News & Views

David Daley (Courtesy photo)

Over the last several years, few authors have done a better job of digging below the surface to chronicle what’s really going on in American politics – and in particular, the relentless brand of legal and policy hardball played by the Republican party – than David Daley. Daley’s best known book – which featured the provocative title, Ratf**ked– detailed how the political right has used partisan gerrymandering to rig elections and, in effect, disenfranchise millions of voters.

In his newest book, he digs even deeper to explain how gerrymandering is just one of the tools employed by Republicans – the other most notably is control of the courts – to cement what can only be described as a distinctly undemocratic brand of minority rule. The book is entitled “Antidemocratic: Inside the Far Right’s 50-year ploy to control American elections,” and recently NC Newsline caught up with Daley in his home in Massachusetts to discuss it.

Find the direct audio link to our podcast here.

Meredith College Poll director David McLennan (Photo courtesy Meredith.edu)

The 2024 election is now receding quickly in the rear-view mirror, but that doesn’t mean it’s not still interesting and important to understand what voters were and are thinking and, here in North Carolina, that’s where public opinion surveys like the Meredith College Poll come in.

In the most recent iteration of the poll, we learned some of what voters are thinking about the election results, as well as some of the issues that were highlighted during the recently concluded campaign — including immigration policy, and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in higher education. And in what may partially explain some of the regrettably uninformed views many voters hold, the poll made some worrisome findings about where voters get their news. And recently we sat down to discuss all these matters with the poll’s director, Meredith College political science professor, David McLennan.

Find the direct audio link to our podcast here.

Energy and Policy Institute Research and Communications Manager, Sue Sturgis (File photo)

It’s a great tragedy of our time that the global climate change crisis did not emerge suddenly or as a surprise. Indeed, a powerful new report from the nonprofit Energy and Policy Institute highlights the fact that scientists and energy industry leaders foresaw the crisis decades ago.

The report is entitled “Duke Energy Knew” and it explains in sobering detail how by the 1970s, the utilities that comprise today’s Duke Energy Corporation had early warnings about how burning fossil fuels would lead to climate change. What’s more the report documents how, despite this knowledge, Duke utilities promoted climate change disinformation and opposed legal limits on greenhouse gas emissions. And recently NC Newsline caught up with the report author, Research and Communications Manager for the Energy and Policy Institute, Sue Sturgis.

Rev. Rob Stephens speaks during a press conference in Raleigh. (Photo: Greg Childress)

The weeks following last month’s election have been anything but quiet in the state legislature. As has become a kind of perverse post-election tradition when Democrats manage to win a few statewide offices or narrow the margin in the state House and Senate, Republican legislative leaders are using a lame duck session to ram through legislation designed to seize more power and effect a significant reorganization of state government.

The power grab, which features a 131-page bill with dozens of law changes that was unveiled and passed in just a few hours, was so extreme that it attracted scores of protesters to the Legislative Building to bear witness and voice their outrage, and earlier, NC Newsline caught up with one of the protest leaders, a chief organizer for the Poor People’s Campaign of North Carolina and its sibling organization, Repairers of the Breach, the Rev. Rob Stephens.

North Carolina Justice Center’s Health Advocacy Project policy advocate Rebecca Cerese (File photo)

The past few years have seldom been a time for celebration in the world of North Carolina policymaking. In numerous subject areas, the state legislature has enacted regressive laws that promote inequality, segregation, and a less sustainable planet.

Thankfully, one shining exception to this trend celebrated its one-year anniversary on December first—the expansion of the state’s Medicaid program under the Affordable Care Act. Already, nearly 600,000 North Carolinians have gained access to health insurance and the peace of mind and physical wellbeing that it provides. And this past week NC Newsline sat down with one of the advocates who worked for years to help make expansion a reality — the North Carolina Justice Center’s Health Advocacy Project policy advocate Rebecca Cerese.

Common Cause of North Carolina executive director Bob Phillips (File photo)

For more than a decade now, despite our state’s impressive record of honest and accurate elections, Republican legislators have passed bill after bill to make casting a ballot harder and more complex for voters and counting them more challenging for election officials.

As Newsline’s Rob Schofield discussed in a recent conversation with Bob Phillips of Common Cause North Carolina, another round of changes along these lines is part of the massive government reorganization and power grab bill that Republican legislators recently sent to Gov. Cooper.

And just to add insult to injury, the new proposal emerged at almost the same time that Senate Republican leader Phil Berger was wrongfully promoting election paranoia by casting aspersions at election officials and questioning Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs’ narrow re-election win.

Sen. Julie Mayfield (Photo: NCGA)

The state legislature returned to Raleigh in late November for a post-election lame duck session, and while most observers had expected lawmakers to focus on overriding a gubernatorial veto of a bill to expand school vouchers and force sheriffs to cooperate with federal immigration officials, along with a third round of hurricane relief for western North Carolina, there was another big surprise in store.

While the override did take place, the aid in the relief bill was much smaller than expected and the proposal was loaded down with dozens of controversial and unrelated law changes. Just before Thanksgiving, NC Newsline got a chance to catch up with one of the legislative champions for a more energetic approach to hurricane relief, state Sen. Julie Mayfield of Buncombe County. And as Mayfield told Newsline, the legislature needs to do more to address the acute needs in her part of the state.

Janet Singerman and Dr. Kristi Snuggs, co-leaders of the North Carolina Child Care Resource and Referral Council (Courtesy photos)

No industry in our state is, at once, both so critically important and so grievously undervalued as early childhood education. While everyone from the chamber of commerce, to parents, to economists and academics agrees that a robust and healthy child care industry is vitally important for the economy, workers, families and, of course, children, funding remains desperately inadequate.

Federal COVID relief dollars provided a vital boost to the industry for a while, but today hundreds of North Carolina child care centers remain in constant peril of closing. Fortunately, the solution to the problem is no mystery. As NC Newsline learned in a recent conversation with the co-leaders of the North Carolina Child Care Resource and Referral Council – Janet Singerman and Dr. Kristi Snuggs – what’s needed is a meaningful and sustained funding commitment from the North Carolina legislature.

U.S. Rep. Wiley Nickel (NC-13) (Courtesy photo)

The election of Donald Trump to a second term in the White House has caused a great deal of consternation for many Americans. While all caring and thinking people cling to hope that Trump will concentrate on governing and refrain from the acts of political vengeance and ideological extremism that he forecast during his campaign, the early signs – particularly the remarkably unqualified slate of cabinet nominees he has advanced – have not been encouraging.

So how can concerned leaders – Democrats, Republicans and independents – best monitor and respond to Trump’s actions? Recently, North Carolina Congressman Wiley Nickel offered an intriguing suggestion. He proposed that Democrats and their allies borrow an idea from parliamentary systems and form what’s known as a “shadow cabinet” to monitor and respond to the actions of the new Trump administration. And last week NC Newsline caught up with Nickel to discuss the idea.

Read Nickel’s recent op-ed in The Washington Post here.

Davidson College Political Scientist Susan Roberts (Courtesy photo)

Across the United States, elected leaders, analysts, pundits, and millions of average Americans are reflecting on and trying to make sense of Donald Trump’s victory in the recent presidential election. This is especially the case in North Carolina, where despite Trump’s win in the state presidential contest, Democrats fared well in statewide and legislative elections.

One North Carolina expert who has some interesting and in some respects, outside-the-box takes on this situation (and North Carolina’s status as a so-called purple state) is Davidson College professor of political science Susan Roberts. And this past week, NC Newsline caught up with Professor Roberts at her Davidson office.