In a recent column, I argued that cities would draw more investment and job creation to their downtowns if people felt safer in them. Because the only North Carolina cities included in the national study I cited were Charlotte and Raleigh, some readers concluded that I thought the problem was limited to those two jurisdictions....
As the Government Affairs intern at the John Locke Foundation, I spend a goodly amount of time down at the state legislature attending committee meetings and tracking bills through the legislative process. Because of that, I have had a front row seat to what can only be called the chaos of the opposition to H.B....
During my formative years, the United States and the West in general was said to be locked in a “clash of civilizations” with the Islamic world, or at least radicals within it. Groups like Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Al Shabaab, Boko Haram, and later ISIS dominated the news. There was always a bombing, beheading, stoning,...
North Carolina has a housing and sawmill problem. The number of local sawmills in North Carolina has been declining, while the population of North Carolina, and the subsequent demand for housing, continues to rise exponentially. North Carolina’s Department of Housing has found that the state will be short a little under a million houses by...
Ever since 1789, when UNC-Chapel Hill was founded, North Carolina taxpayers have been very generous to public higher education. North Carolina’s colleges and universities receive annual appropriations of more than $4 billion. And on a per-student basis, UNC schools receive more public funding than almost any other schools in the nation. In return for their...
People of faith across America, including here in North Carolina, had good reason to celebrate Independence Day this year. In the week preceding the July Fourth holiday, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down two landmark decisions which significantly clarified and extended constitutional protection of religious liberty in American life and law. With a hostile administration...
Has there even been a point of time in which so many public controversies rest on a single, abstract principle of constitutional government? I can’t think of one. The principle in question is the separation of powers. Here are only some of its recent political manifestations: • The U.S. Supreme Court has just blocked President...
