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The big takeaway from the long-anticipated release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller report might be that it contained very little in regard to breaking news. What it did contain is confirmation that the reporting surround President Trump and the Russia scandal was not “fake news’’ but was in fact on solid ground. Much of the news surrounding the report was in how it was released. Attorney General William Barr took it upon himself to render judgements regarding the report that don’t stand up to what the report actually contains. That shouldn’t be surprising, as Trump had lamented he needed his own Roy Cohn, a fixer. In Barr he has found it. Probably the best analogy to Barr’s spin on the report came from Andy Borowitz of The New Yorker in a satirical piece titled “William Barr Reads ‘Moby Dick,’ Finds No Evidence of Whales.’’ Chris Wallace of Fox News said, “The Attorney General seemed almost to be acting as the counselor for the defense, the counselor for the president, rather than the Attorney General, talking about his motives, his emotions. … Really, as I say, making a case for the president.” What Barr did was give the Trump spin machine a head start they put to good use, declaring the president cleared and spiking the football. That spin hasn’t held up in ensuing days. It’s true that Mueller did not file charges against the president. It’s also true that, to use a double negative, he did not find him not guilty. Mueller followed Justice Department guidelines that state a sitting president can’t be indicted. He spelled out quite clearly that if he hadn’t found evidence of crimes that would normally bring charges he would’ve said so. “If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice,” Mueller wrote, “we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment.” History is not going to treat William Barr well. He gave the White House access to a report investigating the president but denied such access to Congress. He took it upon himself to make the call on criminal obstruction, something Mueller never requested. He said the White House had cooperated fully with an investigation the president has publicly attacked more than 1,100 times, according to the New York Times, and repeatedly tried to shut down. The president fired the FBI chief leading an investigation into him, James Comey, and tried to get Mueller fired. His team had contacts with Russians that they should’ve been running to the FBI to report but instead at the very least welcomed their help. Against all the background noise regarding the report, it’s important to Americans to remember we are in uncharted waters, that this administration is, to put it mildly, not normal. Many people took Comey’s firing over that “Rush-er’’ thing with a grain of salt. What many don’t realize is that it marked only the second time in American history that a U.S. president dismissed the bureau’s head; the first was when Bill Clinton tossed William Sessions in 1993 after the DOJ issued a 161-page report detailing Sessions’ numerous ethical lapses. Barr found that normal. It isn’t. Barr isn’t the only one who looks bad after the report’s release. Sadly, Richard Burr, North Carolina’s senior U.S. Senator, may well have been sliding information to the White House regarding the ongoing FBI investigation. Burr had seemed like a square dealer in the Russia probe, so it’s disheartening to think he might be more of a Mark Meadows, who has gone so far around the bend in defending Trump he can see himself coming from the other direction. Expect to hear a lot of questions about that in coming days. So where do we go from here? Our guess is a rocky road lies ahead, and that our institutions, including the Fourth Estate, will continue to be tested. Robert Mueller didn’t put the next step in the hands of William Barr. He put it in the hands of Congress, saying it is up to that body, indeed its constitutional responsibility, to pursue conclusions DOJ guidelines prevented him from pursuing. There’s a lot of talk about what Democrats, who hold the House majority, should do. Most of that talk is hot air about political strategy and potential impacts on the 2020 election. Some of that talk is important, some of it is simply designed to fill a 24-hour news cycle with noise. But in our view “What are the Democrats going to do’’ is the wrong question. What are congressional Republicans going to do? The Mueller report isn’t a get-out-of-jail free card for them. They’re supposed to be representatives of the all the American people, not just the one who happens to be president. They should at least be paying mild interest to the fact that our Republic was attacked and an election was manipulated. If a Richard Burr or a Patrick McHenry came out and said yes, I believe Donald Trump obstructed justice, or that we at least need to take the voluminous evidence of doing so seriously, that would change the conversation, don’t you think? The ball is in the GOP’s court. Will they play or will they pass? Stay tuned.

North Carolina’s estimated $16 billion in federal funding is at stake in the 2020 census, which will take place just one year from now. Counting everyone, from the state’s youngest to our oldest, will ensure we bring the most federal money back to our communities to fund vital programs. This also means that North Carolina will have the appropriate representation in Congress, since U.S. House seats are allocated according to decennial census data. However, an accurate census will depend on convincing parents of very young Latinos to complete a census form. According to a report from NC Child and NALEO Educational Fund, “The Statewide Implications of Undercounting Latino Children,” there is a higher percentage of young Latino children in hard-to-count populations: Children under 5 Racial and ethnic minorities Linguistic minorities Low-income families Migrant families Failure to accomplish a complete and accurate census in 2020 will hurt all North Carolinians, but especially children. According to the report, an undercount would hurt the estimated 300 federal programs that rely on data derived from the decennial census. About $9.2 billion of the state’s $16 billion in federal funds is determined through the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage, which will be based in part on the 2020 census and will determine how much we receive to administer these major programs that support children and families: Medical Assistance Program (Medicaid) State Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) Title IV-E Foster Care Title IV-E Adoption Assistance Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) While Medicaid also supports adults, two-thirds of its enrollees in North Carolina are children. To demonstrate what’s at stake for the general population, the report’s authors calculated that after the 2010 census, for every 1% of residents undercounted, North Carolina lost $94 million. This means a loss of general funding to Medicare Part B payments, and highway planning and construction for example. While Latinos make up about 10% of the state’s population, they account for about 18% of the children under 5. Nationwide in the 2010 census, the “undercount” rate for young Latino children was nearly double that of young children overall. An estimated 25,000 young children in North Carolina were missed that year; a third were Latino. This time around, that number will be higher because the young Latino population has grown in North Carolina. In 1999, they made up 7.3% of children under 5; by 2017 that number was estimated at 17.8%, or 108,376. They accounted for 40% of North Carolina’s children in poverty under 5. Very young Latinos are most likely to live in hard-to-count census tracts with a high proportion of renter and multi-unit buildings. Units may include multiple families and multiple generations living in subdivided rental units and shared households, including garages, where the adults are most likely to be poor and have difficulty speaking or understanding English. While participants will be able to respond by mail, phone or enumerator, emphasis will be placed on completing the form online. This further complicates participation for people living in poverty with limited internet access and poor English skills. Consequently, residents may avoid filling out a census form due to the perceived complexity. Also, Census Bureau research indicates that Latinos are more likely than others to believe that the purpose of the census is to collect information about adults, but not children. Finally, while most Latinos in North Carolina are U.S.-born (59%), there remains many other Latinos who may not trust a U.S. government questionnaire with their personal information, particularly if the census contains a citizenship status question. While the courts have yet to determine whether or not citizenship data will be collected, the fear of deportation remains an issue in census participation. Decreased federal funding for the 2020 census resulted in reduction in the number of field offices and staffing for communication and partnership activities in the Latino community, plus cuts in field tests, particularly in Puerto Rico. This could contribute to an inaccurate count of young Latino children. NC Child and the NALEO Educational Fund recommend the federal government fully fund the 2020 census and North Carolina appropriate $1 million for an aggressive, multi-pronged outreach plan. This means promoting Census participation through Complete Count Committees that would increase awareness among parents of young Latinos through a variety of trusted community sources carrying the same message in a “surround sound” approach, whether it be from businesses, health care providers, schools, day care providers or other community organizations. Other states have taken this important step. It’s not too late for North Carolina to do the same.

The good news is that there’s broad agreement in Raleigh that the needs of North Carolina’s public schools have been neglected for too long, and it’s time to start addressing those needs. The bad news is there’s a political battle ahead regarding just how to achieve that goal. House Speaker Tim Moore, a Cleveland County Republican, has pitched a $1.9 billion bond, tentatively to be presented to voters for their approval next year. It would provide local schools with about $1.3 billion and another $200 million each for the University of North Carolina system and state community colleges. Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, has offered his own plan that he says would give public schools $2 billion over nine years, with no borrowing needed. The dollars, Berger says, would come from the State Capital and Infrastructure Fund, which was created to provide around 4 percent of the state’s general revenue fund to UNC system and state government projects. The proposal to the state Senate would bump that to 4.5 percent and provide funds for community colleges and local schools. The third player on the stage is Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who’d like to put a bond of nearly $4 billion on the ballot. Cooper says K-12 schools in the state have a backlog of $8 billion in renovation and construction needs. More than half of the money from Cooper’s proposal would go to public schools, around $500 million each goes to community colleges and the UNC system, while the remainder would focus on local infrastructure projects. The Senate measure is attractive in that with pay-as-you-go, there’s no interest to be paid on bonds. It’s unattractive in that construction money would be distributed by the Department of Public Instruction and that there’s no guarantee the dollars would flow from year to year. A future legislature could change the law as it pleases, making education infrastructure needs susceptible to other needs – responding to a hurricane, for example. The House bill and Cooper’s push are unattractive in that debt would have to be financed. Those plans have a huge upside in that they would provide predictable revenue streams and allow local education leaders to reliably plan for the future. Planning for that future has been on the sidelines for too long. Cooper’s office points out that it’s been 23 years since a construction bond passed in North Carolina, and that half of the current K-12 school buildings in the state are at least 50 years old. It’s a state of affairs that needs addressing, and needs addressing with a long-term plan. Everyone in Raleigh says they’re ready to roll up their sleeves and get to work. Politicians love to say they love education. They can prove it by making sure the coming debate goes beyond words and yields dollars and cents.

This week several media outlets goofed when they reported the North Carolina legislature’s plan to report school performance using letter grades based on a 15-point scale. First, they presented the policy as a change, even though the policy has been in practice for years. Second, they failed to emphasize that the scale applied to grades given to schools, not individual students. Fretting that the state is lowering academic standards, people took to social media and the story spread, giving fresh (but inaccurate) material for anyone with an interest in mocking schools in North Carolina, including talk show host Seth Meyers. Media outlets are trying to rectify the problem, but they are missing the real story. Take, for example, WFAE, Charlotte’s NPR station. This morning it clarified that the policy “involves the grading scale used to assess how schools, not students, are performing” and “it doesn’t apply to students.” But those statements are not entirely true. The grading scale in question actually does assess how students are performing and it does apply to students. In fact, one could argue that it applies to students more than it applies to schools. The distinction comes down to the formula used to generate those school letter grades. Using the End-of-Grade tests from third through eighth grades and End-of-Course tests in high school, the NC Department of Public Instruction assigns letter grades based partly on how many students in a school pass the exams and partly on how much better students did in the current year than in previous years. The first component is often called “achievement” and the second “growth”. Because students are different and some schools serve populations with disproportionately more obstacles such as poverty or learning disabilities, raising the achievement measure can be more difficult in some schools than others. A high-poverty school could make remarkable academic progress that does not move the dial on achievement because so many of their students have so far to go. Growth scores are supposed to address that issue with an assessment of the value added by a school. Using the same tests, by determining whether students are doing better, the same, or worse than in previous years, the state can assess whether the school is helping students make progress. In other words, while achievement describes student performance, growth describes school performance. To see how these different measures might favor some schools more than others, consider Title I schools, which are schools identified as having high proportions of students in poverty. According to data from NCDPI, Title I schools in North Carolina earned an average growth score of 77.6 last year, similar to the average growth score of 76.6 earned by non-Title I schools. But on the achievement measure, Title I schools averaged only 54.2 while non-Title I averaged 70.9. In other words, while Title I schools are making as much progress as other schools, their achievement scores do not reflect it. Here’s the kicker: when combining school achievement and school growth scores to produce the school performance score that will determine the letter grade the school gets (using that 15-point scale), school achievement counts four times as much as school growth. Because achievement counts so much more, 34% of Title I schools received a D or F compared to only 5% of non-Title I schools, despite the fact that both groups performed similarly in terms of how much their students grew. When news media explain that these grades are for schools, not students, they are correct in that the grade applies to the entire school and does not appear on students’ report cards. But they are ignoring the fact that because achievement counts for so much more than growth, the letter grade granted to the schools is more a reflection of the students who attend the school than it is the progress the school is helping those students to make. It doesn’t really matter whether schools are judged on a 15- or 10-point scale. Such benchmarks are arbitrary. What is more important is the question of whether these letter grades truly reflect the progress made by a school’s students, teachers, and staff. Do we want to judge a school based on the challenges faced by the population it serves, or how much the school does to help them overcome those obstacles? And who benefits from the current formula? It certainly isn’t the Title I schools. Dr. Giersch is an assistant professor who teaches courses on American politics, research methods, state and local politics, and education policy. His research focuses on education policy, specifically the areas of school choice, high-stakes testing, segregation, and teacher quality.

It looks as though the U.S. Supreme Court may finally weigh in on the question of whether districts gerrymandered for partisan advantage are constitutional. Earlier this month, the court agreed to hear two cases that challenge the practice, one from North Carolina, where Democrats are the aggrieved party, and one from Maryland, where it is Republicans who are aggrieved. For the sake of both parties, let’s hope the court sets reasonable limits on the practice and establishes a fair playing field that allows voters to choose their representatives instead of representatives choosing their voters. Rucho v. Common Cause comes out of North Carolina. It’s an appeal by the North Carolina General Assembly of a federal district court ruling that Republican lawmakers violated the Constitution when they drew district maps in 2016 that were blatantly designed to “to gain partisan advantage” for the Republican party, as the lawmaker in charge of drawing the maps said on the floor of the General Assembly. The maps resulted in 10 Republican and 3 Democratic representatives to the Congress in 2016, even though Democrats got nearly half (46 percent) of the statewide congressional vote. The Maryland case, Lamone v. Benisek, was brought by Republican voters who argue that Democratic state lawmakers redrew a district in 2011 to retaliate against citizens who supported its longtime Republican incumbent. The incumbent, Roscoe G. Bartlett, won his 2010 race by a margin of 28 percentage points, but in the redrawn district he lost in 2012 to Rep. John Delaney, a Democrat, by a 21-point margin. The plaintiffs argued that by redrawing the district, the Democrats violated the First Amendment by diluting their voting power. In 2017, a U.S. district court denied a preliminary injunction to the Republicans challenging the redrawn district, but Judge Paul V. Niemeyer dissented. He wrote that the problem of partisan gerrymandering is “cancerous, undermining the fundamental tenets of our form of democracy.” “The widespread nature of gerrymandering in modern politics is matched by the almost universal absence of those who will defend its negative effect on our democracy,” Judge Niemeyer wrote. “Indeed, both Democrats and Republicans have decried it when wielded by their opponents but nonetheless continue to gerrymander in their own self-interest when given the opportunity.” The Supreme Court has been prudent in its reluctance to take on the issue of partisan gerrymandering. In cases in 1986, 2004 and 2006, a majority of the court agreed that partisan gerrymandering violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. But Supreme Court Justices have rightfully worried that, as former Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in a 2004 case, there are “no judicially discernible and manageable standards for adjudicating” claims of partisan gerrymandering. Political registration isn’t a reliable test because many people are registered independent and many, no matter the party they are registered as belonging to, vote for the other party’s candidate. One solution to that dilemma arose in Whitford v. Gill, a case out of Wisconsin that came before the Supreme Court in 2018. It advances a standard called the “efficiency gap,” which would establish whether the results across districts in any given election roughly matched the number of votes cast for a given party. It was thought that the court would decide the case based on whether the “efficiency gap” standard developed by political scientists would, in the court’s view, be an acceptable standard for determining when partisan gerrymandering had occurred. But in June 2018, the court remanded that case to the lower courts after finding that the plaintiffs, a group of 12 Democratic voters, did not have standing. The court found unanimously that they did not meet the requirement under Article III of the Constitution that plaintiffs in federal lawsuits must show that their complaint arises from a specific, direct and significant injury that could be remedied or prevented by a decision of the court, rather than from a general grievance. Instead of dismissing the case, the court remanded it to be argued again, giving the plaintiffs another opportunity to establish standing. Judge Niemeyer’s dissent in the Maryland case, Lamone v. Benisek, presents an eloquent argument for how gerrymandering harmed the plaintiffs in the Wisconsin case. “Building on the Supreme Court’s previous holdings that ensure ‘one person, one vote’ and that prevent racially motivated gerrymanders,” Niemeyer wrote, “we held earlier in this case that when district map drawers target voters based on their prior, constitutionally protected expression in voting and dilute their votes, the conduct violates the First Amendment, effectively punishing voters for the content of their voting practices.” If that isn’t a grievance worthy of “standing,” it’s hard to imagine what is. As Americans, we have no more fundamental right than the right to vote. But it isn’t just the harm to individual voters the Supreme Court should consider. It is the harm to our democratic process. Allowing legislatures to “pack and crack” voters means that candidates only need appeal to their base. That gives the most radical elements of their parties power way beyond their numbers. Once elected, lawmakers cannot risk compromise for fear of alienating that base. That brings government to a halt, as the present federal shutdown demonstrates, and leads to increasingly entrenched polarization. As the 2020 Census approaches with the redistricting that will follow, we can only hope that the Supreme Court sets a standard that prevents the kind of redistricting abuses we’ve seen during the past decade. If it fails to do so, voters throughout the nation will be disenfranchised as state legislatures engage in an orgy of partisan gerrymandering. Any competitive human activity with no rules and no referee soon becomes a free-for-all. Let’s hope that’s not where our nation is heading.

If you think it seems there’s a little less elbow room here in North Carolina, you would be right. And if you enjoy living here, there are more and more people agreeing with you. As the sun set on 2018 it marked the third straight year North Carolina saw a population gain of at least 100,000 people. As of July, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated the state’s population at 10.4 million souls, a jump of 113,000 from 2017. That puts North Carolina’s growth rate at 1.1 percent, well above the national average of 0.6 percent, and placed the state in the top 10 for population growth, and in the top five in terms of numeric growth. Since 2010, the state has added 850,000 residents, a jump of 8.9 percent. The vast majority of that growth, two-thirds of it, has been from people moving here as opposed to people being born here. That said, being born here makes a difference; North Carolina is what is termed a “sticky” state. Those born here tend to stay here. The numbers are interesting, but behind them are political ramifications: The growth means The Old North State is on track to pick up a 14th congressional seat following the 2020 census. Right now, the state has 13 congressional districts, but thanks to some … er, creative electoral engineering in the 9th, we only have 12 representatives in Congress. That contest will eventually be settled. What comes after could have a lasting impact on the state’s delegation in Congress. North Carolina’s congressional maps have been something of a full-time jobs program for legions of lawyers since gerrymandering following the 2010 census. Newly drawn district lines were ruled unconstitutional due to racial gerrymandering and then due to partisan gerrymandering. A federal three-judge panel ruled the lines used in the 2018 election were unconstitutional, but the matter had dragged through the courts so close to voting that the plaintiffs in the case argued it was too late to change them. We wouldn’t be surprised to see the 13 districts shuffled around in a creative manner yet again headed into the 2020 race. But following 2020 it will be 14 seats, and that will be harder to gerrymander following the census. The first census was held in 1790 and has been held every 10 years since as required by the Constitution. Its task is both simple and complex: To count every person in the U.S. and where they live. The census itself may be subject to some electoral engineering. The 2020 census is the focus of a slew of lawsuits over the push to add a citizenship question for the first time since 1950. Given the toxic national conversation over walls, deportation, ICE raids and the like, it’s a guarantee that with a citizenship question, many people, fearful of potential repercussions, will skip the census. It will guarantee an undercount in states with large numbers of immigrants, including legal immigrants and citizens in immigrant communities who might have a non-citizen living in their household. An undercount carries real consequences in dollar terms. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill demographer Rebecca Tippett estimates more than 400,000 North Carolina children have at least one immigrant parent. In an environment of fear, it’s a given a lot of those households will skip the census. Tippett says every person missed means a loss of nearly $1,000 in federal funding. The census issue sounds like something a ways off in the future, but we’re on the clock. The Census Bureau has to do a population count by April 1 of 2020, send it to the president by the end of that year, and the states have to have new redistricting data in hand by April 2021. Get it wrong, and it’s a mistake we’ll live with for a decade. For a growing North Carolina, that is unacceptable.

With the recent storm patterns that have hammered the United States, it is time for state and federal government to embrace the fact that the climate is changing. A failure to recognize this is costing the nation and North Carolina billions of dollars in property damage and loss of life. Hurricane Florence is more evidence for those not already convinced that climate change is real. And those not already convinced include the majority of the North Carolina legislature. During the last decade, North Carolina and South Carolina have endured almost one hurricane a year, not including tropical depression storms that have caused flooding, property damage and loss of life. Many maintain the recent patterns of storms in the United States and around the globe are driven by climate change. It can be argued that the historical storms in New Orleans, Houston, Florida, New Jersey and along the eastern seaboard can be credited to global warming. Those who argue climate change is not real are not facing the extraordinary research that has been done in North Carolina, the nation and internationally. The evidence is overwhelming that climate change is real and has implications for our economy and our very lives. A key question is what is climate change, or global warming? And are we simply going through a period of time with more storms? In reviewing a formal explanation by Wikipedia, “climate change is a change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns, when that change lasts for an extended period of time (i.e. decades to millions of years). Climate change may refer to a change in average weather conditions, or in the time variation of weather within the context of longer-term average conditions. Physical evidence to observe climate change includes a range of parameters.” The recent storms are a very small sample size, not enough to build an ironclad case for climate change. But there are plenty of additional, and convincing, components for the argument: sea level change, cloud cover and precipitation changes, changing vegetation patterns, Arctic ice sheet erosion, temperature changes and more. These factors are in turn impacted by growing populations and growing emission levels. In 2005, North Carolina authorized the Legislative Commission on Global Climate Change to direct the commission to determine if a cap on emissions was warranted, and if so, at what level. The North Carolina Climate Action Plan Advisory Group (CAPG). The 43-person Commission of diverse experts from across the North Carolina expired with the submission of its report in 2008. The 118-page report listed 564 recommended options for further study and potential adoption that are believed to be most important for mitigating North Carolina’s GHG emissions. The associated economic impact projected significant cost savings for the state through 2020. In the summer of 2012, North Carolina, conservative state Rep. Pat McElraft introduced a bill that stipulated state and local agencies must refer to historical linear predictions of sea level rise rather than current research, and only look at 30-year predictions – basically ignoring the evidence and overlooking the potentially dangerous impacts of weather-related damage to homes and property along coastal Carolina. The bill was passed despite rising sea levels on the state’s coast and the recommendations from the CAPG. We implore politicians to move away from political party positions and provide the funding to support scientific research that will assist local communities, regions and the states to address this crucial issue, that impacts everyone, regardless of boundaries or political affiliation. Global warming is a real and must be addressed. In 2015 the Pew Research Center reported, “that a median of 54 percent of all respondents consider climate change a serious problem.’’ Politicians should also consider climate change a reality – not a political agenda item. Fortunately, 196 countries see the impact of global warming, given that they signed on to the Paris Agreement, to bring nations together to fight against climate change. President Trump pulled the United States out of the accord, for political and shortsighted reasons. Global warming is real and we must take appropriate actions to address it or continue to face the wrath of mother nature.

I served in the United States Air Force (AWACS) and am a Vietnam War Veteran. I flew 120 Arial Combat Support Missions and was awarded four Air Medals. I spent the majority of my career working for the public sector and am considered an expert in public administration. I also served on the Board of Directors for the National Forum for Black Public Administrators. I served governors and political appointees, both Democratic and Republican Administrations. One of my greatest honors was to serve as co-chair of the Arizona Veterans Committee for John McCain’s presidential campaign in 2008. I also served as an Arizona delegate (alternate) for the Republican National Convention in support of John McCain. While the overall campaign was not successful, there was one consistency – John McCain’s relentless determination to continue to serve the people and this country. There has been much commentary about his care for the people and this great nation.As an African-American, I was asked by friends, family and the media: “Why do you support John McCain? My response was, I have and will always support the candidate I feel is best for the country and the people, regardless of the political party, race or gender. I believed then and I believe now, John McCain was the better candidate. I also have the utmost respect for our first African-American President, Barack Obama. As far as I am concerned, there is something they have in common as it relates to history – they both left their mark. After the 2008 Presidential Election, John McCain told me he felt bad because he let me and others down. That was just another demonstration of his character and his care for all of us. He was very sincere and I could feel it bothered him. I told him he should not feel that way, given what he has done and was doing for this nation. I am not going to restate all the good things that have been said the last several days regarding John McCain, they are all true. He is the role model for what this country needs, he has set the standard for other political hopefuls to follow. My final message to John: You will always be my Commander-In-Chief. Edward O. Willis lives in Phoenix, Arizona

My Journey on the Monuments Study Committee Union Square is a place of prominence on our Capitol Grounds in Raleigh whose collection of monuments has often been compared to game pieces on a chessboard by visitors to the site. After the North Carolina Historical Commission Public Hearings in March, I walked around Union Square and noticed four and one-half of these 14 monuments were either dedicated to the Civil War, contain the word Confederate or have a Confederate Flag depicted within their Bronze Plaque. The statue of George Washington was the first monument placed there in 1857 and the memorial to the Confederate dead was the second in 1895. These first monuments mark periods of upheaval in the history of our state and our nation; and ever since Native American Indians were pushed away from this land in the 17th century, Union Square has witnessed a succession of national owners who flew the flag of Great Britain, the United States, the Confederate States of America and finally the United States again. However, the flag of North Carolina has always flown on our Capitol Grounds. A Critique of the Monuments on Union Square John Coffey, Curator of American and Modern Art at the North Carolina Museum of Art wrote a “Critique of the Monuments on Union Square” on February 15, 2010. He said: “As one who is a native of Raleigh and reasonably well-versed in the history of this state, I am also fascinated by these sculptures as expressions of ideas and sentiments now sometimes hard to appreciate or even comprehend. If one believes that the commemorative monuments on Union Square should honor the most important events and the most praiseworthy men and women of North Carolina, then the present disparate group of monuments fails in many respects. Collectively, they convey to the visitor an abiding reverence for the Confederacy, for war and warriors, and for politicians and civic leaders of decidedly mixed legacies.” The Lack of Diversity among the Monuments At the swearing-in of the African American Heritage Commission on February 27, 2009, State Supreme Court Justice Patricia Goodson-Timmons noted the lack of diversity among the Capitol Memorials. In particular, the African American Heritage Commission stated: “We wish to bring to the attention of the North Carolina Historical Commission the vital and central role played by African Americans in North Carolina’s long history, from the appearance of the first imported bondsmen in the seventeenth century to the Civil Rights Movement of the twentieth century, and ongoing struggle for equal rights” In April 2016, Governor Pat McCrory publicly announced and encouraged North Carolina citizens to participate in eight public hearings across the state to offer feedback on a new monument on the State Capitol grounds to commemorate the achievements of African Americans. Governor McCrory said, “These hearings will allow more people to play an active role in helping the state recognize the contributions African Americans have made to North Carolina.” Two and one-half years have now passed since the African American Memorials Committee held these Public Hearings. No further steps have been taken and no public funding has been provided. Our state now seems paralyzed by a pre-occupation with defending an incomplete representation of our past within our most public square instead of reaching forward into a new future and exploring new possibilities for how we represent our state with public art. My Personal Story I agree with the African American Heritage Commission’s statement. African Americans haveplayed a vital role in my life, in the lives of my ancestors, and in the lives and history of the people of North Carolina. This is my personal story. My great great grandparents Hardin William Reynolds and his wife Nancy Jane Cox Reynolds owned 88 enslaved African Americans in 1863 who planted and picked tobacco on their Rock Springs Plantation in Patrick County, Va. My great grandfather’s brother A. D. Reynolds served as a major in the Confederate Army representing Virginia during the Civil War. Beginning in 1875, mygreat grandparents, R. J. Reynolds and his wife Katharine Smith Reynolds employed thousands of African American factory workers in my hometown of Winston-Salem to twist lumps and roll cigarettes and later to work in their home and gardens at Reynolda Village built in 1917. Beginning in 1933, my grandparents Dick and Blitz Reynolds employed dozens of African Americans during the Great Depression to help construct and operate their Long Creek Dairy Farm in Surry County and to work as cooks, and gardeners and maids in their home at Merry Acres built in 1941. When I was a child in the 1970s, my parents also employed housekeepers in the home, and I was introduced to African American culture in a manner similar to that of the character Skeeter in Kathryn Stockett’s 2009 novel, The Help. Like Skeeter, as a young adult, I began to explore and to question my history and my heritage. As a high school junior, I researched and wrote on Supreme Court Justice John M. Harlan’s sole dissenting opinion in the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case and learned how the legalization of “separate but equal” status for African Americans had launched the era of Jim Crow in the South. More recently, in 2001, I began to attend a local African American church in Winston-Salem, where I was baptized in 2005 by the same African American Pastor, Lewis Devlin, who later buried my father in 2009 in our ancestral cemetery in Patrick County, Va. And most recently, on October 3, 2015, I married my wife, Deborah, before God, officiated by a different African American minister, my longtime friend, the Rev. Paul A. Lowe, Jr.

The Boston Globe has called on newspaper editorial boards to publish pieces on Aug. 16 denouncing President Donald Trump’s frequent attacks on the press, specifically his oft-repeated charge that the news media is the “enemy of the people.” We’re small fry in the media ecosystem and as such weren’t approached by the Globe, but since Aug. 16 is our publication date, we thought we’d speak our piece on the issue. That’s because when somebody with as large a megaphone as the president of the United States repeatedly makes such an accusation, it filters down all the way and can have an impact even on the most humble news organization. So, for the record: We’re not the enemy of the people. The First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America guarantees the freedom of religion, speech, assembly and petition. There’s no accident it singled out a single profession – the press – for protection as well. The founders were all about a government run by the consent of the governed, and knew full well that the governed needed information about what their governors were up to in order to make the best decisions regarding their own fate. In 1765 John Adams wrote, “Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right … an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers.’’ In 1792 Thomas Jefferson wrote, “No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free, no one ever will.” In less flowery terms, the role of the press is to keep an eye on the henhouse. Quite often, that comes in terms of covering municipal and county meetings. People are busy and can’t always sit in on these kind of official gatherings. The press is there to sit in for those who can’t attend, to let them know what their leaders on the local level are doing. These meetings are sometimes, honestly, a bit boring, focusing on the formation of a task force to study this or that esoteric concept. At other times, they can mean you wake up one day with a gun range bordering your property, or a hog farm, or who knows what. It’s our job to give you a heads-up as to what’s coming down the pike. We may opine about the ramifications of such decisions on these pages – that’s why they’re called the opinion pages. Our reporting, on the other hand, strives to deliver the facts and the context as truthfully as possible. At times, that truth can be painful to people, particularly when it casts someone they’re fond of in a negative light. But it’s still the truth. And a truth many people forget in an age where there’s a war being waged on the press. The fact is, people write their own stories. We just report them. In an ideal world this paper would be filled with nothing but positive stories (and in fact, this community being what it is, we are able to run a great many more positive stories than can be found in other communities). But the fact is, there will be arrest reports, there will be crime, there will be times when a government official, through negligence or sinister motives, does something to impact a community. To use an example from a nearby county, there’s a reason a sheriff isn’t rolling in video-gambling money, and a reason a county manager isn’t living large on the taxpayer tab. It’s because they chose poorly in writing their own stories, got caught, and were reported on by the local press. Sure, there are bad reporters out there, as with any other slice of society. There are bad cops. Bad teachers. And bad politicians. But there’s a difference between a bad reporter and universal condemnation of a First Amendment guarantor by the person holding the highest office in the land. It’s leading us into uncharted territory in this country, a potential moment described best by political theorist Hannah Arendt: “The moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen. What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed? If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. … And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. “And with such a people you can then do what you please.’’ No, we’re your eyes, your ears, perhaps even your nose – we’ve seen many a seasoned reporter who can tell something just doesn’t smell right. We’re not the enemy. We’re just doing a job, sometimes imperfectly, for the communities and country we love. Cheerleaders or stenographers we’re not. And have no intention of being such.

For starters, not North Carolina’s five surviving former governors. In an unprecedented gathering, Jim Hunt, Jim Martin, Mike Easley, Beverly Perdue and Pat McCrory stood together at a dais Monday afternoon in Raleigh to announce their united opposition to two of the six proposed constitutional amendments slated to appear on the November ballot in North Carolina Martin and McCrory are Republicans, Easley, Hunt and Perdue Democrats. The group issued a prepared statement that reads as follows: “As former Governors of North Carolina, we believe that two of the proposed Constitutional amendments would crippled the separation of powers in our state. These two amendments transfer clear executive authority to the legislature and the ballot language misleads voters as to how damaging these changes would be to our checks and balances in government.’’ Let’s back up a bit to see how we arrived at this moment. Democrat Roy Cooper narrowly defeated incumbent Republican Gov. Pat McCrory in the 2016 election. The outcome was disputed for several weeks. Also, in 2016, the GOP kept its supermajorities in the N.C. House and Senate, but lost control of the state Supreme Court. McCrory called a special session to deal with a disaster relief package. As the doors closed on that session Republican leaders called for another special session, and that’s when it became clear Cooper – and the courts – were in the crosshairs. In no particular order, here are the proposals that were presented in that session: Removing the governor’s control of the State Board of Elections, overhauling county election boards to prevent Democratic control, make Supreme Court races partisan, reduce the number of state employees appointed by the governor from 1,500 to 300 (that number was raised from 500 to 1,500 when McCrory was governor) and require Senate approval of Cooper’s picks for the Cabinet. Some of those items passed, some were modified. But the legislature wasn’t done. As the new legislative session opened this year, Senate leader Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore were asked if they had plans to strip Cooper of any more of his powers. Berger, laughing, said, “Does he still have any?” Moore chipped in with “If you have any suggestions, let us know.” The path from those statements to the sight of former governors taking a bipartisan stand was direct. Two of the six proposed constitutional amendments that may be before voters would restructure the balance of power in North Carolina’s government. One would move the ability to fill vacant judgeships away from the governor to the legislature. The other would overturn 100 years of established practice giving the governor appointment powers over the state elections and ethics board and hand it to the legislature. It would also give the legislature control of duties and appointments to any commission or board it creates. Regarding the first amendment, there are also serious issues with the way the question on the ballot is worded, saying voting for it would switch to “professional qualifications instead of political influence when nominating justices and judges.” However, there’s no guarantee at all politicians wouldn’t simply pack the court with their pals. The former governors lit into the proposals in fine fashion. Martin said, “This is not about partisan politics. It’s about power politics. And it must be stopped. “It may seem brilliant – I would say deviously brilliant – that they now propose to put these amendments to the constitution that would give them absolute power over both the executive and judicial branches. … I’m going to say to you personally, that it is embarrassing to me after a career devoted to building a healthier more competitive two-party system in our state, that it is a legislature controlled by my Republican party that has hatched this scheme.’’ McCrory was just as blunt, saying, “My advice to legislators…if any of you want to take on the responsibilities of the governor, then have the courage to run for governor, and win. Earn it. Do not hijack these duties through two deceitful and misleading amendments that attempt to fool our great citizens.”. These amendments would weaken the office of governor in North Carolina, already one of the weakest in the nation, very nearly to pointlessness. We’d point out that the office of governor is one that is voted on by all North Carolina voters. These amendments came from the leaders of the House and Senate, voted on by people in their district and people in their party – not people across the state. It’s inexcusable for them to be making such a power grab. The interest in more control of the courts is obvious, considering the legislature keeps losing cases in court regarding various pieces of legislation, starting with the disastrous black eye to the state called HB2. That may happen again this week, when a three-judge panel hears legal challenges to get four of the six amendments off the ballots. The sensible solution would be to drop the push to get the amendments on the ballot. This legislature would seem to prefer changing the courts, and sending the governor off to mall ribbon-cuttings instead of exercising the constitutional charge of leading the state.

The U.S. House’s recent defeat of a second and more moderate Republican proposal to reform immigration demonstrates a failure to deal with one of the most significant economic, food security and humanitarian issues of our time. North Carolina is one of many states whose economy suffers from that failure, yet few lawmakers have been more instrumental in exacerbating the problem than Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and the Freedom Caucus he leads. Meadows represents the state’s western counties. The state’s agriculture industry is one of the largest in the U.S. In terms of value-added, it’s the top sector of the state’s economy according to an N.C. State study, contributing $84 billion in 2017. Farming is an uncertain business in the best of times. But fewer hands to do the work has taken the place of the weather as many farmers’ number one worry. After analyzing 15 years of North Carolina farm labor data, economist Michael Clemens concluded “There is virtually no supply of native manual farm laborers” in the state. Even during the Great Recession with an unemployment rate in some counties in the teens, unemployed North Carolinians did not come forward for these jobs. The pool of immigrant labor so essential to farm operations has dwindled as a result of tightened enforcement, deportations and the country’s utterly dysfunctional immigration laws. The Border Security and Immigration Reform Act of 2018 rejected in late June made no pretense of being bi-partisan. But unlike a more conservative bill defeated earlier in the month, it made an effort to find a compromise between the moderate and conservative wings of the Republican Party. Basically that compromise gave a form of legal status to young immigrants who qualify for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA. Otherwise, it was a hardline bill that provided money for a border wall, decreased legal immigration and raised the bar for seeking asylum in the U.S. The negotiations leading up to the votes on the two bills were contentious and sometimes angry, including a shouting match on the House floor between House Speaker Paul Ryan and Meadows, whose caucus pretty much scuttled the compromise bill. Granted, it was a bad bill, but the need for reform is desperate. For farmers, the greatest disappointment came in the failure to address their need for a fair, workable and legal way to employ immigrant labor to do the work for which there is no native-born labor pool. Though not included in the final bill, an earlier proposal that would have helped farmers would create a new guest worker program to replace the cumbersome, costly and inadequate H-2A visa program. Called H-2C, it would eliminate H-2A housing and transportation requirements. But its most significant feature would allow experienced farmworkers already in the country without documentation a way to come out of the shadows and obtain a legal guest worker visa. Estimates are these workers represent 50 percent to 70 percent of the current farm labor in the U.S. This acknowledges the reality that without these workers, much essential farm labor would go undone resulting in lost crops and ultimately in lost farms, leaving Americans ever more dependent on foreign produce. A report prepared for the Partnership for a New American Economy found that while just 14.5 percent of the fresh fruit Americans purchased from 1998-2000 was imported, by the 2010-2012 period, 25.8 percent was imported. For fresh vegetables, imports as a share of total spending climbed from 17.1 to 31.2 percent during the same period. The partnership brings together Republican, Democratic and Independent mayors and business leaders who support immigration reform. The report found that labor challenges faced by U.S. farmers and the inadequacies of the H-2A visa program are a key reason why American farmers have been unable to maintain their share of the domestic market. The inability of U.S. growers to keep pace with rising consumer demand at home represents a major lost opportunity for many rural communities dependent on the agriculture industry. This is not only an economic travesty, it represents both a food safety and a food security issue. This version of the H-2C proposal contains a “touchback” feature requiring undocumented workers to leave the country in order to obtain H-2C status. Most farmers oppose this feature because of the time, expense and risk of workers not returning. The proposal has other problems as well, but that’s a topic for another day. Our immigration laws need to be fixed. The ongoing failure to do so leaves North Carolina farmers dealing with uncertainty and frustration and puts domestic food production at risk. Unless Meadows and the Freedom Caucus he leads become part of the solution, voters who care about domestic food production and about treating farmworkers fairly need to hold them accountable at the polls.