NC Policy Watch

  It's not that often that floor debates in the North Carolina legislature shed much light on important subjects. One impressive exception to this rule took place this week, however, when Durham Democratic Senator Sophia Chitlik addressed a bill that would ban diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in state government. In her remarks, Chitlik pointed […]

  There are many things that have changed for the better in North Carolina prisons over the last century. That said, it's also true that North Carolina summers have always been miserably hot and that commercial air conditioning was first introduced nearly a century ago — facts that render the lack of air conditioning in […]

  A new report from researchers at the national Commonwealth Fund finds that North Carolina has made enormous strides in assuring that people receive the right health care at the right time and are able to avoid hospital stays and emergency room visits by receiving timely care. The percentage of North Carolina adults who reported […]

In 2025, few societal phenomena pose a greater or more immediate threat to the mental and physical wellbeing of Americans than gun violence. Gun violence is now, quite shamefully, the leading cause of death for children and youth in our country. And when this sobering fact is combined with the ongoing rise in political violence […]

  “A new report from the state Department of Public Instruction confirms what school voucher opponents have been saying: universal voucher programs are a wasteful giveaway to disproportionately wealthy families who have already enrolled their children in private schools.” That's the opening sentence from a recent essay authored by North Carolina Justice Center senior policy […]

  For the past two decades, no single individual has played a more prominent or important role in championing the rights and wellbeing of average working people in North Carolina than MaryBe McMillan. McMillan, who grew up in Hickory, served as the Secretary-Treasurer of the North Carolina AFL-CIO from 2005 to 2017, at which point […]

  Bipartisanship is in precious short supply these days in politics and that makes it especially tragic when elected officials waste rare opportunities to advance it. Unfortunately, that's what's happening in the North Carolina Senate. In its original form, House Bil 805 was a commonsense proposal to crack down on the sexual exploitation of women […]

  It's summer beach season again. Over the coming months, millions of visitors will flock to the North and South Carolina coastlines and fuel a tourism-based economy that's critically important to both states. Unfortunately, powerful forces could soon jeopardize this amazing natural and economic resource by opening it to offshore oil and gas drilling. Thankfully, […]

These are passionately divided times in our country. And at such a moment, it's imperative that all Americans – and especially our elected leaders – disavow violence or even the appearance of endorsing it. And it's in light of this that Wake County State Rep. Julie von Haefen was clearly in error recently for briefly […]

  One of the most disturbing developments of the second Trump administration has been the President's clear effort to encourage U.S. military service members to endorse his political views and exhibit loyalty to him personally. This pattern was on display last week at Fort Bragg where Trump inappropriately sought to engage the troops in booing […]

  The first months of North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein's administration have been marked by a striking lack of hostility and conflict. To his credit, Stein has worked diligently to build bridges and find common ground with Republicans – both in Raleigh and Washington. He's yet to veto a bill. Unfortunately, this move toward the […]

  Gerrymandering: it refuses to go away. Despite widespread and growing public awareness and outrage, North Carolina Republican lawmakers continue to use it to rig our state's elections by drawing districts guaranteed to give themselves large majorities and dilute the power of Black voters. Fortunately, voting rights advocates and good government groups are refusing to […]

  One of the more remarkable facts about some of the policies that state and federal lawmakers adopt for public benefit programs these days is that they're based not on facts or data, or the money and lives saved, but on gut feelings about the worthiness of the people who would be helped. Nowhere is […]

  One of the most vexing societal problems of the modern, social media-driven era is the ongoing crisis in youth mental health. The latest data on the number of children who suffer from depression and other symptoms – and who even contemplate or attempt suicide – are staggering. Happily, a small ray of light in […]

  Americans have long maintained a healthy instinct to be skeptics. We pride ourselves on demanding proof. Unfortunately, in recent years, the explosion of social media in which every person has a public platform has allowed this natural skepticism to fuel a situation in which distinctly unscientific conspiracy theories get way too much attention. And […]

  As long as the United States is going to maintain immigration laws, it's a given that unauthorized people will be subject to arrest and deportation. This fact is not terribly controversial. That said, there should be enormous controversy over the way federal officials are now carrying out this work. Simply put: we don't have […]

  Ever since North Carolina legislators established the so-called “Opportunity Scholarships” school voucher program, sponsors and proponents have pitched it as a means of helping low-income students escape struggling public schools. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, a new report from the Department of Public Instruction shows that this was all baloney. The DPI researchers found that […]

  If North Carolinians lived in a perfect world, everyone would have easy access to plenty of healthy and affordable food, the self-control to resist junk food, and genes that would let them stay active, trim and fit throughout their lives. Unfortunately, we don't live in such a world. And it's in light of this […]

  If ever there was a once controversial issue in modern society that has since become a settled matter, it is the question of cannabis legalization. While there's no doubt that cannabis – that is, marijuana and THC products – raises important public health challenges, it's also clear that this cow is not going back […]

  Well summer is here and with its arrival, the end of the state fiscal year will soon follow, and that means North Carolina legislators are under some pressure to pass a new state budget. Right now, however, despite complete Republican control of both the Senate and House, the two chambers remain far apart and […]

  A decade-and-a-half ago in the aftermath of the Great Recession and the financial crisis that sparked it, consumer advocates in North Carolina and around the country succeeded in spurring the creation of a new federal government watchdog known as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In the years since, the CFPB has done prodigious work […]

  One of the greatest scandals in 21st Century America is that hunger – a genuine lack of adequate food — is a huge and fast growing problem for millions of people. In 34 central and eastern North Carolina counties, one-in-five people – that's well over half-a-million men, women and children – suffers from food […]

  One of the most encouraging public health initiatives to come along in several years is a state Department of Health and Human Services pilot program launched in 2022 called “Healthy Opportunities.” The program is based on the simple premise that providing for food, transportation, housing, and other non-medical health-related needs of people enrolled in […]

  It's hard to fathom in a proposal that includes billions upon billions of dollars in tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, but one of the most significant changes included in the massive budget bill approved by the U.S. House late last month was this: big cuts to the nation's main anti-hunger program. Under the […]

  If you get a chance, check out a recent essay authored by retired Legislative Fiscal Analyst Richard Bostic. It was posted by Raleigh's News & Observer. In it, Bostic, who spent 31 years advising state legislative leaders, issues a loud and clear warning about the fiscal cliff toward which our state is speeding. His […]

  Among the most important public policy developments in North Carolina over the last several decades was the rise of one of the nation's strongest networks of consumer advocacy nonprofits. Together with elected leaders from both major parties, these advocates helped make North Carolina a state to avoid for predatory lenders who target consumers with […]

  North Carolina's economy has undergone many important transitions over the last several decades. But in recent years there's been no more promising arrival on the scene than the electric vehicle industry. As experts at the national Electrification Coalition pointed out last week, federal EV tax credits have helped spur the creation of more than […]

  Each year, the most important piece of legislation approved by the North Carolina General Assembly is the state budget bill – a massive document running to hundreds of pages that details billions of dollars in appropriations and scores of substantive law changes. It's the kind of legislation that ought to feature days – if […]

  It's now been eight months since Hurricane Helene wreaked havoc in western North Carolina and permanently altered numerous communities. And while the recovery work continues, one vitally important area that deserves much greater attention than it's receiving is preparation for the next natural disaster. As veteran journalist Laura Sullivan explains in a new PBS/NPR […]

  It's a universal rule of local government that nobody likes their property tax bill or the way their property is assessed. By any measure, the assessors have a tough and thankless job. That said, it's also true that there are unjust assessments and sometimes they're the byproduct of historical bias and discrimination that affect […]

    No one ever said our state prisons would or should be cushy places to live and work. But neither should they be decrepit dumps in which an underpaid and understaffed workforce struggles to cope with an inmate population that is at once aging and unhealthy, and increasingly hopeless and prone to violence. Unfortunately, […]

  Sometimes, it's hard to keep track of the wild policy swings that are the signatures of the second Trump administration. From tariffs and trade to Russia and Ukraine, it often takes just hours for supposedly strong policy stances to be contradicted or abandoned by the president or his aides. And now, this chaotic pattern […]

    It's a trend that's been advancing at a breakneck clip for years now, but according to a new report from the global nonprofit OxFam, the vast and immoral inequality that dominates the U.S. economy has reached truly stunning levels. As the report notes, over the past year, the richest ten Americans increased their […]

  There are many things that state leaders should do these days to improve the UNC System. Providing adequate funds to hire and retain topflight faculty and reining in out-of-control professional sports programs would be a good start. Unfortunately, at present, the emphasis in Raleigh is on advancing a right-wing political agenda, and so it […]

  Over the past six years, few public servants in North Carolina have had a bigger or more positive impact under more difficult circumstances than former State Board of Elections executive director Karen Brinson Bell. Despite woefully inadequate appropriations from the state legislature and relentless attacks from uninformed conspiracy theorists, Brinson Bell persevered, strengthened North […]

  One of North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein's first acts upon assuming office earlier this year was to name a new Secretary of the state Department of Health and Human Services, and from the looks of things thus far, the person to whom he turned, Dr. Dev Sangvai, was a winning selection. Since taking office, […]

    Today is Memorial Day – the day on which we honor the memory of the servicemen and women who made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation. All caring and thinking people should take at least a moment today to lift up these heroes. And today would also be a good one to help […]

  North Carolina hardly needs any more wake-up calls about the devastating impacts of climate change, but a new, must-see PBS/NPR documentary provides another powerful reminder on the subject of dealing with the extreme weather that climate change is spawning. The documentary is entitled “Hurricane Helene's Deadly Warning,” and in it, NPR's Laura Sullivan exposes […]

  North Carolina House Republicans unveiled their version of a new state budget this week, and while it included some improvements over the Senate version – a somewhat slower approach to cutting taxes, slightly better salaries for new teachers – the plan swings and misses by proposing to slash 3,000 state government jobs. The authors […]

  The efforts of North Carolina Republican lawmakers to transform the state Board of Elections into a partisan puppet show continue apace. First, was the absurd move that placed MAGA state auditor Dave Boliek over the board instead of the Governor. Then came Boliek's appointment of a pair of ultra-partisan GOP politicians as board members. […]

    North Carolina's gun violence crisis continues to grow more dire by the day. According to the most recent data, someone dies in our state from a gunshot wound every five hours. Think about that for a minute: that's more than four lives lost every day. Amazingly, however, state legislative leaders are determined to […]

  It seemed like it might never happen, but we now know the winner of last November's election for an associate justice seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court. Following federal Judge Richard Myers' complete rejection of GOP candidate Jefferson Griffin's effort to overturn his narrow defeat by tossing the ballots of thousands of voters, […]

  Lawmakers in Raleigh recently concluded crossover week – a chaotic period in which they considered and voted on scores of bills in dozens of important subject areas in just a few days. And for better or worse, a lot of important and controversial measures won approval and remain eligible for final passage this session. […]

    For nearly three decades, a pair of nonprofits – the North Carolina Institute of Medicine and NC Child – have released a biennial study known as the Child Health Report Card. The goal, as you might expect, is to provide legislators, public health officials, school administrators, parents and other nonprofit leaders with the […]

  Everyone knows the state legislature must operate under a set of parliamentary rules and procedures. After all, maintaining order in a large group of opinionated and talkative politicians is no easy feat. That said, when the rules become so numerous, complex and restrictive that they make majority rule effectively impossible, they've gone too far […]

  Among the most worrisome bills under consideration in Raleigh this year is a Senate proposal that would weaken the state's commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. By removing a 2030 target for a 70 percent reduction in carbon emissions, the bill takes another big step backward in confronting the global climate crisis. But as […]

  Few initiatives of modern American conservatives have been more successful than the crusade to take control of the courts. From the U.S. Supreme Court on down, big dollars and a commitment to hardball politics have helped give Republicans large majorities on several courts where the partisan divide should be about even. Notably, however, Republican […]

  The list of Trump administration cuts to vital public services has become so long and destructive that it's easy to get overwhelmed, but as North Carolina anti-poverty advocates continue to remind us, it's important to hold the cuts up to the light, to document their cruel illogic. Take, for instance, the disastrous scheme to […]

  Why are so many conservative politicians obsessed with denying the existence of transgender people? Several years ago, it was the infamous bathroom bill that sought to micromanage the public restrooms trans people used. Now, the same forces are at it again with bills targeting transgender youth. Under legislation approved by the state House last […]

  It's been six long months now, but North Carolina's seemingly never ending state Supreme Court election may soon be over. This past week, federal Judge Richard Myers II – a Republican appointed by President Trump — issued a complete rejection of GOP candidate Jefferson Griffin's effort to overturn his narrow defeat by tossing the […]

This past week was crossover week at the North Carolina General Assembly – a chaotic period in which lawmakers considered and voted on scores of bills in just a few days – often with precious little informed discussion. It's a tough time for legislators who take their jobs seriously and try to understand every proposal […]