictatorships in the world. The United States is not one of them. But the very fact that some now worry that what might once have seemed inconceivable is even remotely possible is alarming in and of itself. Many would argue that a dictatorship cannot happen in America. Author Jim Powell a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute outlines eight points that can lead a nation towards an authoritarian form of government: Bad economic policies and foreign policies can cause crises that have dangerous political consequences. Politicians commonly demand arbitrary power to deal with a national emergency and restore order, even though underlying problems are commonly caused by bad government policies. In hard times, many people are often willing to go along with and support terrible things that would be unthinkable in good times. Those who dismiss the possibility of a dictatorial regime in America need to consider possible developments that could make our circumstances worse and politically more volatile than they are now – like runaway government spending, soaring taxes, more wars, inflation and economic collapse. Aspiring dictators sometimes give away their intentions by their evident desire to destroy opponents. There’s no reliable way to prevent bad or incompetent people from gaining power. A political system with a separation of powers and checks & balances – like the U.S. Constitution – does make it more difficult for one branch of government to dominate the others. Ultimately, liberty can be protected only if people care enough to fight for it, because everywhere governments push for more power, and they never give it up willingly. By this standard, a president who starts tariff wars with China and threatens to undo Constitutional amendments raises alarms. Add to that a Congress whose spending policies increased the deficit by 14 percent in 2017 and there’s real cause for worry. With the pending election, it is imperative that Americans vote and elect candidates who will protect our republic that has long been a beacon of hope and leadership for the world. Elections have consequences and those elected provide the direction for the nation. And yes, every vote counts. Our president has demonstrated that if things are not going his way, it is a conspiracy of the deep state. Examples include the “rigged’’ 2016 election when the polls indicated he would not win the presidency. He did not believe the unemployment numbers during the past administration, arguing that they were fake. When the numbers continued to improve during his administration, they were the best ever. We have had imperfect and untruthful leaders before, but they’ve been held in check by our system of government with its separation of powers. Never in recent history has that system felt more fragile. The election of greater consequence is the 2020 presidential election. If the current president loses the 2020 election, will he accept the results or will he refuse to vacate the office, saying the election was rigged? What as a nation do we do at that time with a president who exerts control over the Congress and the Supreme Court and drives the nation into a perilous constitutional crisis? As the Cato Institute’s Powell pointed out, liberty can only be protected if people care enough to fight for it. Now more than ever, it’s critical to care enough to become informed and vote.

Our nation marked the 50th anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination on April 4, just days after a group of teenagers from Marjory Stoneman High School in Parkland, Florida, organized hundreds of thousands of people in the March 24 “March for Our Lives” nationwide protests against gun violence. On February 14, a gunman killed 17 people and injured another 17 at Marjory Stoneman. Nikolas Cruz, 19, has been charged. Within 6 weeks, students from Stoneman organized hundreds of thousands of people at more than 800 nationwide protests, including the Washington, DC, march that brought together 800,000. Statewide, thousands marched in Asheville, Raleigh, Wilmington and elsewhere. The “March for Our Lives” movement faces gun control opponents, particularly the National Rifle Association. Conservatives in the news media and social media trolls have ridiculed the massacre survivors. Stoneman student Kyle Kashuv has emerged as an outspoken pro-Second Amendment advocate. But it’s easy to lay out dichotomies, color the nation in black and white along battle lines. That is the work of the nefarious Russian social media bots that spewed hate-filled messages bent on dividing Americans prior to the 2016 elections. They built on the worst in us, and America took the bait. It’s harder to seek and act on opportunities for change by using King’s principles. To make a difference, we don’t have to hate the people with whom we disagree. King describes this and other strategies for nonviolent resistance in his first book, “Stride Toward Freedom.” 1) Resist evil without resorting to violence. 2) Seek the “friendship and understanding” of the opponent, not to humiliate him. 3) Evil itself, not the people committing evil acts, should be opposed. 4) Suffer without retaliation as suffering itself can be redemptive. 5) Refuse to shoot the opponent; refuse to hate him. 6) Have a “deep faith in the future.” King, only 29 when he wrote “Stride,” had that faith in the future. As in King’s time, the Stoneman Douglas teenagers are building a movement on a shared cry for justice and outrage at a political system that has ignored them. To their credit, they haven’t aligned themselves with a particular political party. Instead, they call for Republicans and Democrats to come together: “We demand morally just leaders to rise up from both parties in order to ensure public safety.” To back that up, like King, they have made voter registration and voting one of the cornerstones of their movement for change. At “March for Our Lives” rallies, volunteers worked the crowds, registering young and old to vote. The students also have sponsored or have planned “Town Hall for Our Lives” with candidates in cities and towns statewide, including Wilmington, Hickory, Greensboro, and Raleigh. While thousands of North Carolina students have walked out of class, marched, and organized to demand tighter gun control laws, Republican legislators are unlikely to respond to the students’ call for change. To the contrary, they are more likely to loosen state gun laws. The “March for Our Lives” movement comes at a time in our state’s history when we have a Republican-held Legislature with a super majority holding enough votes to overrule Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat. But this could change. In past elections, where district lines have been drawn to heavily favor one party, the other party has failed to put forth a candidate. According to an analysis by the News and Observer, the 2016 general election included 73 districts in which just one of the major parties fielded a candidate. Republicans had no candidate in 30 House races and four Senate races; Democrats didn’t have a candidate in 28 House races and 11 Senate races. This year, both parties heavily recruited candidates. Some districts have more than one candidate from a particular party on the ballot. North Carolina holds primary elections May 8. For the first time in recent memory, Democrats and Republicans have filed to run for nearly all 170 state legislative seats. The 13 U.S. representatives from the state have filed for re-election. All of them have at least one opponent. “March for Our Lives” seeks to get younger voters to register and vote. There is tremendous opportunity for this generation to flex their muscles at the polls. This year, millennials will pass baby boomers as the largest generation of Americans eligible to vote, making up 34 percent of the voter-eligible population. Their challenge is to get these voters to the polls: Young voters historically vote at lower rates. But the angst of the young, like King and the Stoneman students, can fuel important social and political change. Now is the time for them, and for the rest of the state and nation, to seize this moment. The students also have hope—that their movement will make a difference. As history has shown, seizing power requires shrewd tactics fueled by passion and the persistence to see the fight through in the long term. These kids have their whole lives. As King wrote, “The universe is on the side of justice.” T

The violent events that transpired in Charlottesville were very disturbing and a terrible sign for our country and the nation. Three people lost their lives. Heather Heyer and Virginia State Troopers H. Jay Cullen and Berke Bates were killed during the hate-filled rally. We like to think that the great majority of Americans don’t exhibit the kind of hate we saw on full display in Charlottesville. We know there is racism and bigotry in our country. We witnessed the vile names former president Barack Obama was called, along with the bigotry towards his wife and children. We witnessed the shootings at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina, on the evening of June 17, 2015. During a prayer service, nine people (including the senior pastor, state Sen. Clementa C. Pinckney) were killed by gunman Dylann Roof, a 21-year-old white supremacist. Roof confessed to the shootings in hopes of starting a race war. And now Charlottesville. Three vivid examples of racial hate in our nation. Some have argued there are a small number of people who harbor these types of hate. Some argue that the election of America’s first black president was the tipping point for some who are concerned with losing the country. When we hear people say, “Take our country back,” the question is, take it back from whom? Other Americans? This is a dog-whistle for some that America should continue to be a white-ethnocentric nation. The truth is, the diversity in our nation makes us the most unique nation in the world and has led to America being the greatest nation the world has ever seen. The nation will continue to grow and become even more diverse. All we need do is look at the children being born in this nation. The Public School Review reports: “It has been an ongoing trend for nearly two decades—while the total number of students in American public schools has risen, the percentage of those students who are white has steadily fallen.” According to the Pew Research Center, in 1997, over 63 percent of the 46.1 million U.S. public school students were white. Today, white students comprise just 49.7 percent of the 50 million students enrolled.” This fact may contribute to the hysteria and hate of the alt-right, Nazi, white supremacist and KKK marchers as they shouted, “Jews will not replace us. Blacks will not replace us.” These comments from the marchers indicate an underlying fear that they are losing their position as the majority group in the United States and thus are espousing hate against Jews and blacks. When you evaluate hate groups in the United States, you may be surprised to know they reside in every state in the Union. Led by California’s 79 hate groups, the Southern Poverty Law Center reports there are 917 hate groups in the United States. Surprisingly South Carolina has a low number of 12 and Florida has 63. The growth of hate groups peaked in 2011 at 1,018 and declined by 25% or 234 in 2014; and grew by 133 groups or 17% in 2016. Mind you, these groups represent anti-Muslim, KKK, anti-government and black separatist groups. Hate is hate, regardless of who promotes it. The question is, what can be done about this, given the lack of moral leadership from our elected president and Congress? The answer is, we the people have to step up and hold our lawmakers accountable and replace them if they lack the moral courage to do what is right. We the people have to set the example of loving thy neighbor for our children, for young people and each other to build bridges of respect, while rejecting hate. We must join together with our work colleagues, our churches, our institutions of higher learning, our schools and our neighbors, and fellow countryman. We cannot afford to allow fringe groups to hijack our nation with hate. We have to show each other and the world that we are a nation of immigrants and we continue to be exceptional by resolving our differences in a respectful and collaborative way. We are an exceptional nation, and it is up to us to maintain our exceptionalism.

When Sayfullo Saipov careened down a bicycle path, killing eight people on Oct. 31, police had no trouble tracing the weapon he used, a Home Depot rental truck. But that task would likely have been considerably more challenging if Saipov had used a firearm. U.S. lawmakers, supported by the National Rifle Association, have enacted laws that hobble the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) when it comes to collecting and using information that could aid law enforcement and improve gun safety. As a result, an organization with a claimed membership of 5 million has managed to restrict information that affects the lives of almost 324 million Americans. Let’s start with the ATF. The bureau is precluded by law from creating a searchable database or registry of gun owners or firearm transactions. That’s right. Thanks largely to the lobbying efforts of the NRA, the ATF is required to scan records in such a way that they can’t be queried or turned into searchable files. That means that when it gets a request from a law enforcement agency trying to track a gun found at a crime scene, ATF staff members are, in essence, flipping through a file cabinet to learn where, when and to whom the gun was sold. Any system is subject to failure due to human error, as the Nov. 5 shooting at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, demonstrates. The shooter had been convicted of assaulting his wife, which should have barred him from being able to own guns. But the Air Force has acknowledged that an officer failed to enter his domestic violence court-martial into a national database. That doesn’t mean the database shouldn’t exist. It isn’t just the ATF that is hobbled by such a completely indefensible law. Responding to pressure from the NRA, in 1996 Congress prohibited the CDC from funding public health research into firearms. When fatal car accidents occur, data about speed, age and sex of driver, seatbelt use, and numerous other variables go into a database maintained by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Thanks in large part to that data, car safety standards have resulted in 27 percent fewer car deaths over the past few decades, according to a report in Wired magazine. The CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control exists to fund research into topics like suicide and domestic violence. If Congress didn’t forbid it from funding research into gun-related violence, it’s possible that the number of deaths from such incidents could be greatly reduced. When did we become a nation afraid of information that could save lives? We can only suppose that those who control the NRA fear such knowledge might result in a groundswell of support for severely restricting access to guns. But the U.S. Constitution affirms our right to own guns and the Supreme Court has said it is an individual right. A gun is a tool that can be used for numerous legitimate purposes, including self-defense, hunting and marksmanship. What’s needed are the kind of laws and safety standards that apply to other potentially deadly tools we use every day. Even with improved safety standards, cars killed more people in the U.S. than guns in 2013, by 33,804 to 33,636. The Oct. 31 murders-by-truck in New York City are a tragic reminder that cars have even become a weapon of choice in terrorist attacks. No one is talking about banning cars. But no reasonable person wants you to drive one unless it’s registered, you’re licensed and that information resides in a searchable database available to law enforcement. When NRA paranoia makes solving crimes and improving safety standards more difficult, it’s gone too far. How can such a small percentage of the population have the power to muzzle government agencies? Here’s how: The NRA spends millions of dollars to support the campaigns of candidates who agree with its positions. And two of the top current beneficiaries represent North Carolina. In October, the Raleigh News & Observer reported that only one of the 535 members of Congress has gotten more help from the NRA than Sen. Richard Burr and only three, including Burr, have gotten more than Sen. Thom Tillis. Both have perfect scores on NRA-backed legislation. Voting in lockstep with any powerful lobbying group, especially one as paranoid as the NRA, results in the greatest failure one can manifest as an elected representative — serving special interests at the expense of constituents, especially where health and safety are concerned. It’s time North Carolinians pressured their senators to put them first and lead the charge to reverse these unsupportable laws.

An historic evolution in how we get from Point A to Point B is set to take place over the next 20 years—the shift from fossil to alternative fuels for powering vehicles. What sort of fueling infrastructure will North Carolina need to support the demand? What role can public policy play? Light-duty vehicles, which include cars, produce most of the nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions from mobile sources in North Carolina. NOx irritate the lungs and weaken the body’s defenses against respiratory infections such as pneumonia and influenza. They also contribute to formation of ground-level ozone and particulate matter. Increased use of alternative fuels over fossil fuels would improve human health and slow the effects of climate change. For this reason, China, India, France, Great Britain, the Netherlands and Norway plan to ban gas- and diesel-powered vehicles altogether. At the same time, the cost of building electric cars has been falling rapidly. They will become as cheap as gasoline-powered models by 2025, according to the 2017 Bloomberg New Energy Finance forecast. The sale of electric cars will overtake that of fossil fuel-powered automobiles by 2038. GM announced in October its plans to go all electric, joining Volvo, Jaguar Land Rover and Aston Martin. By 2040, a third of the automobiles on the planet—530 million—will get their power from an electric plug instead of a nozzle. But there are more immediate indications. In Consumer Reports’ 2016 Owner Satisfaction Survey, Tesla’s electric car finished at the top, with 91 percent of owners saying they’d buy a Tesla vehicle again. A recent federal report from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory addresses the question of how much plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) charging infrastructure our country needs. The report seeks to guide public and private stakeholders interested in shaping the future electric vehicle-charging network. Unlike internal combustion vehicles fueled by gas stations, PEV infrastructure also includes residential electric vehicle supply equipment. That’s because most people charge their cars at home. They also don’t really drive that far: 70 percent of daily driving for gas-powered vehicles is less than 40 miles; 95 percent is under 100 miles. An average vehicle only travels 100 miles or more on six days per year. The real issue for most drivers considering purchase of an electric vehicle is what happens when they travel outside their vehicle’s range? Long-distance travel has been a barrier to PEV adoption ever since the first electric car. But an extensive and convenient network of charging stations could make intercity travel reliable. The analysis found that approximately 400 corridor-charging stations (spaced 70 miles apart on average) would be required to provide convenient access to PEV drivers across the U.S. Interstate System. The next step for North Carolina is development of a statewide network of charging stations that benefits urban and rural travelers, including those who live in multi-family housing. We have the opportunity to accomplish this through wise investment of the $92 million fund North Carolina will receive under settlement of the Volkswagen emissions scandal. The amount was determined based on the 16,000 affected 2.0- and 3.0-liter diesel engine vehicles registered in the state. The Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is accepting comment on how the state should spend the money through Dec. 31 at https://deq.nc.gov/about/divisions/air-quality. There are 10 categories under which the money may be spent. Up to 15 percent of the funds may be spent to buy and install charging stations. North Carolina should follow the example of California, which has made installing charging stations under the Volkswagen program in low income and disadvantaged communities disproportionately affected by air pollution a priority. Investing in charging stations will supplement the 2,500-plus non-proprietary electric vehicle chargers Volkswagen will install at more than 450 station sites along high-traffic corridors between U.S. metropolitan areas. Also, Volkswagen will install community chargers in 11 cities nationwide, including the Raleigh area. Governor Roy Cooper has directed the DEQ to develop a plan for spending the settlement; however, the General Assembly has said legislators must approve how the money is spent. Regardless of how the plan is developed, public hearings should be held for transparent and open debate on how we will shape the future of transportation and access to alternative fuels. Show up! Speak out!

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?