If North Carolina’s nebulous criminal code isn’t confusing enough, the “elephant” metaphors lawmakers use to describe them are even less enlightening. At a reform-oriented summit hosted Monday, Oct. 21, in Cary by the Cato Institute and the John Locke Foundation, several lawmakers excoriated the state’s criminal code, saying obsolete and duplicate statutes place harsh burdens...
This isn’t Taken. Unlike the portrayals popularized by Liam Neeson’s 2008 film thriller, human trafficking victims are rarely snatched during vacation getaways or from coffee shops, and they are rarely sympathetic characters with squeaky clean backgrounds, Libby Coles, chairwoman of the North Carolina Human Trafficking Commission, told Carolina Journal. This year, Coles and the trafficking...
House Republicans beat back several attempts Wednesday by Democrats to expand the regulatory scope of a bill dealing with the GenX contaminant dumped into the lower Cape Fear River region, as the measure passed 116-0. But a more formidable challenge to House Bill 189, Short-Term Response to Emerging Contaminants, is in the Senate. And it’s...
Rep. Jimmy Dixon, a retired Duplin County hog farmer, pleaded with fellow House members to remember the people who put food on the table. A handful of his Republican colleagues (and several Democrats) said being faithful to the principles of common-law jurisprudence, separation of powers, and property rights outweigh the interests of any single industry,...
