Near Blowing Rock, North Carolina
Welcome to North Carolina Open Thread For Sunday, June 7th. This is a new weekly feature of North Carolina Blue. We hope this regular platform will give readers interested in North Carolina politics a place to share their knowledge, insight, inspiration and connections as we work on taking back our state from the extreme, money blinded powers that pull the levers here.
Please join us below and every week as we try to Connect, Unite and Act with our community of North Carolina Daily Kos members.
This is the first Daily Kos weekly open thread for a state. For those in other states, please join us as we strive to establish state open threads in all fifty. Please drop me a line if you are interested in hosting an open thread in your state.
North Carolina has become the poster child for voting rights restrictions and has likewise become a beacon of hope for the disenfranchised. Today's edition explores a few related subjects and how the movement to restore voting rights is being exercised.
Asheville's own Tom Sullivan, writing for Digby's Hullabaloo, leads us off with looking at Hillary Clinton laying down a marker for voting rights and voter registration.
County elections staff met here last night with party officials to discuss recruiting election judges and poll workers for the next two years.** It all went smoothly until a man in the back asked what was being done to prevent people from voting here and then voting absentee in another state. You might as well ask what North Carolina is doing to prevent its 10 million residents from robbing convenience stores in Florida.
The electoral paranoia behind that question — and the Republican-sponsored voting restrictions spawned nationwide by it — was on Hillary Clinton’s mind yesterday when she called for universal, automatic voter registration at a speech in Houston yesterday. Reporters knew the speech would be about voting rights, Rachel Maddow noted last night, but nobody knew Clinton was about to “let rip” on the subject of voting rights.
Democracy North Carolina brings us this
Action Alert
These are the only hearings that will occur on the “Voter ID” (HB589) rules that will come into effect in 2016. Democracy NC is seeking individuals to attend the hearing & make public comments. We will organize car pools or possibly get shuttles out to Sylva. Please email Darlene@democracy-nc.org or call (828) 216-3430 to RSVP. You can also follow the links below to register online.
Some key facts are: – The bill not only requires government-issued ID at the polls, but takes away one week of early voting, eliminates pre-registration of 16-17 year olds,terminates out-of-precinct voting, and eliminates same-day voter registration during the early voting period. -These rules are said to impact at least 210,000 North Carolinians- and these are only the folks that the DMV lists generated; 40% of these individuals are students. -There are only 9 hearings throughout the state, 2 of which are in Western NC. In fact, Dem NC just lobbied to get another location added in the “black belt” and it worked- they added a site in Tarboro. -This is likely to be the only opportunity that citizens will have to speak out about the rules that have been drafted as a result of the Monster Law.
These links take you to websites where you can register for the events.
Boone on June 10, 5-7 PM
Sylva on June 11, 5-7PM
Southern Studies exposes the five big out of state players.
Due to a loophole in a North Carolina campaign finance law, Justice for All NC won't have to file a detailed report about how much money it's raised and spent for the recent attack ads until July. However, a Facing South analysis of TV advertising records as of May 2 shows that Justice for All NC has spent more than $586,000 buying ad time for the Hudson attacks on more than a dozen TV stations across the state -- part of more than $1 million that's been spent on just the Hudson race by candidates and outside groups.
What else do we know about the Big Money outfits trying to influence North Carolina's court elections? As part of the Institute's FollowNCMoney.org investigative project tracking outside spending in NC. Follow below to see the five key players so far.
Listed below are some NC issue diaries from last week.
North Carolina becomes newest state to make video taping factory farms illegal by Walter Einenkel
Dubbed an "ag-gag" measure by its critics, the bill gives businesses the right to sue employees who expose trade secrets or take pictures of their workplaces. Animal rights groups say the measure is aimed at curbing the kind of undercover investigations that have exposed abusive practices in factory farms and slaughterhouses.
North Carolina Again Veers Sharply Away From Freedom, Ironically Citing Religious Freedom by Mr Crisco Reports
A proposed law now in the North Carolina legislature purports to allow government functionaries to refuse to grant marriage licenses to anyone, for presumably any reason, on the basis of the individual bureaucrat's "religious freedom." How is it even remotely possible that such a law could be constitutional in the US?
Interracial Couple Turned Away By NC Magistrates in 1976. It WAS Against Their Religious Beliefs by librarisingnsf
The Raleigh News & Observer published an op-ed yesterday about an interracial couple who wanted to get married but were turned away by North Carolina magistrates. Apparently, it was against the magistrates (two of them) religions to marry an interracial couple. One of the magistrates even read Bible verses to the couple which he believed backed up his views.
NC Vetoed Magistrate Hate Bill may yet pass by Intheknow
SB 2- The bill that would allow Magistrates and Register of Deeds to receive taxpayer funded income for not doing a major part of their jobs is very alive and may become law, even after Gov. Pat McRory (R) vetoed the legislation last week.
NC Gov PPP has Roy Cooper (D) Leading Pat McCrory (R) 44-41 by poopdogcomedy
PPP's newest North Carolina poll finds Roy Cooper leading Pat McCrory in the race for Governor, 44/41. Those numbers are flipped from a month ago when McCrory led by the same spread, and they end a long string of polls in which McCrory held the lead.
When GOP Gov Pat McCrory Did The Right Thing by Fredrick Clarkson
Republican Governor Pat McCrory did the right thing -- and in so doing showed the way for conservative Christian Republicans in the age of marriage equality.
NC Pastor tells graduating seniors they'll be going to hell if they're gay by Jen Hayden
Pastor Scott Carpenter says he loves students too much to deny them the truth.
North Carolina Pastor Scott Carpenter says he just couldn't pass up the opportunity to spread the good word and alert graduating seniors from Kings Mountain High School, a public school, that they'd surely be headed to hell if they are gay:
NC Senate overrides Governor's Marriage Opt-out Bill Veto by StarbucksGirl51
In a 32-16 vote, the NC Senate overrode Governor McCrory's veto of a bill that would have allowed public officials in North Carolina to opt out of performing gay marriages. The legislation now goes back to the Republican-controlled state House of Representatives, which passed it in February by a margin wide enough to override the veto. I guess we'll see if the NC legislature decides to allow discrimination. Sad sad pathetic people.
News From North Carolina Over Declining Registration by LamontCranston
Well it seems that June is going to be a little hotter, legally speaking, for North Carolina as to just why and how we experienced voter registration irregularities since our Governor McCrory took office. These irregularities are statewide, in every county, and not centered or just a handful...
North Carolina Respects Women (?) by LamontCranston
Well it seems that North Carolina and the Tar Heel Teabilly Taliban want to join the ranks of the "government in women's private parts club" by joining of the likes of the states of Missouri, South Dakota and Utah in requiring a 72-hour waiting period for a women to exercise their choice for abortion.
Thanks for reading, this is an open thread.