Original Commentary

Back in the early 1990’s, the late and sorely missed Bob Hensley – a talented, feisty and frequently funny trial lawyer and Democratic state representative from Wake County – was engaged in a tense debate on the House floor with a Republican adversary when things suddenly turned personal. Having been cornered by Hensley’s formidable skills at debate, the GOP lawmaker lashed out and accused Hensley of being untruthful in some of his claims about the bill in question.

Today marks 100 days since I filed an official request with the Department of Public Instruction to release records of communication related to NC Superintendent Mark Johnson’s Istation contract award. North Carolina public records law deems such records “property of the people,” and continued failure to furnish them may amount to a violation of state law.

The North Carolina General Assembly adjourned its 2019 legislative session last week. Sort of. Lawmakers did head home, but unlike in years gone by when the end of the so-called legislative “long session” inaugurated a break that typically stretched to the following spring, the honorables have already announced that they will return next Wednesday, November 13 with a plan to take up redistricting legislation and, essentially, anything else that captures their fancy.

Perhaps the Republicans who control North Carolina’s General Assembly have finally gotten the message: their decade-long efforts to rig the state’s legislative and congressional voting district boundaries in their party’s favor simply won’t fly when challenged in the courts. Perhaps they’re starting to take seriously the views of those, including the N.C. Council of Churches, who have called for districts to be drawn via a process less susceptible to partisan abuse.

Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger placed a motion to override Gov. Cooper’s June veto of the 2019-2021 state budget bill on the Senate calendar this week and though no vote was taken last night, Berger’s action appears to make it possible that a vote could take place at virtually any moment.

Next week is Halloween. Shortly after that comes the holidays. Which is to say that the N.C. General Assembly is more than nine months into its deliberations in Raleigh, and they still haven’t delivered this squealing baby -- in other words, a budget that appropriately funds North Carolina’s 1.5 million public school children.

In any discussion of North Carolina politics and policy debates, it’s hard to overstate the footprint of a player like Duke Energy. That’s mostly because there is no other player like it. Charlotte-based Duke is the largest investor-owned utility provider in the United States and while it is not technically the biggest corporation in the state, it clearly touches more lives more regularly – both directly and indirectly – than any other North Carolina-based private actor.

When the journalist Michael Kinsley wrote in 1984 that a gaffe “is when a politician tells the truth,” perhaps he saw the future. Kinsley could not, however, have foreseen our current political climate.

Tonight's Democratic presidential debate will be dominated by two urgent issues: the House of Representatives’ inquiry into the possible impeachment of President Trump, and Trump’s decision to withdraw US forces from northern Syria. Impeachment and Syria should produce a high degree of unity among the 12 presidential contenders on the stage. However, the surface agreement masks complex political calculations.

Supporters of public education fight back against empty promises of state’s school privatization movement Americans are suckers for advertising and, in some ways, it’s an admirable trait. It speaks to our national traditions of optimism and hope for the future.

Survey of hold-out states indicates the Medicaid expansion debate has entered a new phase Across the states, the approach of an election year typically provides an excuse for policymakers to avoid taking on controversial and complex policy issues for fear of offending one side or the other.