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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As we celebrate our first birthday, Carolina Commentary has developed faster than the startup platform we first envisioned. The venture, put together by a team of veteran newspaper people, was designed to provide insight, analysis and commentary on issues of import to North Carolina. One thing we found is that insight, analysis and commentary are in sore need these days. Another thing we found is what we’ll call the canary in the coal mine. Let’s start by talking about coal mines. More specifically, coal miners. Remember the fuss Donald Trump made over bringing back mining jobs during the 2016 election campaign? A casual observer would easily think hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, of jobs were in play. In fact, there are only about 50,000 mining jobs in the country, according to official Bureau of Labor Statistics figures. Granted, those figures don’t lump in affiliated jobs such as driving a coal truck. Still, the lure of the return of lost jobs certainly motivated some voters to cast their ballot for the New York businessman. And its true jobs were lost, about half of all coal mining jobs in the U.S. over five years. Most of those jobs were claimed by technological changes in mining and the boom in natural gas. A century ago, there were nearly a million miners. Those jobs were lost as people moved from being transported in coal-powered trains to gas-powered cars on their way to places heated by electricity, not coal. But the campaign line was that there a “war on coal,’’ sinister forces such as overzealous regulators and scheming environmentalists. How did that line stand and the importance of mining jobs get so overinflated? There we turn to another jobs crisis, happening about the same time. Employment among newspaper publishers dropped from 412,000 to 174,000 from 2001 to September 2016. Half of the surviving reporters and correspondents are clustered in the five metro areas of Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City and Washington, D.C. Perhaps that’s why the true dimensions of what was happening in the coal industry, and claims regarding the coal industry, didn’t break through to the general public. There were a lot fewer people to tell the tale. The canary in democracy’s coal mine, a vibrant free press, well … she’s about done up an’ died. But we’ve still got a few kicks left in us. And back to us: We suspect the news desert that’s developing in the country, particularly in spots outside major metropolitan areas, has sparked a real hunger for reliable news and commentary. We’d hoped to fill a little spot in the void with our new venture. We underestimated the thirst out there. With no budget for marketing or advertising – zip, zero, nada – we posted our first column on July 7, 2017. As of June 19, 2018, we had grown to 5,859 subscribers. We hear you, Carolina Commentary readers. And we’re out to up our game. We’ll increase the frequency of our commentaries and guest columnists. We’ll put a focus on every article based on three core topics: Democracy, justice, and economy. Under the umbrella of these core topics we’ll continue to examine Carolina Commentary pillars such as education, the environment and how to best prepare for a more diverse (and grayer) North Carolina. If you’re reading this, you’re likely already well informed on issues of justice and democracy, and the current assaults on the two. And good for you. Today, though, we’d like to focus on the economy aspect. The impact to your wallet on decisions made at the local, state and national level are often covered on a very superficial, campaign bumper-sticker level. A tax cut, for example, may mean more money out of your pocket down the road in financing the national debt or seeing your local government have to pick up the tab for an unfunded mandate. A trim in, say, pre-school spending may mean 20 years from now you’ll be paying to house someone in a prison or rehab center as opposed to benefitting from the fruits of a solid, taxpaying citizen. Specific to this column, consider this: Notre Dame associate professor of finance Paul Gao crunched the numbers and discovered what we don’t know truly can hurt us. A working paper examined communities following a newspaper closure and discovered the costs for revenue bonds and municipal bonds in those places rose uniformly. That’s likely because no one was guarding the henhouse with basic local government reporting. As Gao said, “You can actually see the financial consequences that have to be borne by local citizens as a result of newspaper closures.” We’re hoping to help continue to slake the thirst for meaningful information, to fill the gaps of a collapsing industry. But we need your help. We’d like your feedback on our first year; what we did well, what we can do better, and what issues may have fallen through the cracks. Go to survey here and help shape the face of Carolina Commentary in the coming year. So, happy birthday to Carolina Commentary. We’ve grown a lot. We intend to grow a lot more.

The protests taking place across our country give us an opportunity to change and live up to the values we espouse in our Constitution and Bill of Rights, the documents that have made us the world leader for democracy. To fulfill the principles of our Constitution and Bill of Rights, the nation’s citizens have sacrificed, protested and challenged leaders throughout our history. The Abolitionist Movement, the Women’s Suffrage Parade in 1913, the Triangle Shirt Fire Protest in 1911, the March on Washington in 1963 and Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech, and the March on Washington in 1993 for LGBTQ rights are just some examples of this citizen activism. As a result, slavery ended, women gained the right to vote, labor laws were enacted, the Civil Rights Act passed and same-sex marriage became legal. The point is, we Americans have faced many, many challenges and have found a way to deal with the challenge and continue to lead the world as its strongest democracy. Where do we go from here? During a town hall meeting, President Obama told the nation that all major change has come with some unrest. Obama went on to say, “I want you to know that you matter, that your lives matter and that your dreams matter.” These are the upbeat and encouraging words we need to hear from our leaders. He sees, as we all do, the engagement of our nation’s diverse young people, who are outraged as are many Americans by what they saw, and are taking to the streets and are demanding police reform. Obama paints a picture of hope despite the despair we are living through during these turbulent times. The protests that are taking place across the nation and the world are the culmination of years of frustration with the systemic racism that has paralyzed the nation’s African-Americans who, as did their ancestors, have lived as second-class citizens. It is abhorrent that the world witnessed George Floyd killed in the videos shown on television and the Internet. This has triggered the emotional and justified response that we are witnessing. The anger and protests are clearly no excuse for the looters and criminals who are trying to hijack the legal and peaceful protests. We have to look past these individuals that are simply capitalizing on the nation’s grief. Despite the unrest that is captivating our consciousness and moral principles, we cannot forget what the current administration has done to Latinx children by separating them from their families. Many have not been reunited with their parents. This is also a shameful act of racism that is being done in front of our eyes. We cannot become complacent or treat this behavior by our government as an acceptable way to treat immigrants. All parents, regardless of their ethnicity, want the best for their children and their families. African-Americans and other minorities want the same thing as the White majority in America, an equal opportunity for justice, employment, educational opportunities and a safe life in America. African-Americans want to be able to tell their children to look for a police officer, as opposed to telling their children to not make any sudden moves and to show their hands at a traffic stop. It was warming to the heart to see police and protestors connecting with each other with hugs, taking a knee and in some cases marching together in places like Flint, Mich., Boston, New York, Atlanta and Santa Cruz. That is the heart of America and what makes our diversity the strength of the nation, despite the difficult traumatized history of race relations that have placed African Americans, Asian Americans, American Indians and Latinx in secondary status compared to White Americans in this country. We can and will get by the pandemic that has killed more Americans than all of its wars, with the exception of the Civil War and World Wars I & II. Despite the challenges facing the United States, America is a strong nation and is driven by the will of its people, who will demand police reform and political accountability, and will vote out leaders who do not place the country first. We have to believe in our values and live up to the Constitution and Bill of Rights, which have guided us during the most difficult times over the past 244 years of our existence as a nation. Virgil L. Smith formerly served as president and publisher of the Asheville Citizen-Times and Vice President for Human Resources for the Gannett Company. He is the principal for the Smith Edwards Group and writes for Carolina Commentary.

Edgecombe and Nash counties, located in Eastern North Carolina have a long history that has been defined by a rail line that separates the two counties predominantly in Rock Mount, North Carolina. In 1871, state legislators voted to relocate the boundary line between Nash and Edgecombe counties and separated the counties with a rail line that was controversial then and continues to have racial, economic and educational implications today for residents of Rocky Mount. After years of struggle, African Americans are positioned to elect candidates of their choice in Edgecombe County, which is 57.8% African American. Elected representation includes a diverse board of County Commissioners, a diverse Rocky Mount City Council, and African-American representatives in the NC House and Senate. According to retired N.C. Sen. Angela Bryant, “These electoral gains have been challenging as a result of some intra-group black power dynamics along with continuing impact of racially polarized voting by whites, racial gerrymandering and voter suppression, which is amplified by increasing housing segregation and the roll-back of voting rights. As (blacks) slog our success by channeling resources into our long underserved and neglected communities, whites counter with in essence, reverse discrimination or charges of incompetence or overreaching because development is going to much in the black, inner city or Edgecombe direction. A community that is governed by a majority of African-Americans is very likely to be subject to backlash by whites regarding distribution of the resources and how to manage the power that comes with being a black majority.” The Carolinas Gateway Partnerships reports there is significant economic growth coming to the region. Corning is investing $87 million, which is slated to generate approximately 149 jobs. Triangle Tire Co. a Chinese based company that manufactures tires for passenger and construction equipment, will create 800 new jobs at its two $580 million plants in Edgecombe County and will generate $2.1 billion in economic impact. CSX (intermodal facility) has broken ground in Edgecombe County. And the city of Rocky Mount has been selected for the new NC Division of Motor Vehicles headquarters in 2020. To provide youth with career opportunities, The NC Simulation Station will be utilizing electronic software games to assist in and out of school youth explore career occupations through online simulations. Additionally, there has been new investment to redevelop the 200-year-old Rocky Mount Mills and there is growing entrepreneurial investment in the city of Rocky Mount. The Nash and Edgecombe educational systems face high complexity grounded in historical integration and segregation of its schools. The state legislature’s merger of Rocky Mount City Schools and Nash County Schools in 1991 did not resolve segregation issues, but created a complex set of issues around funding, educating and addressing the issue of segregation and poverty. In a report written by Kris Nordstrom of the North Carolina Justice Center’s Education and Law Project for NC Policy Watch, integration can transform North Carolina schools and the lives of its students. North Carolina has made progress, however there is plenty of room for progress in Edgecombe and Nash counties. The research on school segregation and integration has reached general consensus on three points according to Nordstrom: School segregation has negative impacts on low-income students and students of color. School integration has positive impacts on low-income students and students of color. School integration does not have negative impacts on high-income white students. The report goes on to state that “leaders at all levels of society can do more to create an inclusive, integrated system of public schools. The state’s public schools are becoming increasingly segregated by income, and while the trends in racial school segregation in North Carolina are mixed, the overall level of racial segregation remains far too high. The good news is that integrating our schools is an incredibly low-cost proposition…” Despite its history of slavery, reconstruction, political disruption, segregated schools, and economic downturns, the City of Rocky Mount is positioned to leverage the growing economic headwinds and change the lives of its residents, thanks to public and private leadership and cooperation. Now is the time to move away from the historical issues and give many of its residents an opportunity to elevate from poverty and live and thrive in a vibrant and integrated community.

America’s democracy, its position as a world leader and its values are under attack by our own governmental leaders and our adversaries — namely Russia, North Korea, Iran and China. When you consider the events and challenges that have taken place since January 2016, the world wonders what Americans stand for. Actions taken by President Donald Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Republican Congressional members have been emulated by Republican lawmakers in North Carolina, as evidenced by the N.C. House vote taken to override the budget veto of Gov. Roy Cooper. On Sept. 11, a day for honoring those who fell that fateful day in 2001, N.C. House Speaker Tim Moore (R-Cleveland) and Rep. David Lewis (R-Harnett) misled House Democrats and the press by telling them the House would not hold a vote at the morning session. Unfortunately, they did hold the vote while most of the Democrats were away honoring the fallen of 9/11. The Washington Post accurately said, “Democracy dies in darkness.” Kudos to Rep. Deb Butler (D-Brunswick, New Hanover), who would not yield her voice in speaking out against this attack on fairness and democracy. This is not democracy as “we the people” have believed as stated in our U.S. Constitution. The N.C. Republicans have learned well from their party leader, Trump, who has made lying and misdirection a common practice. We expect more from the our president. The Washington Post reports that President Trump has over 12,000 recorded lies and falsehoods. Not only has the president misspoken thousands of times, his actions have challenged the decency and democracy he has sworn to protect by acting in the interest of himself, his political voting base and his family. Here is a sampling of some of the president’s actions: Claiming the media is “the enemy of the people.” Trump and McConnell refuse legislation to protect our citizens from gun assaults by not tackling the issue of background checks, which 83% of gun owners support. Trump advocating for Russia against the will of the democratic nations of the G7 and blaming an American president for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and occupation of Crimea. Trump ignores the missile tests of Kim Jong Un of North Korea. Trump ignores the deficit and we find out the Republicans are not truly financial conservatives. Trump enriched himself with the almost 300 days at his clubs at the expense of the American public. The President appears to not recognize Puerto Rico as an American territory. Trump is fighting through the courts to keep his federal taxes from the view of the American public, despite the audit claim which does not prevent disclosure. Trump’s continued waffling and obedience to the NRA on background checks to stop the gun violence and carnage in the nation. Trumps embrace of white nationalism. Taking away citizenship of children born out of country for military personnel. Potential witness tampering in the Manafort trial. Separating children from their parents, some whom may never reunite. Placing limits on immigration based on who will likely use public benefits. Ethical violations with Attorney General William Barr paying the Trump hotel in DC over $30,000 for his Christmas party. Demeaning and hijacking Colin Kaepernick’s legal protest of police killings of unarmed black men, with a bogus claim of disrespecting the military. Trump’s support of Vladimir Putin over U.S. government intelligence experts. The question for us as Americans is: Are we the beacon of hope? Or are we the bullies of the world? Are we the people who turn our backs to children; to immigrants who seek political asylum from tyranny in their home countries, which the Supreme Court has voted to support. We can impact this president over the remainder of his term by going to the polls and electing legislators who will provide the oversight that the Constitution requires. The upcoming state legislature and gubernatorial elections in some states this year and in North Carolina next year will affect redistricting after the 2020 Census. This will have a tremendous impact on the near-term future of the nation in shaping the political balance of Congress. The Economist Intelligence Unit ranks the United States 25th on the Democracy Index and is listed as a “flawed” democracy. North Korea comes in with a score of “0”, yet our president continues to support its brutal dictator. The Democracy Index reports that U.S. deterioration in the functioning government category is primarily due to political polarization and weakening of public confidence in institutions. The report states that Trump has tapped into partisan tensions in an effort to rally his conservative political and voter base around the sensitive issues of immigration and security. Basically, stoking fears with the American electorate. What are we as Americans going to do to protect our state, the republic and the future of our children?

North Carolina State Superintendent Mark Johnson was elected in 2016, defeating incumbent June Atkinson by 53,860 votes, or 1.2 percent. Johnson attended public schools, specifically the Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts. He went on to earn two degrees in political science and environmental studies. He earned a law degree from the UNC School of Law in Chapel Hill and graduated with honors. Johnson has taught in the classroom in West Charlotte High School. “I realized that opportunity is not available to every student in this country, and it needs to be,” he has said. His background also includes serving as a school board member in Forsyth County. Mr. Johnson appears to have prepared himself for the top job for public education and educating more than 1.5 million K-12 students in North Carolina. While campaigning, he talked with reporter Jeffrey C. Billman of Indy Week about a number of important issues facing K-12 education. He discussed the ACT, where half of graduates were failing to meet a single benchmark on the ACT. He also discussed Workforce Preparedness, preparing diplomas for work rather than targeting the graduation rate, and improving African American student performance in obtaining a minimum ACT score required for college admission. Teacher Pay has been an issue for many years with North Carolina teacher pay being in the lower spectrum for national teacher pay. Johnson identified the importance of tackling the issue of over-testing for teachers and students. The goal was to focus students on how they are performing daily rather than at the year-end of grade or end of course test. Johnson spoke of the importance of using digital technology in the educational process and had great concerns on the impact of poverty on education. As we come to the end of his third year as the state’s educational leader, it is important to ask a question: Are North Carolina public schools better off today than when Mr. Johnson assumed his role as the state’s top educator? Johnsons’ outlines a focus on school safety, career pathways, early childhood education, computer science and coding, and reducing over testing. The digital initiative for third-grade reading, was met with strong opposition from the Department of Information Technology. The competing bidder argued that Johnson awarded the $8.3 million contract improperly. Johnson also was successful in achieving two major legislative goals that tie to his strategic focuses, House Bill 75 (School Safety) and Senate Bill 621 (Reduced Testing). He alienated the N.C. Association of Educators, who did not invite him to the annual convention in March of 2018, breaking an historical precedent of inviting the N.C. Superintendent to their annual convention. The reason cited in the Raleigh News and Observer was “his disruptive actions such as support of private school vouchers and controversial comments about teacher pay.” A recent Charlotte Observer editorial, “A state superintendent who wants to be a czar, speaks to the challenges and leadership style of Johnson, who came into the role with credentials as an educator, but has led like a czar as opposed to a leader that children and educators need. Unfortunately, as one looks back on the tenure of Johnson, it’s worth noting his tenure got off to an inauspicious beginning when Republicans passed House Bill 17, which gave the inexperienced superintendent more authority and control over public education issues than the State Board of Education itself. In retrospect, this move crystallizes the ups and downs of Johnson’s educational agenda, as no man is an island and the trendy superintendent would be wise to listen to the wisdom of members of the State Board of Education. His forward-thinking goals can be reached if he works as a team player and not a czar as the Observer charges.