Recent editorials from North Carolina newspapers:
Feb. 17
Charlotte Observer on more legal losses for state Republicans:
If legislating were an Olympic competition, Republicans in North Carolina wouldn’t be within sniffing distance of a medal anytime soon. Because judges don’t seem to like much that comes out of Raleigh.
Last week, the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that North Carolina’s “Choose Life” license plate - pushed through by Republicans in 2011 - was unconstitutional. Last month, a federal judge struck down a provision in an N.C. law that required doctors to narrate ultrasound images for women seeking abortions.
Each ruling begs the question: Why do Republicans in Raleigh continue to make sport of legislating with laws that make a political statement but end up costing the state in the long run?
After all, the “Choose Life” license plate seemed doomed from the start. The appeals court had ruled against a similar plate in South Carolina a decade ago. This time around, the judges unanimously affirmed a lower-court decision, saying Republicans couldn’t allow the anti-abortion license plate yet reject a pro-choice license plate.
It was a common sense ruling that everyone saw coming. But if you’re a Republican in Raleigh, why let a little thing like legal precedent get in the way of a political opportunity?
Same goes for North Carolina’s ultrasound mandate. Legal experts panned the provision, and few were surprised when U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles struck it down last month. Just two months ago, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand an Oklahoma ruling that struck down a similar ultrasound statute.
Things also are looking iffy for North Carolina’s voter ID law, which the Justice Department has challenged and which critics say is one of the nation’s most repressive. Then there’s lawmakers’ continuing resolve against same sex marriage despite a wave of federal court rulings against such bans. In the past two months alone, judges have struck down laws limiting marriage equality in Utah, Oklahoma and Virginia, and a federal judge ruled that Kentucky must recognize same-sex marriages from other states.
But instead of reconsidering North Carolina’s legally tenuous positions, Senate leader Phil Berger and House Speaker Thom Tillis are digging in. They’ve hired outside counsel to make sure N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper is doing his best to defend the same sex marriage ban, and they’re urging Cooper to appeal the abortion law ruling.
Even N.C. Gov. Pat McCrory understands how wasteful that would be. In a statement following the abortion ruling, McCrory said an appeal would invite “costly and drawn out litigation.”
But there’s another cost, perhaps a larger one. North Carolina continues to accumulate the wrong kind of national attention. We were the first state to cut off long-term unemployment benefits. We were the last state to vote to ban gay marriage. Each additional headline that comes - be it for the ultrasound law or voter repression - is a blow to a state that once stood out from our regressive Southern neighbors. That’s not a business recruiting tool, at least not with the elite corporations and high-end talent North Carolina wants to attract.
We understand that legislators were elected to represent the beliefs of their constituents, and in North Carolina, those beliefs run strongly on issues like abortion and gay marriage. But that’s not reason enough to pass and support flawed legislation that stands little chance of surviving a court challenge. It’s costing North Carolina in too many ways.
Online:
https://www.charlotteobserver.com
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Feb. 17
The Herald-Sun, Durham, N.C., on the governor’s teacher pay plan:
After months of criticism of policies and budget decisions that have gravely demoralized North Carolina teachers, Gov. Pat McCrory and General Assembly leaders last week began to address some of that criticism.
McCrory, with Lt. Gov. Dan Forest and legislative leaders by his side, unveiled plans to boost pay for beginning teachers by nearly 14 percent over the next two years, to $35,000 annually.
For reasons both practical and philosophical, that is in many ways - but far from all - welcome news. Our pay for beginning teachers, stuck for years, is barely adequate for the task we ask of them - and among the lowest in the nation. And we will face an escalating need to recruit new teachers. North Carolina is likely to hemorrhage experienced teachers in the light of hostile state policy and, with the state’s schools of education turning out too few teachers to meet even today’s annual demand, keeping freshly minted teachers here and attracting those from other states is critical.
But the governor’s plan “is solving only one hole in the dike,” as State Rep. Rick Glazier, a Fayetteville Democrat, told the Emerging Issues Forum in Raleigh last week.
Many critics have pointed to the upshot of a significant raise in new-teacher salaries without any adjustment for veteran teachers. While nearly 35,000 of the state’s 95,000 teachers would benefit from the promised increases, another 60,000 would not.
Many of those veteran teachers would find themselves making scarcely more than someone with only a few years experience. Couple that with the end of career status, the elimination of a salary bonus for earning an advanced degree and the elimination of funds to pay senior teachers for mentoring younger ones, and the picture is deeply discouraging for long-time teachers.
Education author and critic Diane Ravitch last week spoke disapprovingly of North Carolina’s “bias against experience.” In a talk to educators and community leaders here the day after she delivered a similar message to the issues forum, she described North Carolina as “a place right now where educators aren’t respected.”
In fairness to McCrory and the legislative leadership, the stagnation of teacher salaries started on the watch of his Democratic predecessor, Beverly Perdue. Also to be fair, he has promised to consider raises for all teachers and other state employees. But those promises have been vague, and even an across-the-board pay increase would leave unaddressed other troubling issues.
Glazier, at the forum, argued that “any system has to be fair, sustainable and comprehensive. The governor’s plan meets none of those criteria.”
Sadly, that is true. We would hope the governor and his legislative leadership, now that they have begun to acknowledge the problem, would find a far more broad-based effort to improve the climate and compensation for our public school teachers.
That is unlikely, given they are pursuing policies they have long held dear to, in their view, reform education.
What is more likely is that voters will need to think long and hard about who they want to send, or send back, to Jones Street this fall.
Online:
https://www.heraldsun.com
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Feb. 17
Asheville (N.C.) Citizen Times on the coal ash spill into the Dan River:
A powerful state senator has stepped in where environmental regulators have feared to tread. The move is unorthodox, but welcome.
Hendersonville Republican Tom Apodaca, chair of the Senate Rules Committee, says he is drafting legislation to force Duke Energy to empty its 14 coal ash ponds in North Carolina. This is what environmentalists have been demanding but the Department of Environmental and Natural Resources has refused to order.
The bill would require Duke to dry out all the ponds and move the ash to another kind of storage site, possibly a hazardous waste landfill. “Just letting them sit there is not the answer to the problem,” Apodaca said. An interim environmental oversight committee may consider the bill soon.
Apodaca acted in the wake of a spill that dumped 82,000 tons of ash mixed with 27 million gallons of water into the Dan River from a pond at a now-shuttered Duke power plant. The senator said Duke’s Skyland power plant in Buncombe County stores three times as much ash than the Dan River site.
DENR’s response to the Dan River spill has been, in a word, dismal. It waited 24 hours to issue an advisory and then insisted the water downstream was safe. DENR backed off from that claim several days later, citing an “honest mistake while interpreting the results.” The agency now warns people to avoid the water.
The agency finally was prodded into action a week after the spill. It is seeking to withdraw from the agreement it reached in state court with Duke Energy over the ponds. This agreement, which did not require Duke to do anything except study the situation, was viewed widely by environmentalists as a sellout.
The question here is how many “honest mistakes” regulators are allowed before their dedication is questioned.
DENR under Democratic governors has long been a target of environmentalists, but the situation appears to have worsened since Republican Pat McCrory, who worked for Duke for 28 years, took office.
Last week it was revealed federal authorities have launched a criminal investigation into DENR; the U.S. attorney’s office in Raleigh issued a grand jury subpoena calling for DENR records such as memos, reports and emails from 2010 to the Feb. 2 spill.
The Associated Press reports that environmental groups have tried three times in the past year to sue in federal court under the Clean Water Act to force Duke to clear out the ponds. Each time, AP said, the state agency blocked the citizen lawsuits by intervening at the last minute to assert its own authority to take action in state court. After negotiating with the company behind closed doors, the state proposed settlements many regard as highly favorable to the company.
John Skvarla, a Raleigh businessman McCrory put in charge of DENR, says his agency’s role is as a “partner” to regulated industries. Skvarla declared that his duties, as outlined by McCrory, were to “protect the environment and help the economy because DENR has such a bad name. DENR is the No. 1 obstacle to economic growth in the state of North Carolina.” …
Where’s the evidence to support that statement? In any case, pollution is not good for business. While the spill certainly has hurt the Dan River, it also has hurt Duke’s image. As Scott Mooneyham wrote on these pages, “Duke does not need to tarnish (its) legacy by needlessly allowing more environmental damage.”
It’s unusual to set specific environmental policies in legislation, but DENR’s foot-dragging has given Apodaca no choice. “What I keep hearing is we don’t know how to do it,” he said. “Well, it’s time we start figuring out how to do it. I notified Duke of our intentions. We want a solution somehow.”
Apodaca understands that the first duty of environmental regulation is to the public, even if the regulators do not.
Online:
https://www.citizen-times.com
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