The 2021 long legislative session was the longest in North Carolina history, lasting from January 2021 into March of this year. During the session, lawmakers faced many complex issues, such as dealing with the ongoing pandemic, passing a biennial budget, and redrawing voting district lines for the next decade. While those issues dominated the headlines,...
Republicans in the N.C. General Assembly are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to limit state court oversight over future congressional redistricting. Republicans filed a petition for writ of certiorari with the court, asserting the Democrat-controlled state Supreme Court violated the elections clause of the U.S. Constitution when they invalidated the legislature’s congressional maps and imposed...
Wake County Republicans are hoping new state Supreme Court rulings that hurt GOP political efforts by forcing changes to political maps could be used to help Republicans in the state’s largest county and seat of state government. Republicans held a rally trying to force the Democratic County commission to work with the Wake County legislative...
Editor’s note: This story was updated March 3 to correct competitive districts in the N.C. Senate. A new partisan index for seats in the N.C. General Assembly shows a nearly even split between Republicans and Democrats headed into the midterm elections. The 2022 Civitas Partisan Index puts 58 seats in the state House in the...
Mecklenburg Republican Charlie Mulligan decided he could no longer wait. This week he announced his campaign for the newly drawn N.C. Senate District 41 in southern and eastern Mecklenburg County. It includes the GOP-leaning towns of Matthews and Mint Hill. “In Mecklenburg, not only can we do better, we deserve better, and that’s why I’m...
One day after Carolina Journal first broke the news, North Carolina’s westernmost member of the U.S. House, Congressman Madison Cawthorn, confirmed via video in a tweet he will run in a different congressional district than the one he currently represents. Critical announcement: we are taking ground for conservatism. You elected a fighter. Trust me to...
A retired Union County judge is trying to leapfrog the Republican-led N.C. General Assembly by ordering a $1.7 billion transfer from the state’s coffers to fund public education. The transfer would bankroll two years of a remedial plan in the long-running Leandro school funding case that dates back to 1994. The price tag for the...
The staff of the N.C. ABC met Tuesday, Nov. 9, with representatives from 34 local ABC boards across the state to talk about ways to improve the distribution of high-demand, low-supply, allocated spirituous liquor products. “Local ABC boards and their employees are on the front lines of spirituous liquor sales and have direct insight into...
Interest groups have already filed lawsuits to block approval of new redistricting maps for North Carolina. The maps are still in development with several legislative map proposals having been presented to the public in recent hearings. In a motion filed Friday, Oct. 29. the Southern Coalition for Justice is leading the lawsuit for the North...
N.C. House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, adjourned a quick session Tuesday, Oct. 26, but not before promising a busy week ahead. House Bill 259, the Election Integrity Act, was on the agenda for discussion and possible vote, but the bill’s sponsors — Reps. Keith Kidwell, R-Beaufort; Kyle Hall, R-Rockingham; and George Cleveland, R-Onslow — asked...
The N.C. House Redistricting Committee submitted its proposed state district maps Friday, Oct. 22, after two months of public hearings and open meetings. They can be viewed on the legislative website along with the state Senate’s five draft maps for congressional districts, with one proposed map drawn of their own districts. The much-anticipated district map...
