The Bottom Line from NC Newsline

(Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)

Gerrymandering – the corrupt rigging of districts to elect candidates of certain parties – is a cancer afflicting modern American politics. And sadly, North Carolina is its poster child.

For years now, Republicans have gerrymandered their way to large legislative majorities in a state in which Democrats often receive more votes.

And now thanks to the latest rigging of U.S. House districts, North Carolina gerrymandering is impacting the entire nation.

You see, at last count, Republicans led the race for control of the U.S. House 218-212 with five seats still undecided. Those numbers, however, reflect the fact that Republican lawmakers recently gerrymandered our state’s House districts so that a 7-7 delegation became 10-4 Republican.

In other words, without the GOP’s blatant gerrymandering, the U.S. House would likely be tied at 215 and the vital question of who controls Congress would remain undecided.

The bottom line: Gerrymandering is an assault on representative and constitutional government. The politicians behind it dishonor their oaths of office.

For NC Newsline, I’m Rob Schofield.

North Carolina Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger (R-Rockingham) and House Speaker Tim Moore (R-Cleveland), surrounded by state lawmakers, address reporters ahead of a vote on a first round of Hurricane Helene relief money in October. (Photo: Galen Bacharier/NC Newsline)

North Carolina voters just elected Gov.-elect Josh Stein by an overwhelming margin but the vast majority of them did not vote for Senate leader Phil Berger or House Speaker Tim Moore.

Unfortunately, that hasn’t stopped Berger and Moore from hatching a truly outrageous scheme to grab powers from the governor’s office and other statewide offices to which voters recently elected Democrats.

The power grab came packaged in a secretly written and unamendable 131-page bill that was unveiled and passed in just hours this week. And it sets a new low in a longstanding pattern of irresponsible governance at the General Assembly.

But wait – it gets worse.

Not only was this treacherous assault on the constitution and the will of voters rammed through in a few hours, Republican leaders also made new hurricane relief funding for western North Carolina contingent on its passage.

The bottom line: The past 14 years have produced a long list of cynical and underhanded maneuvers at the state legislature, but this new power grab may just top them all.

For NC Newsline, I’m Rob Schofield.

U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz is photographed inside the Rayburn House Office Building Feb. 27, 2019.  (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

In a scathing commentary, veteran journalist Hugh Jackson of the Nevada Current summarized recent developments in Washington this way: quote – “U.S. Congress replaced by an app on Trump’s phone.”

Sadly, Jackson’s biting hyperbole isn’t that far off.

Since his election, Donald Trump has quickly nominated a slate of remarkably unqualified lackeys to lead the nation’s most important government departments, while demanding that the ordinary U.S. Senate process for vetting and approving nominees be bypassed.

A Fox News talking head and an inexperienced ex-congresswoman for Secretary of Defense and Director of National Intelligence. An anti-vaccine advocate to head Health and Human Services. And a disgraced congressman to lead and weaponize the Department of Justice.

The bottom line: Right now, with Congress in Republican hands, there  are only a small handful of lawmakers who know better and who are in a position to keep Trump even remotely in check and, as it happens, North Carolina’s Senator Thom Tillis is one of them. One prays that he musters the guts to do the right thing.

For NC Newsline, I’m Rob Schofield.

Sen. Danny Britt (File photo)

In a legislature that includes plenty of unserious characters, state Senator Danny Britt of Robeson County is not one of them. He’s a leader and a practicing attorney who chairs two important committees. All of which makes the brewing scandal surrounding an email that Britt’s office apparently sent to a constituent that much more outrageous.

As multiple news outlets have reported, the constituent wrote to Britt to express her frustration with the state’s 12-week abortion ban that Britt helped pass. The law has forced her to avoid getting pregnant to start a family because she suffers from a health condition that could in some circumstances make an abortion necessary after 12 weeks.

Amazingly, the woman received a response from Britt’s office that cruelly and ignorantly mocked her letter and advised her to move to Russia, China or Venezuela.

The bottom line: If prepared by Britt or an assistant as the news reports credibly indicate, the mocking response is an utter disgrace.

Britt should publicly apologize immediately and face a swift reprimand from his fellow senators.

For NC Newsline, I’m Rob Schofield.

Rep. Tricia Cotham voices support for legislation to expand the state's controversial school voucher program. (Photo: ncleg.gov feed)

State lawmakers return to Raleigh this week and from the looks of things, it will mark yet another big and wasteful failure for the General Assembly.

That’s because the overriding policy issue in our state right now is the massive economic and environmental disaster in the west that was wrought by Hurricane Helene.

If ever there was a crisis that deserved every available resource and funding stream at our disposal, this is it. Gov. Roy Cooper is taking just such a stance.

Unfortunately, that’s not how Republican legislative leaders see it. At this moment of desperate need, they’re planning to ignore Cooper’s request and instead direct hundreds of millions of dollars in badly needed funds to their deeply flawed and unaccountable school voucher scheme.

The bottom line: at a time in which hundreds of businesses and thousands of workers are in desperate need of emergency aid, state lawmakers plan instead to send funds that could be used for that critical public purpose to millionaires to subsidize their kids’ private school tuition. North Carolinians from across the state should be outraged.

For NC Newsline, I’m Rob Schofield.

(Getty Images)

Donald Trump’s second administration is poised to soon do a great deal of damage in several important areas. Whether it’s health care, education, the federal courts, reproductive freedom, immigration, foreign policy or the economy, millions of people will suffer needlessly if Trump follows through on all of his campaign promises.

That said, when it comes to the damage that will be truly irreparable, no pledge looms darker or more ominous than Trump’s plan to scuttle efforts to combat climate change.

As Katharine Hayhoe – a scientist and lead author of the National Climate Assessment under the last Trump administration – put it in a recent interview, quote “the situation is dire… on many fronts [and…it’s] already getting worse.”

In other words, there’s absolutely no time to waste. Even a mere four years of backtracking will greatly worsen results for our children and grandchildren.

The bottom line: No problem poses a greater threat to the near and long-term wellbeing of Americans than climate change. And no matter what he’s said previously, Trump simply must listen to the experts and act.

For NC Newsline, I’m Rob Schofield.

(Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Sometimes, you just have to shake your head in wonder at the crazy paranoia of North Carolina election conspiracy theorists. Their latest kooky idea: that the recent state election was somehow rigged to prevent victories by Republican candidates for offices like governor and attorney general even as Donald Trump claimed the state’s presidential contest.

That’s right — the same people who repeatedly tell us that state government is dysfunctional and incapable of performing core public functions, are claiming that somehow, someone inside it pulled off one of the most diabolical criminal conspiracies in modern American history.

Please. Give us a break.

If such a scheme were possible – and it’s not – why would the mysterious forces rig just some elections? Why let Trump win?

The bottom line: as political scientists have repeatedly demonstrated, North Carolina voters have been splitting their tickets in the precise way they did last week for decades.

The conspiracy kooks should spend more time studying civics and history and less time wallowing in dark and disturbed corners of social media.

For NC Newsline, I’m Rob Schofield.

Michele Morrow, Republican candidate for superintendent of public instruction, speaks at a campaign event on Sunday, Nov. 3, 2024 in Elon, North Carolina. After losing the race vowed to "fight harder than ever before to protect our children and save our schools." (Photo: Galen Bacharier/NC Newsline)

There will be a parade of extremists and lightly qualified politicos in the nominations and appointments that President-elect Donald Trump will advance over the coming days. Once again, Americans will have to endure a time in which important government functions are entrusted to individuals who don’t even support the missions of the agencies they’re leading.

All that said, it’s hard to imagine that even Trump would take the request of someone like failed North Carolina schools superintendent candidate Michele Morrow seriously.

Morrow, of course, is a Wake County homeschooler and culture warrior who, despite never having been elected to any public office or held any paid employment in education, believed she was qualified to run our state’s public schools.

And now, having failed in that dreamy quest, she’s actually campaigning for Trump to appoint her Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education. And it’s hard to know whether to laugh or cry at such an absurd idea.

The bottom line: It’s hard to think of a person less qualified to be a U.S. cabinet secretary than Morrow. Even Donald Trump will see that.

For NC Newsline, I’m Rob Schofield.

President Joe Biden speaks from the Oval Office of the White House on July 24, 2024 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Evan Vucci-Pool/Getty Images)

Almost four years later, it still stands as one of the darkest acts of any elected official in American history – a cowardly and criminal act by small and petty man who sought to overturn two-and-a-half centuries of constitutional government.

I speak, of course, of then-President Donald Trump’s refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election and his direct incitement of a deadly attempted coup in which our national Capitol Building was ransacked and defiled by a lawless mob.

Sadly, however, American memories are short, and now that same small and petty man will soon be back in the White House.

All of this came to mind last Thursday when our current president, Joe Biden – an honorable man who respects the Constitution – assured us he would oversee a ‘peaceful and orderly transition’ to a new Trump administration – something that Trump lacked the character and class to do for him.

The bottom line: The voters have spoken; Donald Trump has been elected. But that doesn’t mean we should ever forget who he is, what he did, or what he is capable of.

For NC Newsline, I’m Rob Schofield.

All five living former North Carolina governors have filed a motion in support of Gov. Roy Cooper's court challenge to the legislature's attempt to overhaul how state and county election boards are appointed. (Photo: Clayton Henkel).

In the event you thought this year’s election was over and all of the races decided – hold on a minute.

It turns out tens of thousands of ballots that North Carolina voters cast are yet to be counted.

That’s because there are many circumstances – most notably when people forget their photo ID or show up at the wrong precinct – that voters get to cast so-called provisional ballots that only get counted

And for those who lacked ID, their ballots won’t be counted at all unless they return to their county board of elections with a proper ID to show by this Thursday, November 14.

Could these provisional ballots make a difference? Absolutely.

Some state legislative races were decided by just a few dozen votes. Even at the state level, Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs trails in her race by less than a tenth of one percent.

The bottom line: It would be tragic if any candidate in any race lost because not all of their supporters’ votes were counted. Let’s hope that North Carolina voters show up to prevent such a scenario.

For NC Newsline, I’m Rob Schofield.