After weeks of negotiations, Republicans in the General Assembly announced the details of their $23 billion budget agreement Monday, outlining plans to increase teacher pay and slash taxes by a projected $530 million. An oft-cited provision in the GOP budget would raise teacher pay by an average of 3.3 percent and give other state employees […]
Erica Hellerstein
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NCGA Budget Gives $2.6 Million to Crisis Pregnancy Centers
After weeks of negotiations, Republicans in the General Assembly announced the details of their $23 billion budget agreement Monday, outlining plans to increase teacher pay and slash taxes by a projected $530 million. An oft-cited provision in the GOP budget would raise teacher pay by an average 3.3 percent and give other state employees a […]
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Governor Cooper Calls Special Session for Lawmakers to Redraw Legislative Maps
In a press conference this afternoon, Governor Cooper called for a special session of the legislature to redraw state House and Senate voting maps recently deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. The session, which will be held along with the ongoing regular session, will kick off tomorrow at two p.m. and last for two weeks. […]
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The Supreme Court Says N.C. Legislative Districts Are Racial Gerrymanders, But We Might Not Get a Special Election
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a federal district court’s ruling that twenty-eight state legislative districts are racially gerrymandered, but that doesn’t mean we’ll be getting a special election this year. The court’s three-page order zeroed in on the district court’s decision last year to call for new maps and special elections, explaining that […]
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N.C. Policy Watch: State Superintendent of Public Instruction May Be Violating the Law by Ignoring Records Requests
Mark Johnson, the state superintendent of public instruction, may be violating state law by failing to respond to a public records request, according to an article by N.C. Policy Watch’s Billy Ball, a former INDY staff writer. N.C. Policy Watch requested emails from the superintendent on January 26, nearly a month after the Republican from […]
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Supreme Court Affirms N.C. Legislative Districts Are Racially Gerrymandered But Tells Lower Court to Reconsider Special Elections
This morning the Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s decision that twenty-eight state legislative districts in North Carolina are racially gerrymandered, but vacated the court’s order to redraw the maps and hold special elections in 2017. The Supreme Court’s three-page order zeroed in on the panel’s decision to call for new maps and special elections, […]
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Thom Tillis Urged Trump to Pull Out of Paris Climate Accord, Netted $263,400 From Oil and Gas Companies
Well, it’s official. After turning his decision on the Paris Climate Accord into a protracted reality TV episode (will he pull out? Tune in at three to find out!), Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the landmark climate agreement today, making good on a campaign promise and aligning the U.S. with Syria and Nicaragua […]
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HB 467 Defenders Say They’re Trying to Protect Small Farmers. But Pork Giant Murphy-Brown Tried to Get Lawsuits Dismissed Because Small Farmers Weren’t Included as Defendants.
Throughout the defense of House Bill 467, the controversial hog-farm protection bill that recently became law despite Governor Roy Cooper’s veto, the bill’s supporters, including Republican state representative Jimmy Dixon of Duplin County, argued that family farms need to be protected from lawsuits brought by avaricious attorneys. Those lawsuits, they argued, can bring hardworking farmers […]
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HB 467 Proponents Said They Were Defending Family Farmers. About That …
Throughout the defense of House Bill 467, the controversial hog-farm protection bill that recently became law despite Governor Cooper’s veto, the bill’s supporters argued that hardworking family farmers need to be protected from avaricious attorneys. Court documents, including a federal judge’s ruling last week, call into question the sincerity of this argument. As the INDY […]
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N.C. High Schoolers Lobby for In-State Tuition for Undocumented Students
On Wednesday afternoon, dozens of high schoolers filed into the Statehouse and patiently waited for the fifth annual “undocugraduation” ceremony to kick off. After spending the morning lobbying legislators to support in-state tuition for undocumented students, they were participating in a faux-graduation spearheaded by the Adelante Education Coalition for College Tuition Equality, a campaign to […]