Weekly Briefing Archive

Why progressives offer a more hopeful vision for the future

Quick, who adheres to a more optimistic view of the world - American progressives or conservatives? For too long, especially since the early-1980’s when millions fell for the sunny charms of Ronald Reagan, there has been a persistent myth in American politics that the ideological right offers a more optimistic vision of humanity and its future.

Opponents of anti-bullying legislation may be sowing the seeds of their own demise

You never know what’s going to spark a controversy or launch a movement. Fifty-three years ago, a woman in Alabama helped start the modern American civil rights movement simply by refusing to give up her seat on a public bus.

An update on some bills of importance to progressives

House Speaker Joe Hackney and Senate President Pro Tem Marc Basnight both indicated yesterday that they expected the General Assembly to adjourn the 2008 session late next week - probably Friday July 18.

North Carolina needs a bigger (and leaner) state budget

With the General Assembly poised to complete its work on the 2008-’09 budget this week and the Easley administration entering its final months, now is a good time to begin to consider what state policymakers have wrought, what might have been, and what we all should be working toward in years to come.

Will the state Senate allow a vote on the Racial Justice Act?

Running a place like the North Carolina Senate is no easy job. The place if crammed with 50 oversized egos and surrounded by scads of staff, reporters, lobbyists and hangers on. In addition, the group is formally divided into two warring political parties and, less formally, countless other groups and alliances-each bent on group and individual self-preservation and, occasionally advancing an actual policy agenda.

Progressive advocates send “open letter” to House and Senate budget conferees

With the end of the fiscal year just days away, state lawmakers are attempting to wrap up negotiations on this year’s state budget bill - or, more accurately, the bill to adjust the 2007-’09 biennial budget. As has been reported on numerous occasions in recent weeks by Chris Fitzsimon, this year’s process has been anything but a happy or encouraging.

Lawmakers would fund, build new six-lane road using out-of-date numbers

As has been reported in this space previously, one of the most troubling decisions by budget writers in the state House of Representatives this spring has been the decision to take $25 million out of the state’s General Fund (the source of dollars for education, crime prevention and human services, etc…) and to redirect it toward helping to subsidize the construction of a new six-lane toll road often referred to as the Triangle Expressway.

Elizabeth Dole’s anti-immigrant pandering marches on

There are very few prominent North Carolina political leaders of either major party with clean hands in the ongoing discussion of immigration policy. With a few exceptions (Governor Easley, for one, has at least occasionally displayed a little bit of backbone), most have either piled on the anti-immigrant bandwagon or remained shamefully silent.

Five simple, common sense tactics to control the state foreclosure mess

The national home mortgage foreclosure crisis continues mostly unabated. Here in North Carolina, the gavel will bang down on as many as 60,000 homes this year. Nationwide, the number may exceed two-million. Last month, we reported in this space about the ongoing battle in Washington and the apparent determination of the Bush Administration and some of its allies in Congress to stymie any meaningful reform proposals that might curb the tide. A month later the congressional logjam continues and it remains unclear what, if anything, congressional leaders will be able to accomplish this summer.

Five quick points regarding North Carolina’s debate over “illegal aliens”

The nonsense and venom are flowing fast and furious on the far right these days. Last week, the Pope Civitas Institute and a group that calls itself Americans for Legal Immigration (or ALIPAC) both continued to do their worst to make a mountain out of the molehill over the issue of whether North Carolina should admit undocumented immigrants to its community college system. Meanwhile, over at the General Assembly, opportunistic legislators piled on.

Ten things lawmakers ought (and ought not) to do before heading home this summer

The 2008 “short session” of the North Carolina General Assembly convened yesterday. With Governor Easley in full-fledged lame duck status and state budget coffers anything but full, most analysts and observers are predicting a fairly quick and uneventful gathering.

Innocent humans continue to be sentenced to death in our name

Yesterday’s primary election offers several good reasons for civic-minded North Carolinians to feel a real sense of excitement and pride. For one, voters shattered all turnout records for a primary election. Indeed, as of the close of the new, one-stop early voting process this past weekend, around a half-million people (or almost 60% of the entire 2004 primary total had voted). By the end of voting yesterday, the total exceeded two-million.

State Ag Commissioner helps block real protections for farmworkers

As a general political rule, there’s nothing inherently wrong with compromise and incremental change. Compromise, after all, is embedded in the very DNA of the American system of checks and balances and incremental change is often the best that advocates for the poor and the marginalized can realistically expect – especially when battling powerful vested interests.

Will Senators Dole and Burr get out of the way?

The last seven years in Washington have produced plenty of disastrous policy results: the bloody and seemingly endless occupation of Iraq, the ballooning national debt, exploding wealth and income gaps, a complete failure to produce a 21st Century energy policy, and the meltdown of the national health care system - just to name a few.

It’s time for the state to calculate the cost of providing all kids with a sound basic education

Eleven years ago, the North Carolina Supreme Court issued what appeared, at the time, to be one of the most important rulings in its more than two centuries of operation. In the 1997 case of Hoke County Board of Education v. State of North Carolina and State Board of Education - often commonly referred to as the Leandro ruling - the court established the constitutional right of every North Carolina public school student to a “sound basic education.”