Rep. Chuck McGrady, R-Henderson, won’t seek re-election when his term expires next year, but he’s far from finished. House Bill 971, which McGrady sponsored, has stalled in the legislature. Still, McGrady got a hearing for a proposed committee substitute in the House’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Committee on…
If North Carolina bans smokable hemp, hundreds of farmers will lose money on their crops — and faith in their legislators, says Blake Butler, executive director of the N.C. Industrial Hemp Association. Hemp and marijuana are different plants, but some House lawmakers want to throw…
Before mounting a defense in the Common Cause v. Lewis partisan gerrymandering trial, one lawmaker has issued a news release hinting at arguments he and fellow defendants are likely to make. “Dem ‘Expert’ Reports Are Sociological Gobbledygook,” reads the headline of the release from Sen. Ralph Hise, R-Mitchell. Hise…
It started with a simple request on Saturday morning, Jan. 13, 2018. Duke Energy lobbyist Kathy Hawkins asked Ken Eudy, Gov. Roy Cooper’s senior adviser, to help expedite a state official’s signature on an agreement tied to Duke’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline project. Hawkins told Eudy the state needed to sign…
U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and N.C. Lt. Gov. Dan Forest this week gathered a roundtable of school-choice advocates to pitch Education Freedom Scholarships. The idea from the U.S. Department of Education is designed to enhance school-choice efforts. If…
Republican U.S. Senate challenger Garland Tucker has made double-digit gains on incumbent Thom Tillis, according to new polling data from the Tucker camp. Tucker’s team is presenting the data in a series of private presentations to Republican donors. Two months after officially announcing his challenge of the first-term incumbent, Tucker…
Parity. It’s what North Carolina’s craft distillers wanted most, really. To, in a regulatory and statutory sense, take their place in line with the state’s brewers and vintners. If not in front of them, then just behind, in a place where they can extend an arm…
State Rep. Holly Grange, a New Hanover County Republican, made it official. She’s running in 2020 for governor. Grange announced her bid Thursday, July 18, in a news release and video. Grange, who has served in the General Assembly since 2016, is a West Point graduate and served…
After slogging through a mass of statistical data and redistricting jargon, day three of Common Cause v. Lewis brought the court back to the fundamental questions: the constitutionality of Republicans’ gerrymandered maps and the legal implications of the controversial Hofeller files. Democratic…
A dispute over a K-3 reading contract is heating up after the company at the center of the controversy, Istation, sent a cease-and-desist letter to three people who have publicly criticized a decision to grant the contract to Istation. “The cease…
