Kirk Ross

Sometime in early May, the draft of a new Senate version of House Bill 819, which contained the now notorious sea-level rise legislation, started making the rounds. You didn’t have to be a geologist to understand what the new language in it was getting at. When it passed the House last year, the bill said […]

No one knows how many North Carolinians live in extreme poverty, but it’s estimated to be between 700,000 and 1 million. What we do know is that although the number is increasing, the poor remain almost invisible to many of us. You may have come away from the vote on Amendment 1 with a sense […]

There ought to be a warning label on the Federal Election Commission website: Contents may cause headache, nausea and malaise. As I pointed out last month, North Carolina’s horribly inadequate campaign finance reporting system leaves us in the dark about who is financing state campaigns, including those for and against Amendment 1, until it’s almost […]

The names rang a bell. Last month, Bob Hall, executive director of Democracy North Carolina, was reviewing an amended campaign finance report filed by House Speaker Thom Tillis, R-Cornelius. Tillis’ initial report, covering the second half of 2011, had drawn complaints because the occupations and affiliations of several contributors weren’t fully identified as required under […]

In nearly every story, at some point the power gets cut off. Last month, when the NAACP’s Truth and Hope Tour of Poverty in NC embarked on its two-day tour of high-poverty counties in the northeastern part of the state, those of us on board the bus knew we’d hear the stories of people who […]

From 2000 to 2010, the rise in the ranks of North Carolina’s poor has all but erased progress made in reducing poverty in the relatively robust economy of the 1980s and 1990s. • In North Carolina, 18 percent of state residents live below the federal poverty line, a level not seen since 1981. • In […]

In North Carolina, a state with an unemployment rate higher than the national average, eliminating regulations has become such a talking point that it’s now all but synonymous with job creation. As the 2012 election cycle rolls around, count on the rhetoric about burdensome regulations as job killers to escalate. State lawmakers have already aggressively […]

With local elections behind us and the 2012 cycle cranking up, North Carolina has quickly become one of the most closely watched battleground states. It has a crucial role to play in the presidential election and control of the U.S. House. Polls continue to show a state evenly split, but strong turnout results posted in […]