Democratic Attorney General Roy Cooper has a lead of roughly 5,000 votes in his attempt to unseat incumbent Republican Gov. Pat McCrory, and Cooper was quick to claim victory Tuesday night, telling supporters, “We have won this race.” Not so fast, the governor’s team responded. “Currently, there are tens of thousands of outstanding absentee, military,...
When it comes to public education, where does the proverbial buck stop? Who, after all, is the ultimate answer man when schools fail or succeed? Such questions seem logical and clear. Yet, as with much of our government K-12 education system, complexity often trumps clarity.
The legal dispute between June Atkinson and Bill Fletcher over the results of the 2004 election for school superintendent has reached a legislative panel. Here's why Atkinson will prevail.
The N.C. State Board of Education decided to stop turning a blind eye to a declining school climate when it adopted the “anti-harassment/bullying policy” in July 2004. The NCSBE informed all school districts in the state to create an effective plan “to develop and maintain policies and procedures to prevent, intervene, investigate, document and report all forms of harassment” in place by January 2005. The edict is an effort to curb skyrocketing numbers of belligerent, disruptive, rude, and violent behavior in the school system, said NCSBE Board Chairman Howard Lee.
The state constitution authorizes the legislature to set up a legal process for resolving contested state elections. Now senators are talking about doing it -- retroactively.
Republican champions of Steve Troxler argued for months that it was unjust to remedy a Carteret County elections error with a new statewide election. Now, the shoe appears to be on the other foot.
The state board of elections had four flawed choices for responding to a vote-counting snafu in Carteret County. Instead, it invented a fifth, patently ridiculous one.
Democrat Britt Cobb and Republican Bill Fletcher seem to be pursuing legal arguments that would require remedies far more sweeping and costly than the harms they are intended to redress.
For understandable reasons, North Carolina's competitive races for governor and U.S. Senate have commanded the most attention this year. But other 2004 races bear watching.
Don't worry, North Carolina political junkies. The 2002 elections may be over and the pivotal 2004 cycle a ways off. But 2003 will offer some political suspense of its own.
