- Associated Press - Wednesday, June 27, 2018

Recent editorials from North Carolina newspapers:

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June 25

StarNews of Wilmington on the approval of a treatment plant upgrade amid concerns that regulators cannot ensure Cape Fear River is safe:

With the region into year two of the GenX crisis - and yes, it’s a crisis when the safety of an entire region’s drinking water is thrown into doubt - several big and costly decisions must be made: Should the affected water providers spend millions on improving filtering technology even though levels of GenX in the Cape Fear River are greatly diminished?

We believe the answer is emphatically “yes,” and that residents should support the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, Brunswick County Public Utilities and other utilities as they pursue water-treatment upgrades.

Our primary water source, the Cape Fear River, is troubled. We get our water downstream from thousands of points where pollutants, known and unknown, enter the 200-mile waterway. The river needs help, and regulators charged with keeping it clean and safe - as mandated by the federal Clean Water Act - must do a better job. The General Assembly must provide the resources for that work.

But we agree with Cape Fear Public Utility Authority director Jim Flechtner that “We cannot rely on the regulatory framework to deal with this.”

That is why CFPUA’s board unanimously approved pursuing a $46 million upgrade to the Sweeney treatment plant, adding granular activated carbon (GAC) technology, which would protect customers from GenX and other yet-to-be-identified compounds.

That last bit may be the most important: Even if the GenX issues are resolved, the chemical compound - used to make Teflon products - has lots of counterparts, known and unknown. And here’s the twist - chemicals can interact in ways that produce unintended and unknown byproducts. We know there are plenty of identified nasty chemicals in the Cape Fear. We know there are unidentified chemicals in the river, as was the case with GenX. And we know there likely are more to come. We have to cover our bases.

Online: http://www.starnewsonline.com/

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June 25

The News and Observer of Raleigh on Republican legislators proposing a state constitutional amendment that would cap state income tax:

North Carolina’s Republican legislative leaders have proposed a state constitutional amendment that would handcuff future legislators by capping the state income tax at 5.5 percent. It’s now 5.49 percent and scheduled to drop to 5.25 in 2019. Previous to a flat income tax approved in 2013, North Carolina had a progressive income tax with three tiers of 6, 7 and 7.75 percent.

There’s no reason for a new cap on the income tax. It’s already capped by the state Constitution at 10 percent. Of 41 states that levy a broad-based personal income tax, North Carolina is one of only four with a constitutional cap.

There are plenty of reasons not to lower the cap. It would eliminate the ability of future legislators to raise the income tax in times of emergencies, or when the public supports a major state initiative, such as a big boost in school funding or a massive infrastructure improvement.

Reducing the current cap by half inevitably will lead to increases in other taxes and levies. Future legislatures that agree on a need for more state revenue would have to look beyond the income tax and raise the sales tax or increase fees. Meanwhile, local governments starved of state support will raise property taxes and fees.

That pattern is already here. State fees have gone up, the sales tax has been expanded and at least 50 counties have raised property taxes since 2013. The cap’s backers would make this regressive increase in taxes and fees a permanent part of how the state funds its services.

Bond rating agencies don’t like tax caps and lowering North Carolina’s could hurt the state’s triple-A bond rating; it is one of 14 states with an AAA credit rating from Standard and Poor’s.

Many business leaders have been quiet about lowering the cap. Some have criticized it. The N.C. Business Council, a group representing small businesses, is opposed to a lower cap because it would protect big businesses and wealthy taxpayers at the expense of public schools.

Some on the big business side oppose it, too. Bruce Nelson, former CEO of Office Depot, said in a recent conference call, “In my opinion, imposing a constitutional tax cap is fiscally irresponsible, economically unsound and politically motivated by a North Carolina legislative body more concerned over the prospect of losing their super-majority in the next election cycle.”

Beyond the burdens it would impose on those less able to pay, capping the income tax is undemocratic. Future North Carolinians should be free to vote for or against candidates who would increase the income tax. But under this amendment, the dead hand of a past legislature would continue to steer the state along a course of regressive taxation that hurts those with the least ability to pay.

North Carolinians are growing weary of a state run on the cheap to support tax cuts that mostly benefit large corporations and the wealthy. Some 20,000 teachers and their supporters marched through Raleigh last month to demand more spending on public schools. State prisons are understaffed and growing more dangerous. Environmental protection and social services lack adequate funding.

Republicans have controlled the legislature since 2011. They’ve funded government and set tax rates their way. In November, voters will decide whether they want to stay that course or elect legislators who want the state to do more. What voters want and what the state needs are changeable and the legislature’s options on taxing and spending should be flexible.

That’s the way democracy works, or should.

Online: http://www.newsobserver.com/

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June 26

The Fayetteville Observer on the U.S. Supreme Court sending a gerrymandering case back to a lower court for reconsideration:

We sent them a big, meaty roast beef. They gave us a dish of chicken salad.

The U.S. Supreme Court just wimped out. The justices got a rich banquet of political gerrymandering cases during the term ending this week - multiple chances to either reverse or uphold the longstanding doctrine that redistricting is an inherently political process. And in every one of them, the justices found reasons to wriggle out of it, sending the cases back to a lower court for reconsideration, clarification or more detail.

So it went with the North Carolina gerrymandering case that advanced to the high court. A three-judge federal panel had ruled that the state’s latest congressional maps, which were heavily rigged to benefit Republicans, violated the First Amendment rights of some North Carolina voters because it limited their free speech and association based on their political beliefs. The judges also said the districts violated some voters’ 14th Amendment rights by treating them unequally. But the nation’s highest court was unmoved by those assertions, saying the lower court needs to hear arguments again to better establish whether anyone was actually harmed by the congressional district maps.

Well of course we’re harmed. There is a jarring conflict of numbers evident when we look at the number of legislative seats held by Republicans, compared with the actual voter registrations in North Carolina. Democrats are still the most prevalent political species in North Carolina, albeit far short of their power just 15 or 20 years ago. The second-largest political registration is the state’s unenrolled voters, who last year pushed Republicans to No. 3.

And yet, thanks to skillful, computer-assisted gerrymandering, Republicans own 10 of this state’s 13 congressional districts and veto-proof majorities in both branches of the General Assembly. At the same time, this state’s voters have repeatedly shown this to be a “purple” state, not red or blue. Sometimes Democrats win a majority of votes and sometimes it’s Republicans. Most voters are clustered on either side of center - slightly conservative or slightly liberal - while the majority of their elected representatives are much farther to the right. That’s not a statement of voter choice, but rather of highly effective mapmaking.

State Rep. David Lewis, the legislature’s leading architect of the political districts, has been remarkably direct about it. “I think electing Republicans is better than electing Democrats,” he said last year. “So I drew this map to help foster what I think is better for the country.” He added this about the congressional maps: “I propose that we draw the maps to give a partisan advantage to 10 Republicans and three Democrats because I do not believe it’s possible to draw a map with 11 Republicans and two Democrats.” He acknowledged that his redistricting was about squashing Democrats’ voices and amplifying Republicans’. Hard to do a better job of defining the harm that the legislative maps have done.

We’re not for a moment suggesting that we want to see the state back in the dominant hands of the Democrats, who committed plenty of their own excesses with redistricting and legislative bulldozing. What this state really needs is a legislative map that creates the same balance that our voters represent - a General Assembly that forces Republicans and Democrats to discuss issues and find compromise solutions; a balance that makes it more difficult to override a gubernatorial veto; and a congressional delegation whose politics actually reflect those of the people.

We’re confident that the U.S. Supreme Court will eventually strike down political gerrymandering, but it won’t happen this year. But the voters have a chance to send that chicken salad back to the kitchen later this year - to try, despite our lawmakers’ best gerrymandering efforts, to create a more balanced legislative representation. We’re counting on them to give it their best shot.

Online: http://www.fayobserver.com/

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