NORTH CAROLINA OPEN THREAD Sunday, May 28th, 2023
WEEKLY EDITION #418 (Eight years today)
I managed a few days off from preparing my home and property for selling. Following are links to a few interesting stories for your Sunday reading. Thanks so much, have a great week.
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NPR, Tamara Keith, 5/28/2023
On the way to a manufacturing event in Durham, N.C., earlier this year, newly elected Democratic Rep. Wiley Nickel gave President Biden a big pitch.
Nickel's message to Biden on the Air Force One trip: Please compete in North Carolina in 2024.
"If the campaign goes all in, we can win North Carolina, but we need that support and that investment," Nickel said he told the president. "The votes are there; we've just got to get them out to vote."
Nickel said Biden was receptive: "He knew very well that it was the state that he lost by the closest amount in the last election."
Now the Biden campaign is out with a strategy memo saying, among other things, that it aims to win the state in 2024. It's a state that has eluded Democrats in the past.
Winston-Salem Journal, Richard Craver, 5/28/2023
Abortion restrictions will be the defining issue of the 2024 general election in North Carolina.
Those are the perspectives expressed — as expected along party lines — by Forsyth and Guilford County legislators following the controversial passage of Republican-sponsored Senate Bill 20 and the successful override of Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto.
“I anticipate that abortion will play an outsized role in the 2024 general election, and maybe not as much in the primaries,” said Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford.
“The recently passed ban is very unpopular among North Carolina voters, who are quite angry.
“It makes all kinds of sense to highlight it and other extreme legislation that will be coming from this GOP-led legislature,” Harrison said.
North Carolina Public Radio | By Associated Press, 5/25/2023
Two North Carolina state House Republicans have lost their caucus leadership positions following recent comments directed at Democratic colleagues questioning their educational attainment and religion.
Reps. Keith Kidwell and Jeff McNeely have resigned as deputy majority whips after the GOP leadership team asked them to step down, House Majority Leader John Bell said.
“As elected officials, we must serve by example and be accountable for our actions, especially as leaders in the caucus,” Bell said in a separate news release that didn't specifically identify the misbehavior. “While apologies have been made and accepted, we believe this is an appropriate action and step forward.”
Neither McNeely nor Kidwell, both of whom are white, responded immediately Thursday to phone messages left at their legislative offices seeking comment. They remain sitting legislators. Deputy whips are tasked with helping corral votes on issues important to members of their party. The Democrats who were the subjects of the comments are both Black.
Vanity Fair, Abigail Tracy, 5/16/2023
orth Carolina’s Republican-led legislature has officially passed a 12-week abortion ban, after overturning Governor Roy Cooper’s veto. The Tuesday night vote served as a stunning final act to what has been a closely watched clash between Cooper, a Democrat, and North Carolina Republicans over the bill—including a recent Democrat-to-Republican convert, who, despite a long pro-abortion-rights record, voted for the ban. The conclusion—a cut to abortion access for not only North Carolinians, but also for the many women in neighboring states with even harsher restrictions—has re-emboldened Democrats nationally to bring a blue wave to the state.
“The dangerous antics by the North Carolina Republican Party are the national model for how to lose elections in 2023 and 2024,” Philip Shulman, a spokesperson for liberal super PAC American Bridge 21st Century, said. “As Republican legislators and the party’s top choice for governor, Mark Robinson, attack and take away people’s basic freedoms, voters have that much more reason to vote for Democrats up and down the ticket.”
“North Carolina is a battleground state for 2024,” Jesse Ferguson, a veteran Democratic strategist tweeted after the vote. “GOP candidate is gonna own this.”
Going into Tuesday’s vote, it was unclear whether Republicans could garner enough votes to trump Cooper’s opposition to the bill. “This is a very purple state, every battle is won or lost on a very tiny, tiny number of votes,” Jenny Black, the CEO and president of Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, told Vanity Fair Monday evening. This played out the same way. The Senate voted 30 to 20 along party lines to override Cooper’s veto and the House also voted to override the veto in a final vote of 72 to 48; four Republicans who had previously said they did not favor tighter abortion restrictions supported the ban.
Spectrum News 1, Charles Duncan, 5/26/2023
The North Carolina Compassionate Care Act would legalize medical marijuana in the state. The bill has gotten further than earlier efforts to make prescription pot available in North Carolina.
Powerful Republican Sens. Bill Rabon and Michael Lee and Democrat Sen. Paul Lowe are the primary sponsors on the bill in the Senate. They shepherded the same bill through the Senate to pass last year, but that effort stalled out in the House.
“It seems to me that the idea is gaining momentum and obviously there’s strong support in the Senate,” Rep. Jon Hardister, a Guilford County Republican and the majority whip in the House, said as the bill passed the Senate 36-10 in late February.
“In general, it seems like the attitude among members of the House is shifting more in favor of the legislation,” he said at the time.
But the bill’s fate in the House, where it’s been shelved for about three months, is not certain. It is scheduled for discussion in the House Health committee Tuesday morning, though the committee is not expected to take a vote.
NC Newsline, Clayton Hinkel, 5/28/2023
1. Gov. Roy Cooper declares ‘state of emergency’ for public education
2. Newsline special report: A community inundated with industrial waste
3. Judge tosses historic fine against Bottomley Properties because wrong DEQ employee signed the paperwork
4. Two NC House Republicans resign leadership positions in the wake of derogatory remarks
5. State lawmaker was angered by colleague’s racist comments, but chose to forgive
6. Proposal to authorize video gambling machines draws mixed reviews in state House committee
7. One on one with Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the NC State Board of Elections
8. Rash of legislation, intimidation, threats of violence pressure LGBTQ allies
9. Senate budget would expand medical release for aging, sick prisoners
10. U.S. Supreme Court rejects Biden wetlands regulation
Thank you for reading and contributing, I hope your week is fine.