Agonizing. These lockdowns, mandates, and suppressions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Logically inconsistent, clumsy in their application, and impossible to enforce. We’ve become prisoners of this virus, without imminent hope of reprieve. Potential treatments are enmeshed in politics, thrust into a media culture…
North Carolina’s public schools and universities are asking the General Assembly for millions more to deal with COVID-19 challenges. The House Select Committee on COVID-19 education working group met for the first time in months to hear updates on how the state’s various education systems are…
Lawmakers are trying to fix the Department of Transportation’s spending problems that triggered mass layoffs, project delays, and chaos in the transportation industry. The department’s overspending exposed failures in oversight, both in the department itself and in the Council of Internal Auditing. The department’s internal oversight…
The demand for firearms, starting with an application for a gun permit, remains high, though local sheriffs’ offices are struggling to keep up. Grass Roots North Carolina is again suing Wake County Sheriff Gerald Baker, the third time since the start of COVID-19 lockdowns. The lawsuits…
Gov. Roy Cooper will keep North Carolina in his modified Phase Two of reopening for another five weeks. That could worsen the state’s economic problems. One of the state’s top economists say North Carolina’s economy might take two to three years to recover. …
Jon Guze, John Locke Foundation director of legal studies, discusses a Wake County, N.C., legal dispute involving a town’s “quick-take” power and its abuse of eminent domain. Guze offered these comments during an interview with Donna Martinez for Carolina Journal Radio.
There is no shortage of useful ideas for improving the quality of policing. But if we end up reducing the quantity of policing, our cities will be less safe.
The COVID-19 pandemic could still threaten the long-term stability of state employee pensions, even though the state pension plan has recovered from the stock market crash, the state treasurer says. The stock market’s comeback has lifted North Carolina’s pensions toward record levels, State Treasurer Dale Folwell…
To compete effectively for statewide office or control of the General Assembly over time, Republicans will have regain their footing in major metropolitan areas.
Each week, staff at Carolina Journal looks back at the week in N.C. politics and chooses several interesting, relevant stories you may have missed. N.C. State Fair: North Carolinanians won’t get to sample overindulgent fried foods or take a spin on some of the fair’s dizzying…
