North Carolina editorial roundup

Recent editorials from North Carolina newspapers:

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Feb. 24

News & Record of Greensboro on more school resource officers:

Placing police officers in more of North Carolina’s public schools could be a positive step toward increasing school safety - if it’s done the right way.

The school safety committee formed by Gov. Roy Cooper after the deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida, last February has produced more than 30 recommendations, many of which are worth trying.

Unlike the State House’s committee on school safety, which released its report in December, the governor’s committee doesn’t ignore the controversial matter of tougher gun control. Legislators tend to avoid that hot-button issue, even if it’s obvious that mass shootings would be less likely if guns weren’t so readily available.

The governor’s committee rightly calls for legislation allowing gun violence protection orders, so that people can ask courts to remove guns temporarily from those who are a danger to themselves or others.

The committee’s recommendation were followed by several bills in the legislature, including an omnibus bill from Democrats that would require background checks for all gun sales, prohibit people under 21 from owning assault-style weapons and ban high-capacity magazines - all of which are likely to face stiff opposition in the Republican-controlled General Assembly. GOP-sponsored school bills filed last week generally avoided gun control in favor of measures such as funding for mental-health screening and required safety drills.

But one recommendation from the governor’s committee that may gain broad support is the call to put an armed police officer in every school. About half the schools in the state - mostly high schools and middle schools - already have armed officers, or SROs. The report says that if the money can’t be found to add SROs in every school, there should at least be a push to put them in more elementary schools.

Not everyone agrees, however. Critics say that having police in schools results in more children winding up in court, and that minority children are disproportionately targeted.

That’s why it’s important to use armed police officers in schools the right way. An SRO is not supposed to deal with routine disciplinary problems. Teachers and trained administrators should continue to handle such matters, using law enforcement in extreme cases.

Ideally, SROs make schools more secure, but they also speak to classes and act as mentors and role models. The right SRO can help more students view law enforcement as a force for good, worthy of respect.

That’s why more SROs must be accompanied by more money for training - another of the recommendations. It’s also why it’s important to choose the right people to be SROs. Virginia is considering allowing retired police officers to work as SROs without losing retirement pay.

There are other recommendations worth considering in the report, including calls for more mental health personnel in schools. Schools need more social workers, psychologists, nurses and counselors need time to work with students rather than testing and paperwork.

SROs in more schools could be an important part of increased safety. The governor’s committee has at least one thing exactly right: We need to be proactive, to have the determination and the money to make schools safer now, not until after another deadly shooting.

Online: https://www.greensboro.com/

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Feb. 26

The Fayetteville Observer on Gov. Roy Cooper’s State of the State address:

Gov. Roy Cooper told the members of the General Assembly - and residents across the state who watched on TV Monday evening - that “the state of our state is determined.”

Good line. We hope it accurately reflects what those lawmakers are prepared to do in this session.

Rather than propose a to-do list of new initiatives, Cooper stuck to some longstanding themes that have been around for years but were held at bay by a powerful Republican majority in the House and Senate that wielded enough votes to block any of Cooper’s plans they chose, with the certainty that comes with the ability to override any veto.

Losses in the November election took away that weaponry. Republicans still own a majority, but not an automatic override. At least some negotiating with Democrats will be needed in this session. But that doesn’t mean the governor gets to call many of the shots.

Still, Cooper’s big push Monday evening was for initiatives that should have been complete by now: better funding for public education, expansion of Medicaid, improved broadband access in rural areas and stepped-up aid for victims of Hurricane Florence. All those things should have bipartisan support.

And in fact, that’s beginning to happen. That includes:

- Both the House and Senate have proposals from GOP leadership to sharply expand funding for school construction across the state. …

- For the first time since the Affordable Care Act was passed by Congress, there is Republican support, at least in the House, for expanding Medicaid, which the ACA underwrites almost completely in the initial years and subsidizes heavily over the long term. Independent experts say an expanded Medicaid program that provides health care to the state’s “working poor” would create tens of thousands of new jobs in the health care industry, pump billions of dollars into the economy and dramatically improve health outcomes for the state’s residents.

- Lawmakers from both parties are also pushing legislation to expand high-speed internet service in rural areas. …

- And nobody’s likely to vote against plans to improve the way the state gets recovery assistance to the people affected by the extreme weather we saw in hurricanes Matthew and Florence. If Cooper is right and this is our “new normal,” we’ve got to develop people, plans and procedures to get aid to victims fast.

We hope that the state of our state really is determined, because there’s some heavy lifting to be done.

Online: https://www.fayobserver.com/

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Feb. 26

The Charlotte Observer on Thom Tillis becoming the second Republican senator to say he’ll vote against the president’s national emergency order for a southern border wall:

Whether he’s a big believer in the Constitution or just terrified of a President Bernie Sanders with unchecked power, U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis got it right Tuesday on President Trump’s so-called national emergency at the Mexican border.

North Carolina’s junior senator split from most of his fellow Republicans in Washington by announcing he would oppose Trump’s emergency declaration when a House resolution comes to the Senate floor. It was a crucial decision, because four Senate Republicans must defect for the resolution opposing Trump’s move to pass. Tillis was just the second to do so.

Tillis was so unequivocal in his Washington Post op-ed that it’s hard to imagine him wiggling out of his pledge now. If more or fewer than four Republicans oppose Trump, Tillis will surely follow through. But given his past record of being firmer with his words than his actions, it’s worth watching to see what he does if he’s the critical fourth swing vote.

Trump is exerting extraordinary executive power to try to bypass a Congress that didn’t give him the funding he wanted for his border wall. Given that there is no true national emergency, it’s likely an unconstitutional power grab. It also sets a precedent that Republicans will surely rue when a Democrat moves into the White House and declares a national emergency for something the GOP opposes.

“This is about the separation of powers and whether Congress will support or oppose a new precedent of executive power that will have major consequences,” Tillis wrote in the Post. “As a U.S. senator, I cannot justify providing the executive with more ways to bypass Congress. As a conservative, I cannot endorse a precedent that I know future left-wing presidents will exploit.”

Tillis pointed out that conservatives opposed President Obama’s executive overreach when he unilaterally imposed protections for certain undocumented immigrants in 2014. Both Trump and now-Vice President Mike Pence said at the time that Obama was overstepping his authority, with Trump saying it could be an impeachable offense. (This editorial board also said Obama should have gone through Congress.)

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That’s an admirable consistency that we’re not seeing from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and South Carolina U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, who have both flip-flopped on the question, or from Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., who has not taken a stand and did not respond to a request for comment from the Observer editorial board Tuesday.

Tillis began his op-ed by fully supporting Trump’s immigration policy goals, and vowed to help secure tens of billions of dollars for border security. That’s a step back in tone from his earlier calls for bipartisan solutions to immigration reform.

It’s also surely an element of Tillis’s political calculations as he eyes his re-election campaign next year in a decidedly purple state. He wants to stand in the center when he can, such as opposing Trump’s power grab, while not alienating the conservative base. At least he’s half right.

Online: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/