Voting

In this issue:

1. NC Supreme Court issues much-anticipated rulings on voter ID, gerrymandering, and a Confederate statue

The North Carolina Supreme Court handed down more than two dozen rulings on Friday, including a trio dealing with high-profile political controversies. The rulings come just weeks before Republicans Richard Dietz and Trey Allen replace sitting Democratic Associate Justices Samuel Ervin IV and Robin Hudson, and thereby flip the court’s current 4-3 Democratic majority to 5-2 Republican.

In Holmes v. Moore, the court ruled that a bill requiring every voter present photo identification when casting a ballot was unconstitutional because lawmakers enacted the legislation “with an impermissible intent to discriminate against African-American voters in violation of the North Carolina Constitution.”

In Harper v. Hall, the state Senate district map used in this year’s elections was determined to be an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander.

In United Daughters of the Confederacy v. City of Winston-Salem, the court upheld the removal of a Confederate monument, but ruled that the trial court should have dismissed the challenge brought by the Daughters of the Confederacy “without prejudice.”

2. Staffing shortages at NC juvenile detention centers: So bad that, ‘If you show up to work today, you get a bonus.’

Detention centers are badly overcrowded and under-resourced, according to a committee presentation last week.

There are so many vacant positions in North Carolina’s juvenile detention centers that officials are using the money that would pay the salaries of new employees as an incentive to get existing staffers to report to their shifts.

“If you show up to work today, you get a bonus,” said William Lassiter, the deputy secretary of juvenile justice. “The reality is that when you show up and you’re the only one working on a unit, it’s not encouraging to come back the next day.”

The bonus supplements the paltry $35,400 starting salary at the detention centers. In addition to the “show up bonus,” Lassiter said that for the past two months officials have been offering retention bonuses and $3,000 signing bonuses for new hires.

3. Frustration, disbelief and a call for resignation: Lawmakers grill hurricane recovery official at oversight hearing

Laura Hogshead did not lose her job as the head of ReBuild NC on Wednesday, as many hurricane survivors had hoped.

Instead, several state lawmakers on a government oversight committee used the hearing as another opportunity to publicly berate Hogshead for the many deficiencies of the hurricane recovery program.

An abysmal number of home completions and a lack of accountability. A pattern of deception and a culture of secrecy. Over the past seven months, a Policy Watch investigation has found these factors continue to hamper ReBuild NC, formally known as the NC Office of Recovery and Resiliency, at the expense of some of North Carolina’s most vulnerable people.

**BONUS READ: A must-watch documentary on the victims of Hurricanes Matthew and Florence
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4. NC Treasurer puts politics ahead of humanity’s future (Commentary)

Can morality play a role in capitalism? Should it?

Human society has, of course, wrestled with this dilemma for centuries.

For some market fundamentalists on the ideological right, all morality – at least when it comes to the roles of investors and consumers – is to be found in profits and bargains.

Yes, that computer manufacturer (or meat packer or clothing producer) may poison its neighbors and rely upon horrific sweatshops that employ young children in conditions little different from slavery, but hey, so long as their return on investment is high and prices low, goes the thinking, that’s a problem for someone else to solve.

Interestingly, for very different reasons, some on the other end of the spectrum also view the idea of drawing lines in this realm as a futile exercise.

5. NC providers, advocates to try again for legislative action to improve maternal health and birth outcomes

State legislators will soon get another look at a plan aimed at improving maternal health in North Carolina, with a request to provide better pay to health care workers who provide maternity services to people enrolled in Medicaid, reimburse for doula services, and increase payments to providers of group prenatal care.

The United States has the worst maternal death rate among industrialized nations, and Black women are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women.

Meanwhile, North Carolina has one of the worst infant mortality rates in the U.S., according to the CDC, with Black babies more than 2½ times as likely to die before their first birthdays as white infants. Babies in North Carolina are more likely to be born underweight than babies born in most other states. Preterm birth/low birth weight is a leading cause of infant death, according to the CDC.

Gov. Roy Cooper suggested these changes to improve maternal health in his budget proposal this year, but the legislature did not support the increases.

6. Biden signs law extending marriage protections to same-sex and interracial couples

WASHINGTON — Same-sex and interracial couples had many of their marriage rights codified Tuesday when President Joe Biden signed the bipartisan marriage equality bill during a ceremony attended by thousands outside the White House.

In a brief speech, Biden told supporters on the South Lawn that “marriage is a simple proposition — who do you love and will you be loyal to that person you love.”

“It’s not more complicated than that and the law recognizes that everyone should have the right to answer those questions for themselves without government interference,” he continued.

**BONUS READ: N.C. elected officials issue statement condemning threats to drag shows, LGBTQ community
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7. Two new reports confirm gross inadequacy of North Carolina’s public school funding (Commentary)

North Carolina’s school funding system is among the worst in the nation, according to two new reports from the nation’s leading school finance experts. New reports from the Albert Shanker Institute (ASI) and the Education Law Center (ELC) assess every state’s school funding systems across multiple quality measures. Both reports reach the same conclusion: North Carolina’s legislators are failing students by spending so little, and not doing nearly enough to ensure that all students across the state have equal opportunity to thrive.

The ASI report, “The Adequacy and Fairness of State School Finance Systems,” assesses states’ school funding systems along three criteria:

**BONUS READ: House Select Committee looking to redesign North Carolina’s K-12 schools issues draft report
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8. Civil rights attorney Allison Riggs tabbed for the state Court of Appeals

Gov. Roy Cooper today appointed Allison Riggs, Co-Executive Director and Chief Counsel for Voting Rights at the Southern Coalition for Social Justice to the state Court of Appeals. Riggs will serve the final two years of the term of Richard Dietz, who was elected to the state Supreme Court last month.

In making the announcement, Cooper lauded Riggs’ experience and intellect, saying in a press statement, “Allison Riggs is a brilliant attorney and an experienced litigator who has spent her career fighting for fairness and defending people’s constitutional rights. I am confident that she will continue to serve our state with distinction and be a great asset to the bench.”

Riggs has gained prominence in recent years as an outspoken critic of gerrymandering and voter suppression efforts and defender of the rights of racial minorities. She joined the Southern Coalition in 2009 under then executive director and founder Anita Earls. Earls was elected to the North Carolina Supreme Court in November 2018.

Click here for the latest radio interviews and commentaries with Policy Watch Director Rob Schofield.