News & Views

Meredith College political scientist and pollster David McLennan (File photo)

With North Carolina being one of the most important and hotly contested states in the upcoming November election, national and state-based pollsters are carefully and regularly monitoring voter attitudes and public opinion trends. And as News & Views listeners are well-aware, one of the best and most reliable experts in this realm is Meredith College political science professor and pollster David McLennan.

Recently NC Newsline’s Rob Schofield caught up with David to check in on the state of the presidential and gubernatorial races as well as what North Carolinians are thinking about some current hot button issues, including laws that make it hard from some citizens to vote and the advent of legal online sports gambling in our state.

NC Justice Center Workers’ Rights Project Co-Director Clermont Ripley (Photo: Phyllis Nunn)

Last week a pair of federal agencies announced some important new rules to protect workers. A new Federal Trade Commission rule bans non-compete clauses that have hindered the rights of workers to take better jobs. Meanwhile, a new Department of Labor rule will make millions of salaried workers employed in executive, administrative and professional industries eligible for overtime pay.

Recently NC Newsline sat down with North Carolina Justice Center workers’ rights attorney Clermont Ripley to discuss the details and what it will mean for North Carolinians.

Dennis Gaddy, Executive Director of the Community Success Initiative (Photo: Clayton Henkel)

For most people who leave North Carolina prisons each year, readjusting to life on the outside is incredibly difficult. A record of incarceration can prevent people from landing apartments or jobs. And even people who have been arrested but never convicted can also have a hard time shaking that history when their mugshots appear forever online.

Recently, in an effort to convince lawmakers to enact reforms that could address some of these roadblocks, advocates gathered at the state legislature for a Second Chance lobby day, and during the event, NC Newsline  caught with one of the leaders of the effort, the executive director of the North Carolina Community Success Initiative, Dennis Gaddy.

Senator Natasha Marcus (Photo: NCGA)

North Carolina’s General Assembly returned to Raleigh this past week for the 2024 “short session” — a session that figures to feature debates on a number of familiar topics – including public and higher education, an impending childcare cliff, and funding for several state agencies that are struggling with staff attrition and vacancies.

One lawmaker likely to be an especially knowledgeable and outspoken participant in these discussions is Mecklenburg County state Senator Natasha Marcus. During her three terms in Raleigh, Marcus has developed into one of the Senate’s leading voices on an array of core issues and recently she sat down with NC Newsline’s Rob Schofield for an extended conversation. In Part One of our chat, we discussed some of the issues at the top of the short session agenda – including K-12 education, childcare, and the struggles of state election officials to cope with staff attrition fueled by inadequate resources and harassment.

In Part Two of our chat, we discussed some other important policy debates impacting state government right now, including the big problems that have arisen with the state’s new eCourts system and some massive increases in premium rates that the insurance industry is seeking approval to impose on owners of manufactured homes.

Dr. Steve Barnett, National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER)

There’s a very good argument to be made that the United States should guarantee free and universal early childhood education from birth to all American families. Nations that invest in the care of young children when their minds and bodies are still developing see vastly improved outcomes later on. Sadly, the U.S. is not yet one of those nations. Instead, it consigns millions of pre-Kindergartners each year to a patchwork of private providers of widely varying quality – most of which operate on a financial shoestring.

Those looking to understand this system, its flaws, and the ways in which it should be improved would do well to follow the work of Dr. Steven Barnett at the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) at Rutgers University. Recently, the Institute released its annual State of Preschool report and Barnett shared with NC Newsline how North Carolina fares when it comes to preschool enrollment, funding, and quality.

Read the latest report for North Carolina here.

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

Thanks to new and gerrymandered congressional maps enacted last fall by the Republican-dominated state legislature, the outcomes to almost all of North Carolina’s fall congressional elections have been pre-decided. One lawmaker directly impacted by this is Triangle-area Democratic Congressman Wiley Nickel, who saw his formerly competitive district transformed into one that only a Republican can win.

To his credit, however, Nickel has resolved to make the term he’s serving in Congress an impactful one and last week, he sat down with Newsline to discuss several areas in which he’s been working hard – including advancing a bill to rein gerrymandering in the future, traveling to Ukraine to witness firsthand the battle to resist Vladimir Putin’s criminal invasion, and championing legislation to protect the right to in vitro fertilization.

Editor’s note: NC Newsline’s interview was recorded April 16th, prior to the U.S. House voting to advance the bipartisan foreign aid package.

Investigative reporter Lisa Sorg

PFAS. Most North Carolinians had never heard that term until a few years ago, but sadly it’s now a permanent part of the lexicon.

It refers, of course, to a class of dangerous substances – often referred to as “forever chemicals” because they don’t break down in the environment — that shortsighted manufacturers and polluters have introduced into water, soil, plants and animals, including humans, just about everywhere. PFAS are associated with a variety of cancers and human health problems.

Effectively regulating PFAs is incredibly complex, but to its credit, the EPA recently established the first-ever federal regulations on six types of toxic PFAS in drinking water, and earlier we sat down with our colleague – NC Newsline environmental reporter Lisa Sorg – to get the details.

Congresswoman Valerie Foushee (NC-04)

North Carolina Congresswoman Valerie Foushee (NC-04) joins NC Newsline’s Rob Schofield to discuss the latest developments in Congress, including a controversial trip to Israel, the possibility of more aid for Ukraine, abortion rights, and the IMPACT Act.

Tamika Walker Kelly

As several news stories have reported in recent weeks, North Carolina public schools have been enduring a sizable and troubling exodus. Education officials disclosed that the state experienced a teacher attrition rate of 11.5% between March 2022 and March 2023. That means that more than 10,000 of the state’s teachers left the profession in that time period.

This kind of sobering news is nothing new for the state’s public education system in recent years – a system that has been repeatedly battered by disinvestment and partisan attacks from the political right. And still, despite it all, thousands of dedicated and hard-working educators continue to soldier on – ever hopeful that at some point legislative leaders will listen to their pleas and reverse their destructive course. And earlier this week NC Newsline caught up with one of their leaders, the President of the North Carolina Association of Educators, Tamika Walker Kelly.

Child Care Resources Inc. President Janet Singerman and Charlotte-area childcare provider Rhonda Rivers

As is the case in most of the U.S., North Carolina’s childcare system is not what it should be. Across the state, thousands of childcare providers operate in almost perpetual crisis – a crisis in which barely-making-it schools employ overworked and grievously underpaid teachers to serve stressed-out parents who have enormous difficulty finding quality care they can afford.

And while a big influx of federal aid during the pandemic helped stabilize this fragile and system somewhat, that money is scheduled to run out in June.

So where do things stand? What will happen if no replacement funds are found? And what can state lawmakers do to fill the gap?

Recently NC Newsline got a chance to discuss these questions with a pair of experts: Child Care Resources Inc. President Janet Singerman and Charlotte-area childcare provider, Rhonda Rivers.

Read more about NC’s childcare cliff here.