This Week’s Top 5 / Bottom 5

Here is our third weekly installment of North Carolina's best and worst performances from the world of policy and politics.

The Tops

1. State Representatives Dan Blue and Rick Glazier, State Senator Katie Dorsett, the Farmworker Advocacy Network, the law firm of Edelstein and Payne, N.C. Fair Share and the N.C. NAACP - Winners all, at last night's N.C. Justice Center "Defender's of Justice Awards" in Durham.

2. Dr. James Johnson - The William Kenan Rand, Jr. distinguished professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill delivers a reality check to anti-immigrant zealots at a talk in Salisbury by pointing out that the economic contributions of immigrants to our economy outweigh the costs they impose on the public treasury by a factor of more than 150 to one. 

3. U.S. Senate Candidate Jim Neal – For putting another nail in the coffin of homophobic hate with his graceful and matter of fact statements about being a gay man.

4. The State Department of Transportation – The agency may have a long way to go to escape its longstanding legacy of "good ol' boyism," but its report to a legislative oversight committee this week offered some hope of concrete reform and a new reliance on professional experts rather than political cronies.

5. Gubernatorial candidates Richard Moore, Bob Orr, Beverly Perdue, and Fred Smith – For rejecting candidate Bill Graham's latest jingoistic proposal – this one to further limit the number of foreign Ph.D. candidates in the university system.

The Bottoms

5 (Tie). Gubernatorial candidate Bill Graham - See #5 above, and Charlotte mayoral candidate Beverly Earle for not showing up to a debate with her opponent, incumbent Pat McCrory.

4. Goodyear Tire and Rubber – The multi-billion dollar tire maker and PACC, the Singapore-based company that ships the rubber to them through Morehead City, attempt to stick up the state for another few million bucks per year.  

3. The Education Vouchers Crowd – An obscure local right wing group teams with an Indiana outfit named after the far right's favorite market fundamentalist economist to release a cookie cutter report on school dropouts in North Carolina. Their finding (that dropouts cost us a lot) is common sense, but their "solution" is just warmed over privatization baloney.  

2. State Senator Robert Pittenger – The Mecklenburg lawmaker hosts a sparsely attended press conference to critique the recommendations of consultants advising the Legislative Commission on Global Climate Change. His take on global warming and the attempts of some responsible parties to rein in carbon emissions: "My party understands that in some great measure, this is a hoax."

1. The SCHIP Gang of Eight – For yet another week, Senators Dole and Burr and Congresspeople Coble, Foxx, Hayes, Jones, McHenry and Myrick say "no" to kids and "yes" to big tobacco, anti-immigrant hysteria and extreme right wing ideology in the debate over the State Children's Health Insurance Program.