With the 30 days over and all briefs filed, the state's abortion laws hang in the balance. Judge William Osteen, a federal judge appointed by President George W. Bush, is weighing the injunction on a 20-week abortion ban.
For more than a decade now, advocates of the Affordable Care Act have pressed the North Carolina General Assembly to implement the federal law’s most expansive and expensive element: expanding Medicaid to virtually all low-income adults. Every year, advocates have left the legislature disappointed. They left disappointed at the end of the 2022 legislative session,...
Movie sequels are almost always worse than the original films. Notable exceptions, such as this summer’s Top Gun: Maverick, merely prove the rule. For every Empire Strikes Back, there’s a Highlander 2: The Quickening, Halloween Kills, and Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol. If efforts to enact a voter-identification requirement in North Carolina were a...
UPDATE at 4:21 p.m. July 28: According to Associated Press, Berger and Moore have submitted a brief to Judge Osteen asking him to vacate his earlier ruling that blocked N.C.’s 20-week abortion ban. They argued that his ruling is no longer reflective of federal law after the Dobbs decision reversed precedent established by Roe and...
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled, 8-1, that N.C. legislative leaders will be able to intervene in a federal lawsuit challenging that state’s voter ID law. The decision reverses a ruling from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and means Berger and Moore will be able to take part when the voter ID law heads to trial before U.S. District Judge Loretta Biggs.
Entrepreneur and civic leader Algenon Cash is the host of “Locked In,” a program on Greensboro radio station WTOB. I appeared on a recent episode along with former Gov. Pat McCrory, who’d just lost the Republican primary for U.S. Senate. McCrory had much to say about that race, as you might expect. But what I...
According to the latest estimate from fiscal analysts at the North Carolina General Assembly, our state government will take in about $6.2 billion more in General Fund revenue over the 2021-23 budget biennium than was originally projected last year. That’s a huge number. It represents nearly a quarter of the entire General Fund budget for...
Editor’s note: This story was updated at 10:10 p.m. to reflect the N.C. Supreme Court’s response to multiple appeals. The N.C. Supreme Court is refusing to insert itself back into the state’s legal dispute over legislative and congressional redistricting at this time. A series of court orders issued about 10 p.m. Wednesday denied requests for...
The N.C. General Assembly is expected to being voting Tuesday on the newly-released 2021-23 conference budget. The 2021-22 budget plan, out on Monday, represents a 4.3% increase over the previous plan with $25.9 billion slated to be spent. The fiscal 2022-23 portion of the biennial plan is $27 billion, and the state’s rainy day fund...
When supposedly neutral news media described Sen. Phil Berger’s proposal as a “ban on affirmative action,” they were either exhibiting their ignorance or willfully misleading their audiences.
This month, North Carolinians will celebrate the silver anniversary of North Carolina’s charter school law. It is a time to celebrate and reflect on how far the movement has come over the last 25 years. A unique set of circumstances allowed the passage of North Carolina’s charter school law. In 1994, North Carolina Republicans benefited...
