North Carolina: A purple state with a red General Assembly

Introduction: A Stark Contrast

Republicans have used their power during the past year to impose a radical right agenda, legislating to support business interests, to affirm right-wing cultural interests, and to consolidate and perpetuate their own power. Democrats, in contrast, wrote legislation to address the threat of gun violence, environmental problems, housing shortages in our cities, and education needs. However, because the majority party controls what bills make it to the floor for a vote, none of these bills ever had a chance of being enacted or even voted on. The evidence from legislation is clear: Republicans are unconcerned with and actively opposed to protecting the most vulnerable or improving the lives of ordinary people.

Access to Abortion

There was no mandate from voters to further restrict abortion access. In fact, more North Carolinians wanted abortion to be legal in all or most cases than to be restricted. Doctors spoke out against further restrictions, fearing that such a ban would limit physicians’ ability to provide life-saving care to pregnant women. Republicans, nevertheless, pushed through legislation to ban almost all abortions after the 12th week without a single Democratic vote.

Democrats, on the other hand, sponsored bills to codify Roe and Casey, to roll back onerous hurdles to reproductive care, and to preserve access to contraceptives.

Gun Violence Prevention

After Carrboro and Chapel Hill K-12 schools as well as the entire UNC campus were placed on lockdown twice in a matter of weeks due to the threat of gun violence, students protested the persistent negligence of the Republican-controlled legislature in refusing to take any steps to make NC students more safe. In fact, Republicans have made our citizens even more unsafe by repealing the background checks required to purchase a handgun.

Meanwhile, Democrats introduced a “red flag” law, bills to extend the pistol permit requirement to long guns and to allow law enforcement agencies to destroy firearms that are unclaimed, surrendered, or confiscated.

Public Education

Republicans have been deaf to the claims of poorer school districts who have shown that their students fail to receive an equal education even though their residents are taxed at rates higher than the average (Leandro v. State of NC). Instead of addressing such inequality, Republicans have shifted their focus and their funding from general public education to charter and private schools. Republicans tripled the taxpayer money used to fund vouchers for student tuition at private schools, increasing it to a whopping $500 million per year, and removed the income cap on voucher eligibility.

They have removed control of the Charter School Review Board from the State Board of Education and given it to themselves, their Republican-controlled General Assembly. This will likely lead to less oversight of charter schools, already less regulated than traditional public schools.

Republicans muzzled discussion of LGBTQ-related issues in elementary schools and required school employees to “out” students who request any change in the pronouns or names they wish to be called to those students’ parents. Although there are only two trans girl athletes out of the 180,000 NC high school athletes seeking to participate in sports, Republicans stigmatized these teenagers by prohibiting their participation in sports as the gender they know themselves to be. Republicans often describe themselves as champions of “Parental Rights,” but they overrode any parents and doctor who support the treatment of a child under 18 with puberty-blocking drugs or sex hormones, ignoring the evidence that such gender-affirming care saves the lives of trans teenagers.

In contrast, Democrats sponsored bills to allocate funds for at least one nurse in every public school, to improve the level of care of students with disabilities, supplement supplies budgets, require private schools receiving funding through vouchers to have students take at least one nationally standardized test and publicly report the results, make it easier for schools to hire psychologists, add a measure of segregation to school report cards, provide universal no-cost breakfasts and lunches in public schools, invest in the NC Teaching Fellows Program, and make sweeping general investments in the public school system.

Environmental Protection

In the past year, Republicans have caved to special interests to prioritize profits over community wellbeing. They have frozen the building code to hamper any new environmental restrictions that might have otherwise upgraded new buildings in North Carolina. This bill will likely restrict the state’s access to important federal funding, including FEMA funds for building resiliency. Republicans have also weakened existing water protections, removed wetlands protections for nearly half of the state’s wetland areas, and blocked efforts that have promoted fairness from historically underutilized businesses, those owned by women, minorities, and people with disabilities.

While Republicans were working to set back environmental efforts, Democrats proposed legislation that would phase out hog lagoons, ban “fracking”, establish a state goal of 100% of our electricity to be generated by renewables by 2050, require state agencies to formally consider environmental justice prior to regulatory decisions, and bring back the solar energy tax credit.

Threats to Our Democracy

Like their counterparts at the federal level, North Carolina Republicans have continued their decade-long assault on our state’s democracy by drawing hyper-partisan State House, State Senate, and congressional district maps designed to tighten their hold on power. They have passed bills that make it more difficult for mail-in absentee votes to be counted. In the event that an election does not go their way, they have passed two bills that make it easier to deny and attack election results.

While Republicans were making laws to entrench their own power at the expense of voting rights, Democrats sponsored bills to establish an independent process for making district maps, and they proposed changes to the current voting law that would make it easier for people to vote and safer for poll workers.

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This editorial is based in part on information provided in Representative Allen Buansi’s (NC House District 56) report on last year’s legislative session. His full report can be found here. Go to this link if you would like to sign up for Rep. Buansi’s regular email newsletter.