CASH STUFF FOR 11-07-19

ELECTION ROUNDUP

WILMINGTON - African American candidate Kevin Spears will be the new face on the Wilmington City Council next term after coming in second in a ten-candidate field. Spears, 36, came in second to Councilwoman Margaret Haynes with 14.4 percent per unofficial returns Tuesday evening. Incumbent Neil Anderson came in third, but only by six votes over incumbent Paul Lawler. A recount may be in the offing. All races will be finalized by Nov. 15th.

Mayor Bill Saffo won a sixth term in office, defeating challenger Devon Scott by less than 700 votes. Voter turnout for Tuesday’s municipal election was just  19 percent.

In nearby areas, Carolina Beach elected it’s first female mayor, LeAnn Pierce, as will as Lynn Barbee and Jay Healy to the Town Council.

         In noteworthy statewide contests, Durham Mayor Steve Schewel won a second term with 83% of the vote. And Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles, the Queen City's first African American female mayor, was easily selected to a second term with 77% of the vote.

STATE NEWS BRIEFS FOR 11-07-19

FORTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF GREENSBORO KLAN MASSACRE

[GREENSBORO] It was Nov. 3rd, 1979, when demonstrators held a “Death to the Klan” rally in a public housing complex, when suddenly cars showed up, and a number of Ku Klux Klan members and American Nazis brandished weapons, and engaged in a shootout five members of the Communist Workers Party dead, and ten injured. The shootout lasted just 88 seconds, but forty years later, is infamously known as the Greensboro Massacre. A subsequent investigation proved that Greensboro police actually vacated the area before the Klan attack. After two criminal trials, no KKK member was ever convicted.

GOP-SPONSORED STATE READING PROGRAM FAILS TO SUCCEED

[RALEIGH] It’s back to the drawing board for Republican legislative leaders who created the “Read to Achieve” program in 2012 for the purpose of having more students reading at grade level at the end of third grade. But according to the recent 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress, the program ha failed to raise reading levels in North Carolina. In fact, reading scores are now lower than before the program was instituted. This far, North Carolina has spent $150 million on the program, a pet project of NC Senate Pres. Pro-Team Phil Berger.

NC FREEDOM PARK BREAKS GROUND NEXT MONTH

[RALEIGH] After years of planning and discussions, ground will be broken at the intersection of Wilmington and Lane streets between the Governor’s Mansion and the Legislative Building for a park an monument honoring North Carolina’s historic African Americans. The North Carolina Freedom Park will be the first park dedicated to African Americans in the state government complex. The park was designed by the late architect Phil Freelon. Construction is expected to take a year, which means it should be open for families from across the state and nation in 2021.

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LEGISLATIVE “LONG” SESSION 

ISN’T OVER YET

By Cash Michaels

Contributing writer

As you read this, the NC House and Senate sessions, which began on Jan. 9th,  have adjourned.

But that doesn’t mean the 2019 long session of the NC General Assembly is over. In fact, according to a joint resolution, legislators are expected back on Nov. 13th, reportedly to work on redrawing congressional redistricting maps, as ordered by a three-judge Wake Superior Court panel.

That is now creating a continuing hardship on Democratic state senators, particularly African American Senate lawmakers, who may have to jettison holiday plans with family.

“The sad thing is you can’t predict any of the times we’re going to be there such that we can plan for family stuff,” a Democratic senator opined. “My kids are grown, but I really feel bad for younger legislators who didn’t get a chance to spend they summer with their kids.”

“And now we’re approaching fall and winter holidays, and heck, we don’t know when we’re going to adjourn.”

Most people forget that the “short” session of the NC General Assembly did not adjourn for good until December 29th, 2018, and that’s because Republicans called one of several special sessions to deal with the four of six constitutional amendments that were passed in the midterm elections.

There is no hard and fast deadline for completing the maps, and yet, the December 2 filing for the March 2020 primaries is literally right around the corner, meaning that the court may have to push the primaries back some to accommodate the legislative redistricting and approval process. No one knows how long state lawmakers may take once they come back late next week.

“They don’t care,” a frustrated Democratic senator said of the Republican majority.

But once they do finish  this year,  the 2019 long session of the NC General Assembly will come to an end…right?

Wrong. State lawmakers have been told that they must come back Tuesday, January 14th to finish any “outstanding” business from this session.

In fact, among the reasons cited in the recent joint resolution to extend the 2019 regular session was “Bills returned by the Governor with his objections…solely for the purpose of considering overriding of the veto upon reconsideration of the bill.”

Democratic lawmakers who have spoken off-the-record are beyond frustrated with Republican leadership because the way it looks now, the long legislative session of 2019 actually won’t be completed until sometime in January 2020...maybe…all because the GOP is trying to figure out a way to trick enough weary Democratic senators to either be late, or absent so that Republicans can finally override Gov. Cooper’s veto of their budget proposal over the absence of Medicaid expansion, and ratify it into law.

Democrats maintain that’s exactly what happened in the state House they were led to believe that no vote would be taken on September 11th pertaining to the veto, and Republicans were able to override Cooper’s veto with a depleted number of Democratic House members present.

More than seven Democrats - the number needed to swing over and vote with Republicans for the veto override - were absent from the chambers then, creating a subsequent ruckus that actually made national news.

Now Senate Republicans only need one Senate Democrat to vote with them for the override, but Senate Dems have vowed that that is just not going to happen. Last Thursday on Oct. 31st - the day Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger [R- Rockingham] vowed would be adjournment day, state senators were called into session, and then Republicans recessed five times in hopes that at least one Democrat would fail to make it back to their seat in time for a call vote on the veto, but to the GOP’s dismay, no matter where they were, Senate Democrats made it back, standing firm not to hand Republicans another victory.

“It literally meant chasing down members,” one Senate Democrat said afterwards.

Senate Dems were warned that a vote could happen days earlier, but when it didn’t, they knew anything could happen before the Oct. 31st adjournment, and were ready.

Senate Pro tem Berger even floated the notion publicly that Gov. Cooper had threatened Senate Dems that if they didn’t hold tight, he would find primary opponents against them.

“That was a lie,” an angry, resentful Senate Democrat said of Berger’s apparent pressure tactic.

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NCNAACP COURT RULING THAT

LEGISLATURE ILLEGAL, ARGUED

By Cash Michaels

Contributing writer

It was last February when Wake Superior Court Judge Bryan Collins delivered perhaps one of the most shocking rulings in recent state history:

“An illegally constituted General Assembly does not represent the people of North Carolina and is therefore not empowered to pass legislation that would amend the state’s constitution,” he ruled when he threw out the 2018 ratified voter ID,  and cap on state income tax amendments that had been passed in the 2018 midterm elections.

The ruling was music to the ears of plaintiffs, the NCNAACP, which had sued to stop the amendments. The civil rights organization had effectively argued North Carolina’s 2017 legislative maps were illegal because they had been drawn by an unconstitutional racially gerrymandered NC legislature, which did not have the authority, the NCNAACP said, to place the amendments on the ballot.

In effect, does a constitutionally illegal state legislature have the right to rewrite the NC Constitution?

Outraged Republican legislative leaders - feeling that Judge Collins had no right to rule on their constitutional legitimacy -  appealed the ruling to a three-judge panel of the state Appellate Court, and last week, both sides argued their respective side.

An attorney for Republican lawmakers maintained that it would be impractical to undo every law state lawmakers passed subsequent to being ruled racially gerrymandered by a federal court, and doing so would open a floodgate of litigation against other legislation passed by the GOP supermajority at that time.

But an attorney representing the NCNAACP countered that they are not targeting every law passed, but rather just the legislature’s right to place the six constitutional amendments on the 2018 ballot for ratification by voters, four of which passed, and two of which were being challenged.

While Republicans argued that if the federal court which ruled the legislature unconstitutionally elected wanted new elections, it could have ordered new elections. But the NCNAACP attorney countered that the federal court did see the need for a new election, but couldn’t order one because there wasn’t time to reasonably hold one.

The three-judge panel was comprised of two Republicans and one Democrat. Regardless of the decision, the case is likely to be appealed to the NC Supreme Court, which has a 6-1 Democrat majority.

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