INDIANAPOLIS — For the first time in the modern era, four governors took the stage during the Indiana State Fair Harvest Dinner last week at the Indiana Farmers Coliseum at the same time, and what they had to say was revealing.
The governors — Republicans Eric Holcomb, Mike Pence and Mitch Daniels and Democrat Evan Bayh — were asked by moderator Cindy Hoye about leadership styles, their first day in office, which leaders they modeled themselves after, their most significant accomplishment and, finally, “pearls of wisdom.”
It began with Hoye, executive director at the Indiana State Fair Commission, asking the governors — among the 51 men who have held the office over more than two centuries — to “describe the art of leadership.”
The conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Bayh (1989-1997): It’s one of those things you recognize when you see it. It’s hard to study in the abstract. The ability to build bridges and bring people together. To reconcile differences for the common good and practical objectives. Nationally, it’s a vanishing art. It’s always easy to tear things down and attack. It’s much harder to build up. The words “principled compromise,” those words are important. You’ve got to maintain your principles, but at the same time no one gets everything they want. You have to compromise a little bit to move the ball down the field.
Daniels (2005-2013): I always started with the why question. You’ve got to be able to tell someone why you should do this. How are we going to make lives or this state better? If you can define that, the next step is to paint a picture; try to get others, show others big goals. Try to get them as excited, presumably, as you are. Try to always make things happen. That can be a self-reinforcing process — one success leads to another. I’ve always resisted the conventional metaphor when you say, “Be careful how you spend political capital.” Capital is something you invest. You make the right investments, it brings a return. That’s the type of philosophy we tried to bring to the job here.
Q. Whom do you admire and why, from a leadership standpoint?
Pence (2013-2017): I really believe leadership is one of the gifts God gives us. When you look at scripture there are different gifts that people have — like athletic prowess; you can be born with talent, but if you don’t invest or discipline yourself, grow and take risks, learn lessons and humility, you’ll miss the opportunity to be in leadership. For me it begins with appreciating where that gift comes from; where that calling comes from. When I became governor, the morning after I was elected I went by and saw Gov. Daniels and one of my favorite pictures at home is him handing me a tape measure that I still have. What’s this? He said, “Start measuring the curtains.” When you’re a governor, you have to figure out the most right thing that you can get done and bring people together to accomplish that. One of the things I did with my entire cabinet when I became governor was I handed out copies of Jim Collins’ book “Good to Great.” Because I’m not trying to flatter my predecessor, but Indiana had made great progress when I came in after eight years of Gov. Daniels. I saw that book as a great way of saying how we take good government in Indiana and pardon the phrase, take Indiana to the next level.
Q. Who has influenced your leadership?
Holcomb (2017-present): It’s a long list. I would say different individuals had a profound effect on my life at different points. I worked for one of these guys [Gov. Daniels] for 10 years of my life. I worked for another [Gov. Pence] on this stage for 10 minutes — it was very quick. They have both had an influence on my outlook. I wake up every day and think about progress. It’s not something in the pursuit of perfection, but progress, heading in the right direction and continuing to build on that. I would trace it back to pre-government life, to a couple of admirals when I was in the Navy. I was never a pilot, but that’s where I learned to fly straight in life, learned about attention to detail, have an organization, have a mission, build a team, trying to realize this vision you cast. And then measuring, seeing where you’re at. If you fall short, having the courage to collect yourself and learn from your shortcomings.
Q. What or who inspired your leadership style?
Bayh: My father [U.S. Sen. Birch Bayh] had a big impact on me. He was a man I loved and admired. He cared about other people and not just himself. I learned from my late wife [Susan] the meaning of love and courage. Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky but spent his formative years in Indiana and then led the country through a civil war that ended slavery. He ultimately laid down his own life in that cause. Fast-forward to Martin Luther King, who said the most important thing is not the color of our skin but the content of our character. That’s a pretty profound sentiment that I admire. And my sons [Beau and Nick], one who became a Marine, the other went into the Army, we took them to Normandy and saw rows and rows of crosses and Stars of David … and we found a cross with a name from Indiana. There was the day of the birth and the day of the death. He was a private and he was 18 years old. I said to my sons, “This man was only a little bit older than you. He gave his life, not only for our country, but for the cause of freedom and liberty.” I always ask myself, “What can we do to be worthy of them? What can we do to justify their sacrifice?” If we keep those as our north star, I rather think we’ll do OK.
Q. What did it feel like on your first day in office as governor?
Daniels: It started right here. This place was jammed to the rafters. I wanted to demonstrate we were off to a fast start. I remember finishing and saying, “If you’ll excuse me, I have to go to work.” I signed executive orders, one creating a Department of Agriculture, and sent bills to the Senate. Before I could go, right in front of the stage was a favorite outfit of mine, the Jasper/Newton Community Band. Or if you’re from Kentland, the Newton/Jasper Community Band. I was trying to get out of here and launch my first day, but they insisted I come down and conduct one of the Sousa marches.
Q. Name one accomplishment you’re proud of. And describe a tactic you used to drive change.
Holcomb: My first day I left here [the Indiana Farmers Coliseum] as well. And on my way, I equally had my adrenaline going, but I stopped at McDonald’s. I had had experience in front of the desk but not from behind it. My wife, Janet, and I talked about how the temptation for the job changes us at our core. So in the spirit of keeping it real, we went to McDonald’s, went inside and high-fived everybody, then went downtown and got busy on the agenda and the budget. It happened so fast. One that I always cherish, which is post-COVID, we introduced an approach to improving local health departments, not just with funding, but addressing some of the fronts where we were lacking and behind others. It was all because we worked from the ground level up. I’m proud that all 92 counties are part of this new statewide health network.
Pence: As I think about those four years — and I am the only one up here who was a one-term governor and I’m a little self-conscious about that — for me we had the tax relief and reforms, expanding educational choice and opportunity. There was this brilliant idea from our administration, and it wasn’t mine … the regional cities approach. Being Hoosiers, we’re used to competing across county lines. Getting Bartholomew County to think cooperatively with Shelby County is not the easiest thing in the world to do. What if we marshaled public and private resources to encourage communities to think and plan regionally and economically? What began with tens of millions of dollars has marshaled $22 billion in investments.
Daniels: Upward mobility. We came in at a time when Indiana was a thing called the Rust Belt. The single transcendent one was to make Indiana a place of promise and prosperity. I always said we have to build the best sandbox in America. Every great enterprise I saw, every great business had a clear purpose. Everybody knew what it was. It was on the wall, on the ID card. Everybody was excited about it and knew what their role was. I said, “We’re here to raise the disposable income of Hoosiers. I don’t care where you’re working, what your assignment is, we want to figure out what you can do to do better or maybe stop doing something that makes that more likely.” We’re never going to let anybody talk about the haves and the have-nots. It’s the haves and the yet-haves. We’re here to work on the yet-haves, so no matter where that community is, where that person is, they’ve got a better chance.
Bayh: In terms of longevity, I served the longest time ago, from 1989 to 1997. I was asked by someone, “When did you serve?” I said, “That was back in the Pleistocene era when mastodons and woolly mammoths and saber-tooth tigers and even Democratic governors existed here in Indiana!” Not so much today. You make sure the budget is balanced. You can’t run up big debts that you’re going to have to pay off some day. We tried to keep taxes low. We did leave a sizable surplus. Job growth was good. But if I just had to pick one thing, that’s the 21st Century Scholars program. It’s a program for seventh graders in our state with modest economic means. Upwards of 100,000 students across our state were able to get a college education and that means they’ll be better taxpayers and better citizens. I proposed the 21st Century Scholars program and some of the members were underwhelmed. I started calling them in, saying, “This will be good for our kids and our state,” and they would kind of nod. I could sense that wasn’t getting the job done, so I tried a different approach: “You guys just don’t understand. These are seventh graders. You won’t have to pony up the money for eight years! You can run for reelection four times before you have to fund this thing.” Suddenly, the light switch went on and they said, “This is a great idea! Where do we sign up?” And it passed overwhelmingly on a bipartisan basis.
Q. Give us your pearls of wisdom.
Daniels: Try to be a person that people trust. Because of shortcomings of their elders, I think it’s highly, highly likely that one of those crises that comes to any country and has come to ours at different times in the past — our revolution to the Civil War, depression — I believe this [coming] generation is going to be the one that has to deal with that. If you look at history, the failure or success of civilizations that have come before us has been the way they handle the great crisis. I think today’s young people more likely than not will be in their leadership years when that happens. It could be domestic or our debts and the economy, or international in origin. We have to be mindful that this does happen, some believe cyclically over so many decades. They’re going to be up to it and they’re going to do a better job than some of their predecessors did. They’re going to get a chance at greatness. That’s when greatness is actually defined.
Bayh: I’ve been focusing on what’s going on in China, Russia, Iran and Venezuela. Our children’s generation is going to be shaped by a global contest that is taking place now. It will be the contest and struggle between autocracy and dictatorship that those countries represent and freedom and liberty that the United States and our allies represent. Living in a dictatorship is in some ways fairly simple. You’re in service to the country. You have no rights, no liberties. You’re just disposable by the rule of a tyrant. Your individual freedom does not matter. You just do what you’re told. Living in democracy is hard. It’s difficult. It’s all about our individual freedom and what the government can occasionally do to empower us to our own full potential as individuals. That’s why we rebelled against the king way back when. So that’s the first thing I would say to the next generation: Stand for freedom. This fair and our agriculture heritage is part of the fabric that unites us as Hoosiers. Even more, it’s the values you learn: hard work, ingenuity, thrift, being a good neighbor, being patriotic. Those are the core of Indiana values.
CHICAGO — U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg boiled down the threat to democracy in the coming election with one word Wednesday night at the Democratic National Convention: “darkness.”
He said American politics “can be ugly, crushing, demeaning. But it doesn’t have to be. At its best, politics can be empowering, uplifting. It can even be a kind of soulcraft.”
Buttigieg ran for treasurer of Indiana in 2010, served two terms as mayor of South Bend and then won the Iowa caucuses as a presidential candidate in 2020. He attempted to delineate what he sees as “darkness” from the Republican campaign of Donald Trump and JD Vance and urged Americans to choose “a better politics.”
“My faith teaches me that the world isn’t made up of good people and bad people, but rather that each of us is capable of good and bad things,” Buttigieg said. “And I believe leaders matter because of what they bring out in each of us, the good or the bad. Right now the other side is appealing to what is smallest within you. They’re telling you that greatness comes from going back to the past.
“They’re telling you that anyone different from you is a threat,” he continued. “They are telling you that your neighbor or nephew or daughter who disagrees with you politically isn’t just wrong but is now the enemy.
“I believe in a better politics, one that finds us at our most decent and open and brave,” Buttigieg said. “The kind of politics that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are offering. … That kind of politics also just feels better to be part of. There is joy in it as well as power.”
The former South Bend mayor sized up Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. Vance.
“And don’t even get me started on his new running mate. At least Mike Pence was polite,” Buttigieg said of the former Indiana governor and vice president, who faced the gallows from Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021.
“Choosing a guy like JD Vance to be America’s next vice president sends a message, and the message is that they are doubling down on negativity and grievance,” Buttigieg said in his eight-minute address. “Committing to a concept of campaigning that is best summed up in one word: darkness. Darkness is what they’re selling. The thing is, I just don’t believe America today is in the market for darkness.
“I believe America is ready for a better kind of politics,” Buttigieg said.
Known as the Democratic Party’s communication emissary to conservative media, he began his speech by saying, “Here’s a sentence I never thought I’d hear myself saying: I’m Pete Buttigieg, and you might recognize me from Fox News.”
He described himself as an anxious teenager growing up in Indiana, “wondering if he’d ever find belonging in this world.” Then he described a typical evening around the kitchen table at home with his husband, Chasten, and their two toddlers. “This kind of life went from impossible to possible,” he said. “From possible to real. From real to almost ordinary in less than half a lifetime.
“But that didn’t just happen,” he said. “It was brought about through idealism and courage, through organizing and persuasion and storytelling. And, yes, through politics. The right kind of politics. The kind of politics that can make an impossible dream into an everyday reality. … All of it compels us to demand more from our politics than a rerun of some TV wrestling death match.”
He concluded by saying, “So, this November, we get to choose. … We will choose a better politics. A politics that calls us to our better selves and offers us a better everyday. That is what Kamala Harris and Tim Walz represent. That is what Democrats represent. That is what awaits us when America decides to end Trump’s politics of darkness once and for all.”
The Buttigieges visit the Indiana delegation
Buttigieg and his husband, Chasten, visited the Indiana delegation at its Wednesday breakfast at the Fairmont Chicago. The appearance was closed to the media. Pete and Chasten were seen exiting the hotel with a phalanx of security after the Indiana delegation visit. Sources told Howey Politics Indiana/State Affairs the former South Bend mayor was on a tight schedule the morning of his DNC address.
“It was great to have him here,” Indiana Democratic Chairman Mike Schmuhl said. “Obviously, he’s a Hoosier. I joke that Pure Michigan is great but we’re still going to claim him as a Hoosier. He and his husband stopped by to greet us and say hello. It was really kind of a homecoming.”
Buttigieg moved his family to Traverse City, Michigan, two years ago.
“He talked about how a lot of the folks in the room were with him back in 2009 and 2010 when he ran for state treasurer,” Schmuhl said. “He joked that he was 22 points short of victory that year. We’re honored that he stopped by to say hi. His basic message to the delegation was we are really, really in good shape. There’s been a burst of energy, an explosion of energy within the party since Kamala became our nominee. He’s a policy guy and he reinforced that we are right on so many policy issues and policy debate.
“We just need to go tell that story,” added Schmuhl, who managed Buttigieg’s 2020 presidential campaign. “That’s what conventions are all about. There’s been a whole tapestry and pageantry for the party. The fun and excitement are in the Democratic Party. We’re not centered on one person like the Republicans are. We have all these stars in the party who are coming up.”
Carson fully backs Harris
U.S. Rep. André Carson told Howey Politics Indiana/State Affairs on Tuesday that he is fully behind the nomination of Vice President Harris for president.
“We appreciate President Biden’s hard work,” Carson said, citing the CHIPS and Science Act that Biden signed as well as dropping the price of insulin and other expensive prescription drugs. “I mean, there was so much work. The Bipartisan Infrastructure bill is a monumental track record, which I was a part of. He has a great track record and decades of public service. But Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have reinvigorated the Democratic Party and our electorate.”
Carson said that while the Congressional Black Caucus had been standing behind President Biden following his disastrous June 27 debate with Donald Trump, he is happy how things turned out.
“Some of my friends in the New Dems and the progressives were pushing him,” Carson said of Biden’s decision to drop his reelection bid. “He made his decision. It was a good decision to let Vice President Harris take the mantle. And now we’re hopeful she will be our next president.”
DNC sets roll call to Michael Jackson hit
When the DNC conducted its ceremonial roll call for Harris to receive the presidential nomination, each state did so to a pop hit. Indiana’s was Gary native Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop ’til You Get Enough.” Rep. Carson announced Indiana’s 88 votes for Harris. The official nomination roll call occurred remotely earlier this month so Harris would qualify for the Ohio ballot.
Biden passes the torch
President Biden made his political farewell address to an emotional throng at the United Center on Monday.
“Are you ready for freedom, democracy and America?” he asked. “Are you ready to elect Kamala Harris and Tim Walz?”
Biden then talked about the Jan. 6 insurrection that occurred just days before his 2021 inauguration.
“Nearly four years ago in winter, on the steps of the Capitol, I raised my hand to swear an oath to you and God to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution,” Biden said. “In front of me was a city surrounded by the National Guard. Behind me, a Capitol that had been overrun by a violent mob. You cannot say you love your country only when you win. At that moment I wasn’t looking to the past; I was looking into the future. I will report, democracy has prevailed, democracy has delivered and now democracy must be preserved.”
He called the November election “a battle for the very soul of America.” Biden also made an impassioned appeal for Harris to be elected his successor.
“During the pandemic, Kamala and I helped keep schools open. We got teachers a raise. We beat the NRA and passed the first common sense gun law in 30 years.”
As for Trump, Biden assailed the former president for calling the United States “a failing nation.”
Biden said, “America is winning. He’s the loser. Let’s elect a former prosecutor and not a convicted felon. Donald Trump is going to understand the power of women in 2024. She will soon be the 47th president of the United States.”
Harris made a surprise appearance at the DNC Monday night, saying, “Joe, thank you for your historic leadership, for your lifetime of service to our nation. We are forever grateful to you. When we fight, we win.”
UAW’s Fain raises the heat
United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain, a Kokomo native who took his career as a Chrysler electrician to take down the leadership of America’s biggest auto union in 2023, told the DNC audience: “I want to say thank you to Joe Biden for making history by walking the picket line for the UAW.
“This election comes down to one question: Which side are you on?” Fain said. “On one side, we have Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, who have stood shoulder to shoulder with the working class. On the other side, we have Trump and Vance, two lap dogs for the billionaire class who only serve themselves. So for us in the labor movement, it’s simple. Kamala is one of us. She’s a fighter for the working class, and Donald Trump is a scab.”
The crowd responded with chants of “Trump’s a scab! Trump’s a scab!”
“In 2019, you know who was on the picket line with auto workers? I’ll give you a clue. Her initials were Kamala Harris,” Fain said. “That’s the difference. Donald Trump is all talk, and Kamala Harris walks the walk. This is our generation’s defining moment. We need a defender of the working class in the White House, and that fighter is the next president of the United States, Kamala Harris.”
McCormick addresses the delegation
Indiana Democratic gubernatorial nominee Jennifer McCormick addressed the Hoosier delegation Wednesday morning. She began by thanking former U.S. Sen. Joe Donnelly for helping her son get a nomination to West Point.
“When the senator was in office, my son was trying to get into different military academies,” she told delegates. “Sen. Donnelly got him into West Point. It truly changed his life. Every time I see you, I want to get emotional. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
McCormick said, “This is a moment in history. Shame on us if we don’t take a moment to reflect on it. This is a big deal in so, so many ways. I challenge us. When we go back, we have got to have the strength we’ve got here to lead our cities, our towns, our counties and the state. We have to have that strength to lead.
“But more importantly, we have to have the courage in Indiana to succeed — to win,” she continued. “Because we are going to win this thing. We are going to win. We are also going to carry back with us the will to take care of ourselves and each other. We are better when we are together. We have to continue to build that momentum. Let’s stay together. I know we are going to break that ceiling at the White House. I know we are. I am going to kick ass and break glass when the lights go down.”
Just before she ended her speech, the lights in the Fairmont room flicked off and back on again.
McCormick sees uptick in union money
After reporting just $700,000 cash on hand at the mid-year reporting deadline in June, Howey Politics Indiana/State Affairs asked Chairman Schmuhl if more union money was headed for the McCormick campaign. “I think so,” he responded.
According to the Indiana Election Division website, McCormick has seen an uptick in union funding. The Indiana Political Action Committee for Education made a $150,000 contribution on Aug. 15 following a $58,000 contribution on Aug. 7. On July 25, Local 157 PAC Fund contributed $10,000.
Schmuhl told Howey Politics Indiana/State Affairs that Republican nominee Mike Braun is vulnerable if McCormick can catch onto any wave Kamala Harris might generate.
“Mike Braun is a sitting U.S. senator who is not doing very well in the polls,” Schmuhl said.
Asked what internal polling is showing, Schmuhl replied, “I can’t get into specifics, but for a sitting United States senator in Indiana in a presidential year, he’s not in terrific shape.”
Schmuhl added that Braun “does not have a ton of money after that bruising primary in May. He is also stuck with a running mate he did not want. He doesn’t have a ton of money in the bank. His polling numbers don’t look great. We have a new energizing boost on our ticket with Kamala, which should drive turnout. That’s a real good mix.”
In large donations in August, the Braun campaign reported the following: Christopher King, $10,000 (Aug. 18); Randolph Seger, $10,000 (Aug. 18); Roger Seger, $10,000 (Aug. 18); Scott Seger, $10,000 (Aug. 18); Duke Energy Indiana, $10,000 (Aug. 18); Ice Miller PAC, $15,000 (Aug. 16); Dentons Bingham Greenebaum LLP, $10,000 (Aug. 16); Elevance Health PAC $10,000 (Aug. 16); Suburban Health PAC $10,000 (Aug. 16); Realty Two, LLC, $20,000 (Aug. 16); Boilermakers Local 374 State and Local PAC, $10,000 (Aug. 15); Friends of Chuck Goodrich, $25,000 (Aug. 14); Caterpillar PAC, $10,000 (Aug. 14); Indiana Victory Committee PAC, $30,356 (Aug. 9); Robert Bowen, $10,000 (Aug. 8); Satish Patel, $10,000 (Aug. 7); Ambassador Enterprises, $10,000 (Aug. 6); Indiana Friends of Rural Electrification, $10,000 (Aug. 6); Jim C. Walton, $50,000 (Aug. 2); Brightmark LLC, $10,000 (Aug. 2); Fred Fehsenfeld, $10,000 (Aug. 2); and dotStaff, $25,000 (Aug. 2).
CHICAGO — Six weeks ago, former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See Joe Donnelly attended a meeting between President Biden and Pope Francis at the G7 Summit in Italy.
“At a table just like this,” Donnelly said, in an exclusive Howey Politics Indiana/State Affairs interview at the Fairmont Chicago while Indiana Democratic National Convention delegates milled about.
“I was the guy who prepared him for that meeting,” the former U.S. senator from Indiana said. “We spent a lot of time together. Everything was focused on how we have a very successful G7. We all got on the plane and said, ‘We’re off to the debate and the convention.’
“And we’re in a different world right now. It’s been an amazing month.”
Within those six weeks, Biden traveled through 17 time zones as he jetted back and forth between the U.S. and Europe, then D.C. and Los Angeles. His shockingly halting performance at the June 27 debate with Republican nominee Donald J. Trump ignited a chain of events. Biden dropped his reelection bid on July 21 and later the same day endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris.
Donnelly called the arduous pre-debate travel “a bad idea.”
“I worried about that,” Donnelly said. “I said to him, ‘You know, you need to take care of yourself.’ Biden responded, ‘I will. Don’t worry about it.’”
Donnelly resigned from his Vatican envoy post in early July, returning to his Granger, Indiana, home, content to be with his family and grandchildren after a two-year stint in Rome.
By the time Donnelly arrived in the Italian capital, Russia had invaded Ukraine. Then last October came the Hamas attacks in Israel, igniting the humanitarian crisis in Gaza that is still shaking worldwide politics.
During Donnelly’s time in Rome, he helped change Pope Francis’s perception that NATO had prompted the Russian invasion of Ukraine. When Gaza flared, he worked to have the pope meet with American hostage families and Gazan refugees.
Here is our exclusive interview with former Ambassador Donnelly:
Q. During your stint as ambassador to the Vatican, you had your hands in Gaza and Ukraine. Walk me through the highlights of your experience.
A. Right before I left for Rome, we met with President Biden — my family and I — and also with Vice President Harris. President Biden said at the end of our meeting, “I hope it’s a quiet time.”
It turned out to be the exact opposite because I was actually sworn in in South Bend on Feb. 15 so they could start giving me the intelligence as to what was going on in Ukraine and Russia. When I got to Rome, it was shortly after the pope had talked about maybe a portion of this was NATO’s fault. Pope Francis is an incredible leader and an incredible person, but NATO had nothing to do with this. This was Vladimir Putin deciding he wanted to take Ukraine because he is a fascist. He’s a modern-day Hitler. That’s who he is. So we were deeply involved in Ukraine from the beginning. I was really pleased that shortly after that the official position of the Vatican became ‘This was an invasion of Ukraine by Russia.’ We were able to get on the same page almost the entire time.
Q. Did you talk about that with the pope personally?
A. The first meeting with the pope was about 45 minutes, and about 40 of it was about Ukraine. He was incredibly well versed. His natural goal is peace and to achieve peace and to try to do it the right way. My job was to say, “Here’s how we think that can be done.” And then we had the horrendous terrorist attack on Gaza. When you think about the church — it’s not the most artful way to put it — the Vatican is where the office is, but the pope is in Jerusalem. That’s where Jesus lived and Jesus worked. That’s where Jesus spent his time. So it is core to everything that the Vatican does. The Vatican has been extremely forward-leaning in solving this, too. So what the ambassador from the United States comes in with is every other nation looks to us to be the leader and provide peace. The Vatican would call me up and say, “Can you come over?” They would say, “Can you help with that issue; can you help with this issue?” They were trying to achieve peace in Gaza, peace in Ukraine. We were able to work together [with the Vatican] to bring one American sister who was held in Central Africa home after she had been kidnapped. So I had an incredibly close relationship on all of these issues.
Q. The pope met with several hostage families. Did you play a role in that?
A. I did. I helped put the meeting together. I met with the pope’s secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, and said how critical I thought it was that the pope see these families. I said, “I’m here for all the families. But as well we have American hostages being held. Those are my folks. We care about everybody and we need the Holy Father to meet with them.” Because when he does, it brings worldwide attention to them and tells their families and it tells Hamas we’re watching. We want to get them home. We want peace. The Holy Father met with the hostage families and then with a group of Palestinians from Gaza, which was also critical. One of the things the secretary of state said to me was, “If the Holy Father meets with the hostage families, he will also want to meet with Palestinian families.” I said, “The United States thinks that’s a wonderful idea as well because we want peace. We want a cease-fire. We want peace in Gaza. We want Palestinian children to have the same hopes and dreams as Americans do.” We care about everybody there.
Q. I had put the Gaza dilemma in Kurt Vonnegut “Slaughterhouse Five” terms: It’s going to be obliterated like Dresden was in World War II. And that’s what has happened. Is there any hope for a truce in Gaza soon?
A. President Biden has put forth peace plan after peace plan. There’s another one on the table as you and I are sitting here. President Biden said last night this is the closest we’ve come. We hope that happens. And then what happens in terms of reconstruction as you mentioned Dresden, countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE and all the Middle Eastern countries will come in. We will help as well and make an effort to try to restore Gaza to a thriving, functioning society where it has its own governance and the people can live in peace.
Q. Let’s turn to domestic politics. Less than a month ago President Biden was seeking reelection. And then came the debate. The group of people I was with when that occurred were aghast. Then last night came his political farewell speech. What kind of emotions and observations do you have?
A. I have been blessed to be a friend of his for a long time. In many ways that developed when we tried to save Chrysler.
Q. I remember when both Vice President Biden and President Obama did that joint appearance at the Kokomo transmission plant in 2009.
A. They both flew into Grissom Air Reserve Base to reopen plants that had been closed during the toughest times. If you remember, many people in the Obama administration didn’t think Chrysler would make it. They were talking about, “We can save GM, and Ford will make it, but we don’t think Chrysler can.” I spoke with the vice president and said, “I think they can make it. Can you at least give them a shot? Let’s put together a plan to give them a shot. If they meet their targets, off they go, and if they don’t, we’ve done everything we can do.” The Obama economic group was about 50/50. I know [Obama Chief of Staff Rahm] Emanuel was extremely helpful. But it was the vice president who said, “Look, if we give them a shot, we make sure we give them a chance, and if they don’t meet their targets, they don’t make it.” So he was a partner in helping Chrysler survive. You look now, Chrysler was down to 100 [employees] at one point. Now it’s 7,000.
Q. Was it bittersweet listening to his political farewell?
A. It was bittersweet, but I looked at him and he gave us everything he had. In terms of saving Chrysler, in terms of the Affordable Care Act, where 20 million Americans now have health care, which includes hundreds of thousands of Hoosiers — Vice President Biden helped put all of that together. He has an economy right now that is the envy of the world. I served overseas. I spent so much time with other countries and their ambassadors. They all said, “Gosh, we wish we had your economy.” He can look back and say, “I made a huge difference.”
Q. You served in the Senate with Kamala Harris for, what, six years?
A. Four years.
Q. What insights do you have into her leadership skills?
A. She is so talented and such a good person. She was everybody’s friend. She was always a leader, wherever she was, as you can see with her questions in committees. She always had time at events where she thanked everyone who helped cook the meals, everybody who helped set up the room. That’s the real test of a person: How do they treat everybody? She’s as good as it gets.
Q. What’s at stake in this election?
A. I just take President Trump at his word. If he says it, he means it. I worry about our democracy. Vice President Harris wants everybody to have a shot, a chance — the chance for everyone to get an amazing education and an amazing job. I’ve always thought one of the big challenges with President Trump was he was always focused on other things instead of the basics.
Q. It’s been a dozen years since Indiana Democrats have won a statewide race when you were elected to the Senate and Glenda Ritz as superintendent of public instruction. What is your advice to the party? I know Chairman Mike Schmuhl said, “You’ve gotta show up,” and he held more than 40 town halls in many red counties.
A. President Trump has been a unique figure in that he’s created so much dedication and support for himself, especially in Indiana. I think when President Trump’s time has concluded, I think people will go, “Let me see what else is out there.” Because so much of it is a personal devotion to President Trump. They care about him, and he certainly has worked hard to create that connection. So I think that changes a little bit. On top of that, when you look at the issues that are important —good jobs, great opportunity — that’s where decisions are going to be made as to who we have lead our state. How have you done in creating better economic opportunities? Have you made it so my kids can get a better education, that our schools are best in the country? When we focus on those things, we can have great success. What Tim Walz said about social issues and there’s such an effort to make those the focus, well, you know, mind your own business. Let’s try to build a community that looks out for everybody.
Q. I’ve long said that American voters have a penchant for making the right decisions at crucial times. Are you confident that will occur in November?
A. I have great faith in Hoosiers and American democracy. And like you said, somehow we tend to figure it out. Thirty years ago the rest of the world was looking at us to lead. Today they are looking to us to lead. I know Kamala Harris well. I have great faith in her grit, her determination, and every decision is made about “How can I help that family who needs help the most?”
“It’s a great day to be from Asheboro and Randolph County, and we’re excited.”
Sen. David W. Craven Jr., R-Randolph, on Wednesday’s national security-themed Trump campaign event. (State Affairs Pro, 8/21/24)
Trump Event
Matthew Sasser, State Affairs Pro, 8/21/24
Domestic and national security was the major theme of Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Asheboro Wednesday afternoon.
Increasing security at the southern border, continuing support for law enforcement and criticizing the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris Administration’s foreign policy were the major cornerstones of addresses from Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance.
“It’s a great day to be from Asheboro and Randolph County, and we’re excited,” Sen. David W. Craven Jr., R-Randolph, said before a litany of speakers took the stage. “We got a beautiful 75-degree day queued up and just going to have a great time out here with 45 and hopefully 47.”
Prior to Trump’s hour and a half speech, former military leaders Keith Kellogg and Edward Reeder Jr., and Randolph County Sheriff Gregory Seabolt, expressed their support for Trump.
“The American people understand that when the world is at peace, when America is respected, that Americans are more safe,” U.S. Congressman Richard Hudson said in an interview prior to his speech. “It’s in our interest to not have wars all over the world.”
Hudson said national security is of paramount importance to North Carolina, including his constituents in and around Fort Liberty, formerly known as Fort Bragg.
About 20 North Carolina Sheriffs joined Trump on stage to begin his address, along with Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson. Trump also recognized North Carolina House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, and Rep. Neal Jackson, R-Moore, for their support.
Trump and Vance keyed in on the September 2021 Biden-Harris Administration decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan. Trump called the decision “humiliating” and a “catastrophe”, with the caveat that he also had plans to withdraw troops, but would have done so with dignity.
Trump said America was respected under his leadership, but the country lost that status under Biden and would only be worsened by Harris, who he coined “Comrade Kamala” numerous times during the event.
“Putin would never have gone into Ukraine, Israel would never have been attacked,” Trump said if he was President over the last four years.
Trump said the admittance of transgender soldiers into the Army and the “purging” of 8,000 Armed Forces members for refusing to receive a COVID-19 vaccine in the last four years have weakened military strength.
“My attitude kept us out of wars,” Trump said. “All over the world, our adversaries knew that America was not to be trifled with when I was your Commander-in-Chief,” he later added.
At multiple opportunities, Trump said America would look more like San Francisco if Harris was to become president. Harris served as San Francisco District Attorney and California Attorney General for seven years each.
“The world is on fire and Kamala and Biden have marched us to the brink of World War Three….” Trump said. “This November, Americans are going to tell Kamala Harris that we’ve had enough, we can’t take it anymore. You’re doing a terrible job …. You’re fired, get out of here.”
Other recent headlines that Trump included in his speech was the revised report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics which indicated there were 818,000 fewer jobs added in the last 12 months than initially reported. Trump credited this error to the Biden Administration.
Trump said his name has been mentioned over 200 times from speakers at the Democratic National Convention, while the economy and border have been mentioned sparsely.
“Our great border czar doesn’t talk about the border, but they mention me more than any other category,” Trump said. “I’m now a category.”
The Trump campaign stop came on the heels of a visit from Kamala Harris on Friday. Her speech primarily zeroed in on economic policy, with a focus on reducing costs in order for Americans of all backgrounds and opportunity levels to succeed.
Voter Registration
Jeremy Alford, State Affairs Pro, 8/21/24
As the Democratic National Convention reaches its midpoint, party architects and advocacy groups across the country are implementing an aggressive voter registration push that’s not only supposed to help Vice President Kamala Harris win the White House through increased turnout, but also create a mandate for the future expansion of voting rights.
Those involved with the ambitious endeavor claim it will be the largest voter mobilization program the Democratic Party has ever seen.
The speeches and events in the Windy City this week have been accompanied by a quiet buzz about the effort — and the subtle shift in registration trends in North Carolina and Pennsylvania, two important presidential swing states.
While these two states have seen more GOP voters than Democrats register since January, the act of Harris replacing President Joe Biden atop the ticket prompted an erosion of those margins.
In North Carolina, Democratic registrations outpaced Republican sign-ups during the week following Biden’s endorsement of Harris.
The same week also gave way to Pennsylvania’s biggest seven-day boost of Democratic voters for this calendar year.
Elsewhere, in less competitive states, there are similar signs of progress for Democrats. In Maine, for example, nearly 4,000 new voters registered last month in the wake of Biden’s decision to step aside. While Maine doesn’t track voters by party, Harris supporters were quick to take credit.
Between convention speeches and during cocktail hours, true believers making their way around Chicago say it’s all just the beginning as Election Day — Nov. 5 — draws closer. “We have already deployed $66 million to support voter outreach in the seven key states that will decide the election,” said Daria Dawson, executive director of America Votes.
Those all-important states include Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
America Votes is tackling these states with a few hundred well-heeled partners, from American Bridge and the AFL-CIO to the American Federation of Teachers and the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.
“Our partners have knocked on over 8 million doors this year, and we are just getting started,” Dawson added. “We have a plan to knock on at least 33 million doors across seven key battleground states — our largest ever voter mobilization program.”
Activists aren’t just knocking on any old doors. There’s a focus on young, first-time voters and communities of color.
While politicos like to point out that these electorates don’t always vote at high levels, a study conducted by Tufts Tisch College found that half of all registered voters aged 18 to 29 voted in the last presidential cycle in 2020, up from just 11% in 2016.
The study serves as a reminder that registering voters is the easy part. Making sure they vote and stay informed and engaged is the real trick.
“Since 2016, we have seen record-breaking turnout in almost every election, driven primarily by young people, women and voters of color,” Dawson said. “Our ‘Spread Out the Vote’ strategy that focuses on educating voters about new opportunities to vote by mail or vote early that have become available since the COVID-19 pandemic has been especially effective in getting low-propensity voters engaged.”
Dawson and her team will get a bit of help on the communications piece from the Harris campaign, which announced over the weekend that it will spend $370 million on advertisements beginning Labor Day that will target the same states as America Votes.
Quentin Fulks, Harris’ deputy campaign manager, and Rob Flaherty, the campaign’s digital director, said the ad strategy is designed to “break through a fragmented media environment and reach the voters who will decide this election.”
Democrats hope the combined effort will not only put Harris in the White House, but help partners win down-ballot races in states like Georgia and North Carolina.
Then there’s the question of what comes after the election, especially one where new voters may play an outsized role.
According to Sophia Lin Lakin, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Voting Rights Project, Harris could have an opportunity to leverage this voter mobilization program and any mandate it delivers to become a pro-voting rights president.
“Vice President Harris has promised to address long-standing challenges and enhance access to the ballot for all eligible voters,” Lakin said. “If she is elected, we will use every tool at our disposal, including litigation, to hold her to these commitments and protect and advance voting rights and fair representation at every level of government.”
To get to that point, all Democrats have to do is win, and more than a few in Chicago this week believe they have the edge.
“The ground game is our greatest advantage,” Dawson said, adding, “Direct voter engagement is the tried-and-true formula that has worked in election after election.”
Academic Review
Korie Dean, The News & Observer, 8/21/24
When new students entered UNC Asheville and UNC Greensboro this fall and began thinking about what to study, they had fewer majors to choose from. That’s because both universities, which are public and part of the 17-campus UNC System, underwent “academic portfolio reviews” last academic year that resulted in programs being cut from the universities’ offerings.
The cuts affected 20 programs at UNCG and five at UNCA, all of which will be phased out over the next few years. While students who previously declared their majors in the affected programs will be able to continue their studies, beginning this fall, new students are no longer being admitted to the programs.
The portfolio reviews came as each university faced mounting budgetary pressures tied to years of declining enrollments. Under a 2022 policy change by the UNC System Board of Governors, campuses in the public university system are funded largely based on their performance on a variety of measures, instead of enrollment growth, but they still receive funding partially based on student credit hours, which can be impacted by overall enrollment numbers.
Now, all universities in the public UNC System will be required to more regularly assess their academic offerings — and potentially make cuts.
The Board of Governors, which sets policy for all campuses in the university system, passed a revised policy mandating the reviews in May. David English, chief academic officer for the UNC System, spoke to The News & Observer about the policy’s implications — including how it could help universities get ahead of major, sweeping cuts like those seen at UNCA and UNCG.
The revised policy, which governs academic program planning for all universities in the system, requires chancellors to review the portfolio of their campuses’ academic programs at least every seven years, if not more often.
“Primary responsibility for quality, efficiency, and productivity of academic degree programs rests at the campus level,” the policy states. The seven-year pace of the required portfolio reviews is new under the revised policy, English said, and brings the UNC System more in line with the practices of other university systems across the country.
Prior to the revision, the length of time between portfolio reviews — or whether the reviews happened at all — varied from campus to campus, English said.
In June, when UNC Asheville Chancellor Kimberly van Noort announced the departments she would eliminate following the university’s portfolio review, she cited a “reluctance to scrutinize and evolve our academic offerings” as a major factor that led to declining enrollment and subsequently necessitated the review.
During the months-long review at UNCG last academic year, students and faculty regularly protested and voiced opposition to the measures.
At a January Board of Governors meeting, Andrew Kelly, the now-former UNC System Senior Vice President for Strategy and Policy, said he believed the lack of regular reviews across the system was one reason the review at UNCG got “so much attention.”
Campuses will be expected to spread the review throughout the seven-year period, which will likely take the form of reviewing groups of programs on a schedule that will avoid all of a university’s programs coming up for review at the seven-year mark. English said that could look like a campus reviewing one-seventh of its programs each year of the seven-year period. “The goal there is that institutions have a better bead on, kind of, what’s working and what’s not earlier in the process,” English said, adding that such assessments could help campuses make targeted interventions to improve recruitment or outcomes in departments that lag others, or help leaders decide which programs they’ll invest in.
An existing requirement calls for the Board of Governors to receive and review reports every two years on the number of students enrolled in and graduating from each academic department. That remains unchanged under the revised policy. But the campus-level reviews will provide more depth, English said, helping campuses understand how all of their programs are performing. “We’re looking for a more robust review of the program dynamics, and not just counts of students and enrollments and graduates,” English said.
Though the reviews all universities undertake will analyze similar metrics to the reviews at UNC Asheville and UNC Greensboro, English cautioned against concluding that the policy-mandated reviews will yield similar results to the ones seen at those schools.
UNCA and UNCG in recent years faced enrollment declines university-wide that led to significant budget deficits, which their respective campus leaders chose to address — at least partially — through portfolio reviews. English said the declines and shortfalls were “very clear, acute” issues specific to those campuses, and the reviews their campus leaders developed “were very germane to their specific instances.”
“Those two institutions were, and are still, reacting to pretty significant institutional dynamics,” English said. “And we don’t see that at every institution.” The revised policy is not designed to be a reaction to “critical” and “emergency” situations, English said.
Still, if another university were, at some point, to face similar issues as those at UNCA and UNCG, the policy could help them remedy the situation, English said. “There’s nothing to say that, you know, another institution couldn’t find itself in a significant enrollment decline or issue,” English said. “But the goal of the policy is to be a little bit more comprehensive and forward-thinking.”
Since the Board of Governors passed the revised policy in May, most of its requirements are already in effect. But each campus and their respective chancellor are required to develop “clearly defined policies, procedures, and schedules” for the reviews and seek approval for the plans from their campus Board of Trustees by Jan. 1, 2025. [Source]
Tax Plans
Colin Campbell, WUNC Radio, 8/21/24
Both candidates for governor, Attorney General Josh Stein and Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, are pledging to cut taxes, but their plans to save people money look a lot different.
Robinson, the Republican candidate, announced what he calls his “10-Point Economic Plan” this month. Item No. 3 on his list is “Cut Taxes for ALL North Carolinians.” Stein has his own set of economic priorities listed on his campaign website, and his list includes “cutting taxes for working families.”
Neither candidate is proposing specific changes to the personal income tax rate at this point. That rate is currently 4.5%, and last year’s budget schedules further decreases for years to come: down to 4.25% next year and eventually to 2.49% by 2034 if the state revenues hit targets set out in state law.
Asked to elaborate on Robinson’s tax cut proposal, campaign spokesman Mike Lonergan told WUNC that “rather than Soviet-style price controls like the Biden-Harris-Stein plan, as governor, Mark Robinson will immediately provide relief by cutting taxes on groceries. He also wants to prioritize eliminating more taxes on veterans benefits.”
Grocery buyers pay a lower sales tax rate than other types of purchases: a 2% tax that funds local governments.
Rep. Ben Moss, R-Richmond, filed legislation last year that would have launched a state study on “the costs and benefits reasonably anticipated from excluding groceries from local sales taxes, including increased purchasing power for lower-income residents of the state and local revenue losses.” The bill drew a bipartisan list of co-sponsors, but it never got a hearing.
Stein’s tax plan, announced back in March, calls for bringing back the state’s earned income tax credit. It was eliminated in 2014 by the GOP-controlled legislature, and legislation filed by Democrats in the years since has gone nowhere. Republican lawmakers say they prefer cutting the tax rate for all income levels rather than targeted tax credits. Stein said his plan would result in a $520 average credit for working families, and families with three children or more would receive a credit of up to $1,486.
“Josh Stein is the only candidate in this race with a proven record of delivering for the people of North Carolina,” campaign spokeswoman Morgan Hopkins said this week. “He has a plan to tackle the high cost of living by cutting taxes and lowering costs, grow the economy, and make sure it works for more people.”
Stein’s campaign announced another tax-related proposal this week: a plan to bring back a sales tax holiday in August that was popular for back-to-school shopping. His campaign said in a press release that he also wants to “provide teachers with a stipend to help cover the out-of-pocket costs of school supplies and invest in free school meals.”
Robinson is looking at the overall income tax rate in addition to his proposal for grocery taxes. “In the coming months, as we have updated revenue forecasts, there will be conversations with lawmakers to hone in on more specific figures like rates — but the bottom line is, as governor, Mark Robinson is committed to keeping up the momentum of fighting wasteful spending and cutting taxes so our economy can thrive,” Lonergan said.
Other aspects of Robinson’s new economic plan include topics the legislature has been addressing recently. One is a ban on central bank digital currency, which is part of a recently vetoed bill that the legislature is in the process of overriding.
Another would prevent state government entities from using “ideologically-driven investing” practices such as environmental, social and governance investing, known as ESG. That’s the practice in which investment managers choose companies based on their policies on environmental and other issues.
The legislature passed restrictions on ESG investing last year, but Lonergan said Robinson wants to do more. “The bill only applies to state pension funds — there are plenty of other state investments to apply these principles to, and as governor Mark Robinson will be looking forward to working with legislative leaders and the state treasurer’s office to continue this work,” Lonergan said.
Other items in Robinson’s proposal include reducing regulations on businesses and investing in higher education, as well as a pledge to “expand technical and apprenticeship programs in K-12” schools.
Stein’s campaign, however, criticizes Robinson’s commitment to career and technical education, pointing to a recent WRAL report detailing the lieutenant governor’s call for the state to reject federal education funding. The state received $43 million in federal funding for career and technical education programs this past school year.
In addition to taxes, Stein’s economic plans include a pledge to increase the minimum wage. Asked exactly how much higher the state’s minimum wage should be, his campaign didn’t respond. His website also says he’ll “champion no-cost community college for students pursuing coursework in our state’s growing, high-demand industries.” [Source]
Public Safety Platforms
Will Doran, WRAL News, 8/21/24
North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson reaffirmed his support for law enforcement, promising to crack down on violent crime, drugs, “and getting criminals off the streets and behind bars where they belong” if elected governor.
Robinson, the Republican gubernatorial nominee, rolled out his proposals for public safety Wednesday. It’s the latest in a string of recent policy statements Robinson has announced — releases that come as his Democratic opponent, Attorney General Josh Stein, paints Robinson as a candidate who has too little experience, and too-extreme views, to be governor.
Both men boast endorsements from various district attorneys, sheriffs, judges and other law enforcement leaders as they seek to prove their bona fides on public safety issues.
Wednesday’s new additions to Robinson’s platform say he’d work to bring back the death penalty — which still exists in North Carolina but hasn’t been used since 2006 — and appoint tough-on-crime judges when given the chance. Judges are elected in North Carolina, but the governor can appoint judges when vacancies arise. In his speech Wednesday in Statesville, Robinson also said he’d push for police officers to crack down more harshly on left-leaning protest movements if he wins the election.
“Radicals who believe in defunding the police, who have rioted and looted across the state and are committing acts of terror, and other acts, on our college campuses — that stops on Day 1 when I am governor,” he said.
Robinson also slammed Stein for “pandering to radical activists that want to defund the police” and supporting a “pro-criminal, anti-law-enforcement agenda.”
Stein co-chaired the state’s Task Force on Racial Equity in Criminal Justice, a committee Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper established in response to the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. Many of that task force’s recommendations — as well as Stein’s 2024 platform for public safety — focus on a combination of better pay and training for law enforcement, along with stricter rules for police conduct and greater accountability for officers who break the rules.
Stein’s public safety platform highlights his track record as attorney general.
“As North Carolina’s chief law enforcement officer since 2017, keeping people safe has been my top priority,” he writes. “That’s why my office has prosecuted and convicted violent criminals, including murderers, rapists, and child sex abusers.” It then goes on to list bipartisan issues he’s worked on with the Republican-led state legislature, including efforts to strengthen child sex crime laws, eliminate a backlog of untested rape kits that have led to the solving of cold cases, and new laws targeting the opioid epidemic.
Stein also points to policing reforms he backed as part of the racial equity task force, writing in his platform: “Because of our work, officers now have a duty to intervene when a colleague uses excessive force and early warning systems for law enforcement agencies help correct officers when they make mistakes.”
“North Carolinians won’t be fooled by Mark Robinson’s press stunt today,” Stein spokeswoman Kate Frauenfelder said Wednesday. “His long and well-reported history of promoting violence and stoking division proves just how unsafe he will make North Carolina.”
Some of the policies Robinson proposed Wednesday are already in place — and also supported by Stein — such as backing the death penalty and backing raises for state law enforcement officers. In recent state budgets, Republican lawmakers have given Highway Patrol officers and prison correctional officers substantially higher raises than other state employees, as those positions struggle with staffing shortages.
On the death penalty, both Stein and Cooper have said they support it, as does Robinson. But Republicans have often blamed Stein and Cooper — who as the state’s current and previous attorneys general have been in charge of all criminal appeals for the past two-plus decades — for not being aggressive enough in pushing for executions.
Stein told WRAL in 2016 during his run for attorney general: “I support the death penalty because I believe that certain crimes are so heinous that it is the appropriate punishment. In implementing it, our justice system must ensure no innocent person is executed and that race does not play a role in who lives or dies.”
His campaign spokeswoman confirmed Wednesday he still holds that belief. [Source]
Campaign Purchases
Sarah Michels, Carolina Public Press, 8/21/24
During Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson’s 2020 campaign, he claimed to spend $2,374 at Lake Outfitters for “campaign clothes and accessories.” The five transactions, recorded on his campaign finance expenditure reports with the State Board of Elections, spanned eight months.
The owners of Lake Gaston Outfitters, located at the recorded address, say those purchases never happened.
“If you actually look at the credit card statements, it’s not our business, so it was just incorrectly attributed to our business,” Owner Dave Blodgett told Carolina Public Press. “We sell kayaks. …We wouldn’t have anything here in our store that he would want.”
The five Lake Gaston Outfitters transactions are part of a larger investigation into Robinson’s 2020 campaign for lieutenant governor. The campaign finance investigation, involving an alleged $500,000 in violations, remains ongoing three and a half years after the initial complaint by Bob Hall, campaign finance watchdog and former editor of Democracy NC.
On Feb. 15, 2021, Hall sent a letter to Karen Brinson Bell, State Board of Elections executive director, identifying a series of potential violations in Robinson’s campaign finance reports.
Chief among them were two cash withdrawals — one for $2,400 and the other for $160. North Carolina law states that campaigns cannot pay for nonmedia expenses greater than $50 in cash. The two withdrawals appear to have been made to the State Employees Credit Union, where Robinson was paying off a loan at the time, according to his 2020 Statement of Economic Interest filed with the State Ethics Commission.
Hall said these cash withdrawals, in addition to the $2,374 reportedly spent at Lake Gaston Outfitters and a $4,500 reimbursement to Robinson’s wife Yolanda Hill for “campaign apparel,” could potentially violate elections law that bans the use of campaign funds for personal benefit.
Other alleged violations include:
More than 25 expenditures without a listed purpose More than 1,400 contributions greater than $50 that do not include the donor’s occupation At least 15 contributions greater than $100 that do not include the donor’s address Three contributions greater than the then-limit of $5,400 per donor Several contributions from federal PACs that were not registered to make contributions in North Carolina A series of $4,000 contributions from family members of hog baron Wendell Murphy Sr. on the same day, which Hall said could potentially constitute an illegal use of business funds. According to North Carolina law, violating the $50 cash expenditure limit, omitting donor information like addresses and occupations and breaking rules on how campaign contributions can be spent are Class 2 misdemeanors.
Candidates or campaign treasurers who certify campaign filings as true if they know they are not may be subject to a Class 1 felony.
Robinson has not publicly explained any of the alleged violations. His campaign did not answer emailed Carolina Public Press questions about the Lake Gaston Outfitters charges and the other allegations in time for publication.
Don Carrington, retired executive editor of the conservative publication, Carolina Journal, said he’s double-checked a number of Hall’s allegations about the Robinson campaign, and all have merit. Carrington said sometimes the little things, like the Lake Gaston Outfitters charges, help investigators uncover larger issues.
“The campaign could have explained that if it was just an error and it was spent somewhere else,” Carrington said. “ That is very specific, so why can’t you straighten that up?”
Hall doesn’t know where the logjam in the investigation is, but he knows it’s ongoing. According to State Board policy, complainants are notified if an investigation is closed. Hall said he wouldn’t be informed if his complaint were referred from the State Board of Elections to another agency or prosecutor, though.
Carrington also doesn’t think the length is normal, and said it’s “unfortunate” that the State Board of Elections hasn’t finished addressing the complaint yet.
The State Board has less staff than it did four or five years ago, said Ann Webb, policy director of Common Cause, a grassroots organization whose goal is to strengthen democracy through government accountability and transparency. “That can be seen in the challenges that the State Board is having in quickly investigating campaign finance issues, in responding to calls from the public for support, responding to enormous numbers of public records requests,” she said.
In recent years, the state legislature has changed campaign finance investigation rules.
The State Board of Elections no longer conducts a public investigative hearing. Investigations are completely confidential. The Board must refer its findings to the State Ethics Commission before referring a case to a district attorney. Under pre-2018 rules, Hall said the investigation would have been resolved by now.
During an initial investigation, State Board staff may gather additional documents, conduct interviews and audit campaign finance reports.
Campaign finance wrongdoing doesn’t necessarily rise to the level of criminality, though it can, Carrington said. “There’s a lot of other factors — other people would have to be involved — before it moves to something more serious that could jeopardize (Robinson’s) position as governor (if he were elected),” Carrington said.
Under current law, if the State Board decides the allegations have enough merit for a criminal campaign finance violation, the board refers the case to the State Ethics Commission. The commission then has 90 days to investigate and make a confidential recommendation to the Board on whether they should refer the case to the Wake County district attorney, in the case of governor or lieutenant governor campaigns.
The district attorney can then choose whether to prosecute the case. If the DA does not act in 45 days, any registered voter in the district or board of elections can petition a superior court to appoint a special prosecutor in the case.
Noncriminal violations may be resolved through public reprimands, fines or other civil remedies. If enough evidence exists to support a civil penalty, the State Board would conduct a public hearing, its policy states. [Source]
Competitive Seats
Richard Craver, Greensboro News & Record, 8/21/24
None of the Triad and northwest North Carolina’s 24 N.C. House and 10 N.C. Senate districts are projected to play a role in potentially ending the Republican super-majorities during the 2024 general election, according to the nonpartisan political research analysis group NCFree.
The group listed last week 10 House and three Senate races that are the most possible to flip. NCFree said Democrats have a better chance at ending the super-majority in the House than the Senate.
Republicans hold a 72-48 advantage in the House and a 30-20 margin in the Senate — the bare minimum for a super-majority at full attendance. Ending either or both super-majorities would be pivotal for the agenda of potential Democratic governor Josh Stein.
Three Guilford County House representatives — Democrat Ashton Wheeler Clemmons (District 57) and Republicans Jon Hardister (District 59) and John Faircloth (District 62) — have announced retirement plans this year.
Alan Branson was appointed to Hardister’s seat on April 10, while Tracy Clark was appointed to Clemmons’ seat on Aug. 6. A replacement has not been selected to replace Faircloth, who announced his retirement plans Thursday.
“We wouldn’t consider House District 62 within the range of swing districts,” said Alex Baltzegar, NCFree’s executive director.
The lone Forsyth County legislator retirement announcement during the 2024 session involves Republican Joyce Krawiec in Senate District 31. Krawiec will retire at the end of her term. Republican Dana Caudill Jones is competing against Democrat Ronda Mays in the general election. Jones is the former chairwoman of the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Board of Education.
NCFree said Democrats need to win four out of 10 competitive state House races to break the Republican supermajority. House Republicans have publicly committed to spending $5.28 million on these 10 races, while Democrats have not publicly announced their targets or how much they will be spending.
As expected, the House seat under the most scrutiny is District 105, held by Republican Tricia Cotham, who is competing against Democrat Nicole Sidman. The April 5, 2023, switch by Cotham from Democrat to Republican proved to be the most influential factor of the 2023-24 General Assembly sessions.
Baltzegar said District 105 “is expected to be a nail biter” even though Republicans repaid Cotham for switching parties through the 2023 redistricting process to one more Republican-leaning.
The other competitive House races listed by NCFree are:
District 5 (Pasquotank County): GOP Rep. Bill Ward vs. Democrat Howard Hunter District 24 (Nash County): GOP Rep. Ken Fontenot vs. Democrat Dante Pittman District 25 (Nash): GOP Rep. Allen Chesser vs. Democrat Lorenza Wilkins District 32 (Granville County): GOP Rep. Frank Sossamon vs. Democrat Bryan Cohn District 35 (Wake County): open seat between Democrat Evonne Hopkins vs. GOP Mike Schietzelt District 37 (Wake): GOP Rep. Erin Pare vs. Democrat Safiyah Jackson District 48 (Scotland County): Democrat Rep. Garland Pierce vs. GOP Ralph Carter District 98 (Mecklenburg): open seat between Democrat Beth Gardner Helfrich vs. GOP Melinda Bales District 115 (Buncombe County): Democrat Rep. Lindsey Prather vs. GOP Ruth Smith The three competitive Senate races listed by NCFree are:
District 7: GOP Sen. Michael Lee vs. Democrat David Hill District 11: GOP Sen. Lisa Barnes vs. James Mercer District 18: open seat between Democrat Rep. Terence Everitt and GOP Ashlee Adams. [Source]
Roll Call Song
Josh Shaffer, The News & Observer, 8/21/24
When the roll call finally reached states that start with “N,” North Carolina introduced itself to the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday night with a revved-up Tar Heel anthem.
“Raise Up” by Petey Pablo, a Greenville-born rapper, whose 2001 hit rang out through Chicago’s United Center while North Carolina took its turn in the roll call. State party chair Anderson Clayton shouted to be heard over its raucous beat.
“I have the honor of serving as the youngest state party chair in the country,” she told the nation with “Raise Up” playing in the background, “and North Carolina is the home of folks like Anthony Hamilton …” The Grammy-winning R&B singer from Charlotte bobbed behind her as she called out his name ahead of former Gov. Jim Hunt, Bishop William Barber II and Nina Simone.
“We represent a new South,” Clayton proclaimed as she delivered North Carolina’s 131 votes.
The DNC roll call offered a flamboyant departure from policy speeches as each state rolled out a signature song blasted from a DJ’s turntable. Pablo was recently selected to join the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame’s 132 artists, which also includes Taylor, Simone, Earl Scruggs and Big Daddy Kane. “Raise Up,” with its call-and-response lyrics, has a history of representing North Carolina. It was chosen as the Carolina Hurricanes’ goal celebration song in 2018. [Source]
DNC Cuts
Mary Helen Moore, The News & Observer, 8/21/24
Durham Mayor Leonardo Williams was scheduled to speak on stage at the Democratic National Convention this week, but — like singer James Taylor — got bumped because of time constraints. Williams is part of North Carolina’s delegation in Chicago for the convention, where Vice President Kamala Harris will accept the presidential nomination Thursday night.
After Monday night’s speeches ran past midnight Eastern time, organizers said they were revising the rest of the week’s programming. Gov. Roy Cooper remains on the schedule Thursday evening, shortly before Harris gives her acceptance speech, a source told The News & Observer.
It’s not the Durham mayor’s first time on the national political stage. He and his wife, who own the restaurant Zweli’s, were invited guests of President Joe Biden at a presidential debate in 2020. It is his first time as a convention delegate, though.
Williams told The N&O he recorded a video message inside the United Center on Wednesday morning that will be released.
Williams isn’t the only person with North Carolina ties bumped from the lineup. Singer-songwriter James Taylor, who grew up in Chapel Hill, didn’t perform on the first night because of time constraints. Taylor wrote on social media that he was going to perform “You’ve Got a Friend” — his first No. 1 hit — with cello accompaniment and several other vocalists. “Anyway, sorry to disappoint. But a great and inspirational, quintessentially American moment. We were honored to be there,” Taylor said in the post. [Source]
Racial Bias
Aaron Sánchez-Guerra, WUNC Radio, 8/21/24
Hasson Bacote was charged with murder when he was 21 years old and sentenced to death in 2009. Fifteen years later, lawyers are arguing on his behalf that racial bias led to his death sentence. If successful, he’ll be taken off death row and sentenced to life in prison instead. The case could also have implications for more than 100 other death row prisoners with pending claims under the North Carolina Racial Justice Act.
“This is going to be a significant decision, and it would have persuasive authority for other judges, we would hope,” said Gretchen Engel, executive director of the Center for Death Penalty Litigation. “I would think that this would be something that Governor Cooper would take notice of.”
Closing arguments began Wednesday morning at the Johnston County courthouse in Smithfield. Defense lawyers argue that there was “no mercy” for Bacote, now 38. He faced a mostly white jury, white prosecutors, a white judge, and a jury in which Black people were kept out due to alleged instances of racial bias. The hearings began in February.
His legal team says some of those examples include the use of racist epithets and tropes to justify the exclusion of Black jurors, and racist language used by prosecutors.
The defense has argued that Bacote grew up impoverished and disenfranchised, surrounded by violence as a youth before he was charged with murder in the drug-related shooting of 18-year-old Anthony Surles.
“We have white prosecutors standing in front of overwhelmingly white juries comparing Black defendants facing the death penalty to animals – ‘mad dogs,’ ‘hyenas,’ ‘predators of the African plain,'” said Henderson Hill, senior counsel for the ACLU, in a statement. “The racism in North Carolina’s application of the death penalty is so clear it’s blinding.”
Under the Racial Justice Act enacted in 2009, capital defendants could be re-sentenced to life if their defense proves there was racial bias in their case.
Four other defendants in North Carolina had their cases heard in 2012 and were re-sentenced to life. The law was repealed by the North Carolina Supreme Court in 2013 — but the state court ruled in 2020 that claims brought under the Racial Justice Act are still valid.
Bacote’s legal team includes the ACLU’s Capital Punishment Project, the Center for Death Penalty Litigation, and the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund.
They point out the disproportionate rate at which the case’s prosecutor struck Black people from the jury compared with white people. In an analysis of more than 170 capital cases in the state, Black people were more likely to be removed during jury selection processes than white people at a two-to-one ratio, according to Durham attorney Jay Ferguson, who testified in court Wednesday.
Prosecutors have struck Black jurors in North Carolina before due to reasons like NAACP membership, connections to historically black colleges, and living in majority-Black neighborhoods, while claiming such reasons were ‘race-neutral,’ according to the ACLU.
Superior Court Judge Wayland Sermons could reach a decision in Bacote’s case as soon as Wednesday or later this month, according to Engel. [Source]
County Commissioners
The Warren Record, 8/21/24
Warren County Commissioner Tare “T” Davis was sworn in on Aug. 10 as president of the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners during the 117th NCACC Annual Conference held in Winston-Salem.
Davis is the first county commissioner from Warren County to hold the position, which is chosen by peers from 100 counties across the state. More than 400 county commissioners, officials, staff, and others attended the three-day conference, which included workshops on county issues with nationally known speakers, and offered networking opportunities.
After being sworn in as president, Davis unveiled his presidential initiative, “Heroic Hands: Celebrating Public Service,” which focuses on honoring the dedication of North Carolina public service organizations and their workers, including emergency medical services employees, firefighters, teachers, law enforcement officers, public health and social services workers, public works and parks and rec employees, and all others who make things run every day.
Davis has been a county commissioner for almost a decade. Currently, he is campaigning to win the state Senate seat representing District 2, which includes Warren, Halifax, Carteret, Chowan, Hyde, Martin, Pamlico, and Washington counties.
In addition to Davis, the Association’s executive officers for 2024-25 include the following county commissioners: Wallace Nelson, Perquimans County, president-elect; Allen Thomas, Hoke County, first vice president; Todd McNeill, Ashe County, second vice president; Johnnie Carswell, Burke County, immediate past president. [Source]
Wolfspeed Cuts
Brian Gordon, The News & Observer, 8/21/24
The Durham semiconductor manufacturer Wolfspeed plans to close its 150-millimeter production facility near Research Triangle Park as the chipmaker faces capital constraints amid a rough year on Wall Street.
“We believe these actions can deliver meaningful cost reductions,” Wolfspeed CEO Gregg Lowe told investors during a call Wednesday. Wolfspeed said it “will be providing more detail” around the planned factory closure at its next earnings call in November.
The company employs around 4,500 people worldwide, most based in North Carolina. Formerly called Cree, Wolfspeed is the world’s leading producer of a unique type of semiconductor chip made from silicon carbide.
The factory it plans to shutter is located at its headquarters just outside RTP. President Joe Biden toured the location during a visit in March 2023.
Construction continues to progress in Siler City, Lowe told investors, noting the promised 1,800 facility is on schedule to deliver 200-millimeter wafers to the Mohawk Valley site by next summer.
Investors appeared to respond favorably to Wolfspeed’s decision to close its Durham production factory as the company’s share price rose 9% after the market closed. In another bit of optimistic news for the company, Lowe said Wolfspeed is negotiating final terms to receive federal funding through the CHIPS Act, which set aside $52 billion in grants for domestic producers of semiconductors and created a federal tax credit to subsidize projects like the new Siler City factory.
Under the CHIPS Act, eligible manufacturers could receive an investment tax credit to cover 25% of project costs. Wolfspeed has committed to invest $5 billion at its new facility in western Chatham County, nicknamed “the JP” after the company’s late cofounder John Palmour. Out of the more than $1 billion Wolfspeed could receive through this tax credit, Lowe said Wednesday the company has already accrued roughly $640 million. [Source]
School Advocacy
Mebane Rash, Education NC, 8/21/24
Boards of Education and advocates across North Carolina are using different strategies to urge the legislature to prioritize public schools.
School boards from eight districts are calling on lawmakers to make meaningful investments in teacher pay and increase funding for public schools, according to a press release by the Office of the Governor, including:
Bladen County Schools Buncombe County Schools Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Gates County Schools Jackson County Schools Roanoke Rapids Graded School District Wayne County Schools Wilson County Schools The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) Board of Education and the Chatham County Schools Board of Education sent letters to legislative leaders requesting a 5% salary increase for teachers. The CMS Board is urging people to sign this petition, titled “North Carolina Stop the Teacher Pay Cut.”
These requests are in addition to the bipartisan calls last year from education leaders in more than 35 school districts for the General Assembly to invest in public schools, says the press release.
The North Carolina School Boards Association has launched a campaign “to build support for public schools as a bedrock benefit for every North Carolinian.”
The campaign — “Public Education Does the Public Good” — says supporting public schools is a nonpartisan priority. “Thriving public schools uplift society as a whole, no matter what type of education fits your family’s needs,” Jennifer Thompson, president of NCSBA’s Board of Directors, said in a press release. “Public education was a cornerstone of the foundation of America for many reasons. Everyone benefits from a strong public school system. We all need to support our public schools.”
Their campaign includes a new publiceducationmatters.org website, social media, videos, and billboards across North Carolina.
Last month, the North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE) also launched a campaign, “We Love Public Schools.” The campaign includes local visits from NCAE President Tamika Walker Kelly to discuss the importance of public schools and why public support matters. Higher Ed Works has rebranded as Public Ed Works. “Public Ed Works supports a strong, well-funded public education system from Pre-K through college that will enable North Carolina to increase postsecondary attainment,” says its website. It is investing in billboards across the state supporting teacher pay increases. And the Freedom Hill Coalition — 15 organizations working to “make sure that all children in North Carolina are receiving the high-quality education that they deserve” — just launched its “REPRESENT” campaign last week.
Gov. Roy Cooper declared 2024 as the Year of Public Schools and has been visiting public schools and early childhood education programs across the state calling for investments in K-12 education, early childhood education, and teacher pay.
When the General Assembly adjourned in June 2024, its adjournment resolution outlined future meeting dates and what could be discussed during each session. According to that resolution, the General Assembly cannot discuss budget adjustments until Nov. 19-22. [Source]
Air Quality
Santiago Ochoa, WFDD Radio, 8/20/24
North Carolina has two years to meet a set of air quality standards passed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in February. Officials say the state is on track to meet the new regulations. The EPA’s ruling tightened ambient air quality standards for the smallest type of contaminants humans breathe, fine particulate matter.
During an online presentation on Monday, John Navarro, an environmental specialist for the state Department of Environmental Quality said North Carolina is already close to meeting the new standard.
According to Navarro, 19 of the state’s 21 air quality monitors report figures below the new federal minimum. The two that don’t are located in Davidson and Mecklenburg counties, which were skewed by heavy smoke from the 2023 Canadian wildfires. Despite this, Navarro said the state can appeal the EPA to disregard the anomaly.
“The exceptional events demonstration for both monitors will clearly show that for North Carolina, the Canadian wildfire smoke negatively impacted our monitors, altering their design value and they are out of our state’s control and they met all terms of that definition,” Navarro said.
Referred to as PM2.5 for being less than two-and-a-half microns in diameter, this type of air pollutant is emitted by both man-made sources like car exhausts and natural ones like smoke from wildfires.
According to the EPA, long-term exposure to heightened levels of fine particulate matter can lead to shortness of breath and heart conditions. Before last winter, the federal ambient air quality standard for PM2.5 was set to 12 micrograms per cubic meter (µg/m3) of air. Now that number is 9 µg/m3. [Source]
Cumberland Priorities
Evey Weisblat, CityView, 8/20/24
The Cumberland County Board of Commissioners on Monday unanimously approved submitting Cumberland County’s state legislative goals to the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners, which will decide whether to consider advocating for them in the state legislature next year.
Counties submit goals every two years in the lead-up to the North Carolina General Assembly’s long session. The next long session starts in January 2025. Cumberland’s goals, which were first presented at the board’s Aug. 6 agenda session, cover a wide range of topics, including the environment, public health, public education and public safety.
Notably, the county’s priorities include asking the state legislature for funding for clean water and to pass regulations for companies that produce PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. The county also expressed its support for the “concept of holding the chemical companies financially responsible for the cleanup and mitigation of these contaminants from water and wastewater, including landfill leachate.” In Cumberland County, chemical manufacturer Chemours and its predecessor, Dupont, dumped toxic chemicals into the Cape Fear River for decades, contaminating the drinking water of hundreds of thousands of people in Fayetteville and the surrounding areas.
The two other environmental goals pertain to recycling and disposal. One is to increase the percentage of funding that counties receive as part of the state’s scrap tire tax and disposal program. The state levies a 1-2% tax on tire sales, which local governments receive and use to cover the costs of collecting, transporting and processing scrap tires. Counties currently receive 70% of those funds on a per capita basis, with 30% being sent to the state’s general fund. Cumberland County is asking the state to up the percentage counties receive.
Similarly, the county is asking for additional funding to support counties’ electronics recycling programs, noting that “not all manufacturers participate as they should, and requirements in the current law may be difficult to enforce with these manufacturers.”
The county has one ask for education: for the state of North Carolina to “increase capital funding and the percentage of lottery proceeds appropriated to address school construction and facility needs.” Cumberland County received $21.9 million in funds for education programming from the North Carolina Education Lottery in 2023. According to lottery officials, about $3.9 million of those funds went to school construction and repair and renovation projects.
As for public health, the county is hoping for the state to increase its level of recurring local public health funding. Overall, the county is asking for the state to support counties by giving $15 million in recurring appropriations to local health departments specifically “to enhance and spread public health interventions that address the mental health crisis in North Carolina.”
On the public safety front, commissioners are asking for increased state funding for the Emergency Management Division of the N.C. Dept. of Public Safety, where federal funding covers “more than 80% of workforce salaries.” Having regular state funding for the salaries can help ensure the division can maintain its workforce and capabilities, regardless of federal funding fluctuations, the county argues.
The county is also asking for increased financial compensation for volunteer fire departments. [Source]
Arts Grants
News Release, 8/21/24
The North Carolina Arts Council announced Wednesday $11.5 million in grant awards for Fiscal Year 2024–25. Three hundred sixty-six grant awards will support nonprofit arts organizations, schools, after-school programs, municipalities, and artists in all 100 counties this year. The grants range from $5,000 to $338,000.
“The arts benefit North Carolinians of all ages,” said Gov.Roy Cooper. “These grants will enrich our communities as well as grow their economies throughout all one hundred counties.”
Funding priorities this year include organizations and projects that:
Emphasize community outreach and audience engagement Improve organizational capacity and capabilities Connect K–12 students with artists in a range of disciplines, notably the traditional arts of North Carolina Foster public-private partnerships that leverage state and federal funding with local support Provide outreach to military service men and women, veterans, and their families “The record number of applications we received this grant cycle signals that artists are inspiring audiences and producing arts experiences that make our state a wonderful place to live, work, and visit,” said Jeff Bell, the Arts Council’s executive director. “I thank Governor Cooper and the General Assembly for championing our arts and culture sector. The arts deliver more than $2 billion in economic impact annually to our state and are a powerful tool to uplift entire communities.”
As part of its funding process, the agency convened panels of reviewers with knowledge of different arts disciplines as well as community-building expertise.
This year’s grant awards significantly increase the N.C. Arts Council’s investment in small and mid-sized arts organizations. Eighty-five new organizations are receiving flexible funding through an expanded category called Sustaining Support, more than doubling the agency’s investment in work that promotes stability and sustainability in the arts sector. For a complete list of FY2024-25 grant recipients, visit https://www.ncarts.org/fy2024-25
School Awards
News Release, 8/21/24
Wednesday, Gov. Roy Cooper announced the 2024-2025 application period for the North Carolina Recognizing Inspiring School Employees (RISE) Award is underway. The award, passed by Congress in 2019 and overseen by the U.S. Department of Education, honors classified school employees who provide exemplary service.
“School employees are the backbone of our education system,” said Cooper. “They work tirelessly behind the scenes to support students, teachers, and families. This is a wonderful opportunity to recognize the unsung heroes of North Carolina schools and the crucial work that they do every day.”
For the purposes of the award, a classified school employee is defined as an employee of a state or any political subdivision of a state, or an employee of a nonprofit entity, who works in any grade from pre-kindergarten through high school in any of the following occupational specialties: paraprofessional, clerical and administrative services, transportation services, food and nutrition services, custodial and maintenance services, security services, health and student services, technical services, and skilled trades.
The two winners in North Carolina will be nominated to the U.S. Department of Education by November 1st. The U.S. Secretary of Education will select a single classified school employee from among the nominees to receive the RISE Award in the spring. The Office of the Governor of North Carolina will honor nominees and finalists. In addition, the U.S. Department of Education will recognize the honoree and communicate their story in order to inspire excellence among classified school employees.
Mail Medication
Anne Blythe, NC Health News, 8/22/24
As periods of extreme heat become more common in North Carolina and across the country, and global heat records keep getting shattered, public policymakers are paying more attention to the impact of climate change on health.
The National Integrated Heat Health Information System released the first National Heat Strategy earlier this month; it acknowledges the public health threat of the rising temperatures and recognizes the need to develop plans and policies that help curb the negative consequences of the “leading weather-related killer.”
A related topic that has been gaining attention only recently is the impact that extreme heat can have on prescription medications in transit — especially when those pharmaceuticals are delivered through mail-order shipments. The New York Times highlighted the issue earlier this month.
Jay Campbell, executive director of the North Carolina Board of Pharmacy, told NC Health News that he has received a spate of calls recently about the subject. “This seems to be primarily an issue that comes up for your mail-order pharmacies,” Campbell said.
State law requires pharmacies operating outside North Carolina that ship, mail or deliver a prescription medication approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration to register with the state pharmacy board and ensure that a pharmacist is working with them and meets state licensure requirements.
Those pharmacies have the responsibility of the safe transport of the drugs, but a study published in Journal of the American Pharmacists Association raised questions about the fluctuation of temperatures during transit. Researchers sent packages with data loggers inside them between New Jersey, California and Tennessee during different seasons and found that the parcels stayed within suitable temperature ranges only about a third of the time.
Extreme temperatures can degrade the effectiveness of medications, whether it is through evaporation of liquid, changing the pressure of aerosols or alteration of other components of drugs.
If packages contained temperature monitoring devices, they could alert the recipient to any abnormalities along the way, advocates for reform say.
Federal law does not require such devices, and North Carolina law, Campbell said, prevents the state from requiring anything more restrictive than “federal statutes or regulations governing the delivery of prescription medications by mail or common carrier.”
“It seems to me that there’s a good public safety argument in requiring that temperature sensitive drugs have some sort of warning in their packaging,” Campbell said.
Penny Shelton, executive director of the North Carolina Association of Pharmacists, said her organization has spent the past couple of years focusing on a bill that would revise pharmacy benefits manager provisions in state law. In recent years, Shelton said, the state has been losing pharmacies. One hundred have closed in North Carolina since 2022, she added, a trend she says is related to the topic they are trying to get lawmakers to give more attention.
The House passed HB246 unanimously in April 2023, but the proposal has stalled in the Senate.
That bill is not directly linked to the issue about transport of pharmaceuticals during extreme heat, but it could have an impact on part of the problem. Health plans contract with or, in some cases, own pharmacy benefit managers. The managers are intermediaries that administer the pharmacy benefit aspects of a person’s health insurance. That often leaves the patient with little choice over where they get their medications. Many pharmacy benefits managers only offer mail-order providers, a practice referred to as “steering.”
“It’s not that we don’t think that’s important,” Shelton said about temperature monitoring devices in pharmaceutical packaging. “We do. But we think patients should have a choice about their pharmacies. We have a number of legislative issues we’re fighting for.” [Source]
Homeless Shelter
Bradley George, WUNC Radio, 8/21/24
Wake County is moving forward with plans to open a drop-in shelter in North Raleigh for people who are experiencing homelessness. The Board of County Commissioners voted unanimously Monday to buy a former AT&T cellular switching center at 5010 Second Street, near the intersection of Millbrook Road and Old Wake Forest Road.
“We did not just want a building,” said deputy housing director Morgan Mansa. “We wanted something that spoke well to the existing neighborhood. We wanted something that was close to transportation and grocery stores and other resources that individuals who are here may need.”
Mansa said there’s a need for more shelter space, since the number of people without permanent housing in Wake County doubled between 2019 and last year. She cited a 2023 housing study, which showed the amount of shelter space in Wake County declined during the COVID-19 pandemic, even though the need for beds increased. The county has opened “White Flag” shelters during extreme heat and cold, but Mansa said the drop-in shelter will be a permanent solution.
Once the sale is finalized, the county will partner with community organizations to renovate the building and operate the shelter, which will have up to 98 beds. Mark Edmondson, a real estate specialist for Wake County, said the 9,000-square-foot building meets the standards for a shelter.
Purchase of the building will cost Wake County $1.6 million. Converting the building into the shelter is projected to cost $6.8 million, with an opening date in the spring or summer of 2025. Mansa said the City of Raleigh and other partners have expressed a willingness to contribute to the project. [Source]
Wilmington Surveillance
Brenna Flanagan, Port City Daily, 8/21/24
The Wilmington City Council assented Tuesday night to the Wilmington Police Department’s request for new surveillance equipment that has a history of raising privacy concerns. The first item on the docket was a five-year agreement with Axon Enterprise to upgrade and add to WPD’s in-car cameras, along with the installation of the Fususe Enterprise System. The safety intelligence system uses cameras in public locations to capture video and communicate with police in real time.
The entire agreement totals $3,662,333 to be spread across the five-year contract. It passed with unanimous consent Tuesday, though council member David Joyner was absent.
The WPD has been using the Axon cameras for the last five years. They outfitted 128 vehicles, but this contract will allow them to be placed in almost all police cars and some specialty vehicles, totaling 220 vehicles.
WPD’s Capt. Rodney Dawson was present Tuesday to further explain the request. He said Axon cameras will allow the department to livestream and use automatic license-plate readers to find wanted people.
Earlier this year, Axon acquired the Fusus Enterprise System, which integrates video surveillance from cooperating area businesses, government facilities, residences, data analytics and communication tools. The Fusus system has been gaining popularity across the country, being used in over 150 jurisdictions, but not without controversy.
Proponents of the technology claim Fusus streamlines the video acquisition process, obtaining data police would already be requesting, in an effort to solve more crimes quickly. Detractors raise privacy concerns that can come with unfettered access to cameras across a city. [Source]
Coke Dividends
David Mildenberg, Business NC, 8/21/24
Charlotte-based Coca-Cola Consolidated is making a major shift in how it treats its shareholders. The company is boosting its quarterly dividend fivefold, from 50 cents to $2.50, starting with the November payout.
Separately, the company is planning a $1 billion share repurchase plan, at management’s discretion.
“The progress we’ve made improving our profitability and strengthening our balance sheet allows us to reinvest in our business and our teammates while taking steps to build long-term value for our stockholders,” CEO J. Frank Harrison III said in a release. The move aligns with the company’s “commitment to return cash to our stockholders over time.”
Last November, Harrison noted that Coca-Cola Consolidated’s cash exceeded its outstanding debt balance for the first time in nearly 40 years. That reflects the strong cash flow and profitability at the company, which sells more than 300 brands and operates in 14 states and the District of Columbia.
Coca-Cola Consolidated had paid a 25-cent quarterly dividend since 1994 before doubling the payout in 2023. It also paid special dividends of $3.50 per share in 2023 and $16.50 per share in 2024.
While publicly traded, Coca-Cola Consolidated has been controlled by the Harrison family for generations. The company reported net income of $408 million in 2023 with revenue of $6.6 billion. Shares have gained 255% in the past five years, the third-best performance among North Carolina-based public companies, behind First Citizens Bancshares and Old Dominion Freight. The company has a market cap of $11.3 billion. Atlanta-based Coca-Cola, the giant company that supplies its affiliated bottlers such as Coca-Cola Consolidated, has had a 50% return over the five-year period, including dividends. [Source]
1 p.m. | Agriculture and Forestry Awareness Study Commission, Ed Emory Auditorium, Kenansville.
N.C. Government Meetings and Hearings BOLD ITEMS ARE NEW LISTINGS
Thursday, Aug. 22
9 a.m. | North Carolina State Ports Authority – August Board of Directors Meeting, 2202 Burnett Blvd. Wilmington. 10 a.m. | North Carolina Human Trafficking Commission – General Commission Meeting, NC Judicial Center, 901 Corporate Center Drive, Raleigh. Tuesday, Aug. 27
1 p.m. | Coastal Resources Commission Meeting, Beaufort Hotel 2440 Lennoxville Road, Beaufort. Wednesday, Aug. 28
9 a.m. | Coastal Resources Commission Meeting, Beaufort Hotel 2440 Lennoxville Road, Beaufort. 10 a.m. | North Carolina Rules Review Commission – Rules Review Commission Meeting, 1711 New Hope Church Road, Raleigh. 1 p.m. | NC Global TransPark Authority – Executive Committee Meeting, 2780 Jetport Road, Kinston.
Tuesday, Sept. 3
1:30 p.m. | The Accountability Committee of The North Carolina Partnership for Children meets, The meeting will be held via Zoom. You may contact Yvonne Huntley at 984.221.1242 or email at [email protected] for additional information. Friday, Sept. 6
10 a.m. | The Finance and Audit Committee of The North Carolina Partnership for Children meets, The meeting will be held via Zoom. You may contact Yvonne Huntley at 984.221.1242 or email at [email protected] for additional information. Tuesday, Sept. 10
8:30 a.m. | The Fund Development Committee of The North Carolina Partnership for Children meets, The meeting will be held via Zoom. You may contact Yvonne Huntley at 984.221.1242 or email at [email protected] for additional information. Tuesday, Sept. 17
10 a.m. | The North Carolina Partnership for Children Board of Directors meets. You may contact Yvonne Huntley at 984.221.1242 or email at [email protected] for additional information.
UNC Board of Governors 23 S. WEST STREET, SUITE 1800, RALEIGH
Wednesday, Sept. 11
Meeting of the Board of Governors, TBA. Thursday, Sept. 12
Meeting of the Board of Governors, TBA. Thursday, Oct. 17
Meeting of the Board of Governors, TBA. Wednesday, Nov. 13
Meeting of the Board of Governors, TBA. Thursday, Nov. 14
7 p.m. | Public Witness Hearing – Application for General Rate Increase for Piedmont Natural Gas Company, Inc. | G-9 Sub 837 Monday, Aug. 26
6:30 p.m. | Public Witness Hearing – Application for General Rate Increase for Piedmont Natural Gas Company, Inc. | G-9 Sub 837 Monday, Sept. 16
1 p.m. | Public and Expert Witness Hearing – Application Pursuant to G.S. 62-133.2 and Commission Rule R8-55 relating to Fuel and Fuel-related Charge Adjustments for Electric Utilities | E-2 Sub 1341 1 p.m. | Public and Expert Witness Hearing – Application pursuant to G.S. 62-133.9 and Commission Rule R8-69 for Approval of Demand-Side Management and Energy Efficiency Cost Recovery Rider | E-2 Sub 1342 1 p.m. | Public and Expert Witness Hearing – Application Pursuant to G.S. 62-133.8 and Commission Rule R8-67 for Approval of CEPS Compliance Report and CEPS Cost Recovery Rider | E-2 Sub 1343 1 p.m. | Public and Expert Witness Hearing – Application pursuant to G.S. 62-110.8 and Commission Rule R8-71 for Approval of CPRE Compliance Report and CPRE Cost Recovery Rider | E-2 Sub 1344 1 p.m. | Public and Expert Witness Hearing – Application pursuant to G.S. 62-133.2 and Commission Rule R8-70 relating to Joint Agency Asset Cost Recovery Rider | E-2 Sub 1345 Tuesday, Sept. 17
10 a.m. | Expert Witness Hearing – Application for General Rate Increase for Piedmont Natural Gas Company, Inc. | G-9 Sub 837
Other Meetings and Events of Interest BOLD ITEMS ARE NEW LISTINGS
Thursday, Aug. 22
Gov. Roy Cooper will be in Chicago for the Democratic National Convention. Friday, Sept. 6
No time given | The 2024 N.C. Mountain State Fair opens at the WNC Agricultural Center in Fletcher. Runs through the 15th, and more information is available at https://www.wncagcenter.org/p/mountainstatefair Friday, Sept. 27
2024 Lumbee Powwow, Lumbee Tribe Cultural Center, 638 Terry Sanford Drive, Maxton.
Domestic and national security was the theme of Donald Trump’s campaign event in Asheboro Wednesday afternoon.
Increasing security at the southern border, continuing support for law enforcement and criticizing the Biden administration’s foreign policy were the major cornerstones of addresses from Trump and his running mate, JD Vance.
“It’s a great day to be from Asheboro and Randolph County, and we’re excited,” state Sen. David W. Craven Jr., R-Randolph, said before a litany of speakers took the stage. “We got a beautiful 75-degree day queued up and [we’re] just going to have a great time out here with 45 and hopefully 47.”
Prior to Trump’s 90-minute speech, former military leaders Keith Kellogg and Edward Reeder Jr. and Randolph County Sheriff Gregory Seabolt expressed their support for the Republican presidential candidate.
“The American people understand that when the world is at peace, when America is respected, that Americans are more safe,” U.S. Rep. Richard Hudson, R-NC, said in an interview before his speech. “It’s in our interest to not have wars all over the world.”
Hudson said national security is of paramount importance to North Carolina, including his constituents in and around Fort Liberty, formerly known as Fort Bragg. About 20 North Carolina sheriffs joined Trump on stage to begin his address, along with Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson. Trump also recognized North Carolina House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, and Rep. Neal Jackson, R-Moore, for their support.
North Carolina House Speaker Tim Moore chats with reporters at a Donald Trump rally in Asheboro on Wednesday, August 21. (Credit: Clifton Dowell)
Trump and Vance keyed in on the September 2021 Biden-Harris administration decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan. Trump called the decision “humiliating” and a “catastrophe,” adding that he also had plans to withdraw troops, but would have done so with dignity.
Trump said America was respected under his leadership, but the country lost that status under Biden and would only be worsened by Harris, whom he called “Comrade Kamala” numerous times during the event.
He also said if he had been president over the last four years, “Putin would never have gone into Ukraine; Israel would never have been attacked.”
Trump said the admittance of transgender soldiers into the Army and the “purging” of 8,000 Armed Forces members for refusing to receive a COVID-19 vaccine in the last four years have weakened military strength.
“My attitude kept us out of wars,” he said. “All over the world, our adversaries knew that America was not to be trifled with when I was your commander-in-chief.” he later added.
“The world is on fire and Kamala and Biden have marched us to the brink of World War III. …” Trump said. “This November, Americans are going to tell Kamala Harris that we’ve had enough; we can’t take it anymore. You’re doing a terrible job. …. You’re fired; get out of here.”
Republican nominee for Vice President J.D. Vance fires up the crowd before his running mate walks out. (Credit: Clifton Dowell)
Another topic Trump addressed was the revised report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that indicated 818,000 fewer jobs were added in the last 12 months than initially reported. Trump blamed the error on the Biden administration.
Trump said his name has been mentioned over 200 times by speakers at the Democratic National Convention, while the economy and the border have barely been mentioned.
“Our great border czar doesn’t talk about the border, but they mention me more than any other category,” Trump said. “I’m now a category.”
The Trump campaign stop came on the heels of a visit from Kamala Harris on Friday. Her speech primarily zeroed in on economic policy, with a focus on reducing costs to allow Americans of all backgrounds and opportunity levels to succeed.
After the Arizona Dept. of Revenue slapped an online auto parts retailer with $11 million in retroactive sales taxes, the company is asking the state Supreme Court to take up the case. RockAuto, which is based in Wisconsin, has not paid the state’s sales tax since it began operating in 1999 because it does not have a physical presence in the state, which was previously a requirement for taxation under state tax laws. After being alerted by a Gilbert taxpayer and the city of Gilbert, ADOR conducted an audit of the company and notified the retailer that it needed to pay the taxes and penalties incurred between 2013 and 2019. The state’s tax court originally sided with RockAuto, but the Arizona Court of Appeals reversed that decision earlier this year. According to the appellate court ruling, RockAuto utilizes six Arizona distributors that occasionally ship products to Arizona customers, those distributors are required to use RockAuto packaging materials and RockAuto employees took business trips to the state during the 2013 to 2019 period. The court said those criteria were enough to establish a physical presence in the state, despite the company not having any property or employees in Arizona. RockAuto has since cut ties with its Arizona distributors and is considering ending sales in the state due to concerns about further taxes that could be levied, the CEO told our reporter. Local attorneys James Busby and Paul Eckstein are representing RockAuto in its appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court and say ADOR’s actions could open the door for retroactive tax charges to other out-of-state companies. “We’re really hoping that the Arizona Supreme Court will recognize the importance of this case, and not just for RockAuto, because it has a chilling effect on business across the state,” Busby said.
The Corporation Commission is asking Arizona’s congressional delegation to introduce federal legislation to prevent water utilities and ratepayers from bearing the brunt of costs related to new Environmental Protection Agency water contamination rules. On Tuesday, the commission sent a letter to the state’s 11 members of Congress, warning of the dangers of a new EPA rule that designates two new hazardous water contaminants under the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act. According to the letter, the policy will create a liability for water utility companies in the state who attempt to dispose of the hazardous substances even though they are “passive receivers” of them, not manufacturers or users. The commission claims that any costs associated with the substances will eventually trickle down to Arizona ratepayers and increase their utility bills. “To shield Arizona water and wastewater customers from higher rates due to CERCLA claims, the undersigned Commissioners support the adoption of federal legislation that exempts water and wastewater utilities from CERCLA liability for release of these [substances],” the letter said. All five commissioners signed the letter, including lone Democrat, Commissioner Anna Tovar. The EPA rules went into effect in early July and Arizona water utility companies will be subject to it unless federal legislation is passed to alter the policy.
CHICAGO — As the Democratic National Convention reaches its midpoint, party architects and advocacy groups across the country are implementing an aggressive voter registration push that’s not only supposed to help Vice President Kamala Harris win the White House through increased turnout, but also create a mandate for the future expansion of voting rights.
Those involved with the ambitious endeavor claim it will be the largest voter mobilization program the Democratic Party has ever seen.
The speeches and events in the Windy City this week have been accompanied by a quiet buzz about the effort — and the subtle shift in registration trends in North Carolina and Pennsylvania, two important presidential swing states.
While these two states have seen more GOP voters than Democrats register since January, the act of Harris replacing President Joe Biden atop the ticket prompted an erosion of those margins.
In North Carolina, Democratic registrations outpaced Republican sign-ups during the week following Biden’s endorsement of Harris.
The same week also gave way to Pennsylvania’s biggest seven-day boost of Democratic voters for this calendar year.
Elsewhere, in less competitive states, there are similar signs of progress for Democrats. In Maine, for example, nearly 4,000 new voters registered last month in the wake of Biden’s decision to step aside. While Maine doesn’t track voters by party, Harris supporters were quick to take credit.
Between convention speeches and during cocktail hours, true believers making their way around Chicago say it’s all just the beginning as Election Day — Nov. 5 — draws closer.
“We have already deployed $66 million to support voter outreach in the seven key states that will decide the election,” said Daria Dawson, executive director of America Votes.
Those all-important states include Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
America Votes is tackling these states with a few hundred well-heeled partners, from American Bridge and the AFL-CIO to the American Federation of Teachers and the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.
“Our partners have knocked on over 8 million doors this year, and we are just getting started,” Dawson added. “We have a plan to knock on at least 33 million doors across seven key battleground states — our largest ever voter mobilization program.”
Activists aren’t just knocking on any old doors. There’s a focus on young, first-time voters and communities of color.
While politicos like to point out that these electorates don’t always vote at high levels, a study conducted by Tufts Tisch College found that half of all registered voters aged 18 to 29 voted in the last presidential cycle in 2020, up from just 11% in 2016.
The study serves as a reminder that registering voters is the easy part. Making sure they vote and stay informed and engaged is the real trick.
“Since 2016, we have seen record-breaking turnout in almost every election, driven primarily by young people, women and voters of color,” Dawson said. “Our ‘Spread Out the Vote’ strategy that focuses on educating voters about new opportunities to vote by mail or vote early that have become available since the COVID-19 pandemic has been especially effective in getting low-propensity voters engaged.”
Dawson and her team will get a bit of help on the communications piece from the Harris campaign, which announced over the weekend that it will spend $370 million on advertisements beginning Labor Day that will target the same states as America Votes.
Quentin Fulks, Harris’ deputy campaign manager, and Rob Flaherty, the campaign’s digital director, said the ad strategy is designed to “break through a fragmented media environment and reach the voters who will decide this election.”
Democrats hope the combined effort will not only put Harris in the White House, but help partners win down-ballot races in states like Georgia and North Carolina.
Then there’s the question of what comes after the election, especially one where new voters may play an outsized role.
According to Sophia Lin Lakin, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Voting Rights Project, Harris could have an opportunity to leverage this voter mobilization program and any mandate it delivers to become a pro-voting rights president.
“Vice President Harris has promised to address long-standing challenges and enhance access to the ballot for all eligible voters,” Lakin said. “If she is elected, we will use every tool at our disposal, including litigation, to hold her to these commitments and protect and advance voting rights and fair representation at every level of government.”
To get to that point, all Democrats have to do is win, and more than a few in Chicago this week believe they have the edge.
“The ground game is our greatest advantage,” Dawson said, adding, “Direct voter engagement is the tried-and-true formula that has worked in election after election.”
In a closed hearing Tuesday, the Arizona Supreme Court took up the 2024 rules agenda, portending possible shifts in the bar complaint process, ethical rules for government lawyers and inner workings of State Bar membership, among others. A total of 70 rule change petitions went before the justices for decisions on whether to adopt, adopt with amendment, reject or continue a change, and refer to a study committee for further consideration. Dave Byers, director of the Administrative Office of the Courts, noted the rule change process started in January and allowed any person to file a petition in support of a change. The rule petitions then go out for public comment and return to the justices for review. Tuesday was “decision day,” Byers said, with orders on each of the 70 rules set to go out in the coming days. Byers said, if adopted, rules generally go into effect at the beginning of January, unless a rule requires additional training or work, in which case it could be delayed, or if the court decides to adopt a rule on an emergency basis, given legislative deadlines or scenarios in which a rule change is immediately necessary. One example of an emergency rule change in this latest session came from a petition submitted by Byers dealing with the bar complaint process. His proposal would allow only those who are directly involved in a matter to be privy to proprietary information related to a bar proceeding. He pointed to an influx of election-related complaints from non-parties as the basis for the new standing requirement. He said he feared a “politicization” of the regulatory bar complaint process. Byers urged the court to adopt the rule change on an emergency basis given the coming 2024 election. “For the first time, we started seeing these complaints coming in from people who have no knowledge, no involvement in the case,” Byers said. “They have nothing, no involvement, no evidence. And if they become the complainant, they have certain rights, like, if the Bar decides to dismiss the case, they can appeal it. They get updates in the case.” Information on state bar proceedings are typically kept confidential until they are elevated to the presiding disciplinary judge. Under the rule change, a person who was not involved could still submit a complaint, but they would not be afforded the same information and rights to appeal as a party in bar proceedings. The petition saw support from Petersen, but opposition from Phoenix Newspapers Inc. given a potential to curtail public information and Dianne Post, a longtime attorney, for a lack of transparency in bar charges. The court considered Byers’ petition, along with dozens more, including a push for additional ethical guidance on the role of government attorneys, a petition seeking to revise the rules of special actions and a proposed change to the dues attorneys are required to pay to the bar. Decisions are set to come down from the court this week, according to a court spokesperson.
Mayes filed a motion to set an oral argument in the legal fight over who has the authority to move for an execution in the state and sees opposition from Mitchell in doing so. In a brief motion, assistant AG Alexander Samuels wrote, “The question framed by the Court implicates significant issues relating to the Legislature’s delegation of authority, the scope of powers and duties of all prosecuting agencies throughout the state, and the Attorney General’s ability to manage the duties of her office and the department of law, as required by statute.” He continued, “To ensure that the significant issues presented by this case – including potential legal and practical implications that extend well beyond this case – are adequately discussed, the Attorney General requests that the Court set this matter for oral argument.” The AG’s motion follows a line of supplemental briefing from the AG and Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell, as well as an amicus brief from Arizona Voice for Crime Victims in support of Mitchell and an amicus brief from former AG Terry Goddard, former Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley and former Pima County Attorney Barbara Lawall in support of Mayes. After Mitchell moved to request the court set a briefing schedule for motion for a warrant of execution, and Mayes moved to strike, the two, on direction from the court, submitted further arguments on whether the constitutional and statutory authority, power and duty to request a warrant of execution rests exclusively with the AG. Both Mayes and Mitchell responded to respective amicus briefs, too. Colleen Clase, an attorney for Arizona Voice for Crime Victims, wrote on behalf of the sister of the victim of Aaron Gunches, the death row inmate subject to the hypothetical warrant of execution. Clase argued for “prompt and final conclusion of the case after the conviction and sentence,” and claimed MCAO should be able to move for a warrant of execution given Mayes decisions to suspend executions during a review of procedures. In response, the AG argued the right to finality has no bearing on the authority to seek an execution. Goddard, Romley and LaWall argued the AG has the sole power to seek execution warrants, as shown by state law and a lack of historical precedent for a county attorney to seek a warrant of execution.
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