Carolina Journal Radio No. 906: North Carolina’s U.S. Senate race has national significance

From Cherokee to Kuretake, from the largest city to the smallest town, and from the statehouse to the schoolhouse, it's Carolina Journal Radio, your weekly news magazine discussing North Carolina's most important public policy events and issues.

Welcome to Carolina Journal Radio, I'm Mitch Kocai. During the next hour, Donna Martinez and I will explore some major issues affecting our state. The new academic year didn't begin as planned for many colleges and universities across North Carolina. The leader of a top state higher education watchdog group offers her expert assessment. State lawmakers have decided to send $335 checks to parents of school-aged children across North Carolina. You'll learn how those checks tie into the state's response to COVID-19. The pandemic has had a major impact on public schools throughout the state. One of the state Senate's education leaders explains how she and her colleagues are approaching major challenges. And we'll explore the significance of a new court ruling.

It restores state constitutional amendments for voter ID and a lower cap on income taxes. Those topics are just ahead. First, Donna Martinez joins us with the Carolina Journal headline. Well, we are getting very close to the start of early in-person voting here in North Carolina, and already at the point that we're talking more than 800,000 North Carolinians have already requested an absentee ballot. Lots and lots of interest in this election, of course. One of the key races on the North Carolina ballot is the seat for the United States Senate. Carolina Journal paying very close attention to these major races for the election. Rick Henderson is editor-in-chief and he joins me now. Rick, welcome back to the show.

Thanks a lot, Donna. So the first US Senate debate, this was hosted by WRAL and David Crabtree. That made national headlines. You had the Democratic candidate Cal Cunningham. He was on the stage with the Republican candidate Tom Tillis, who's the incumbent, and Cunningham said that he would be hesitant, essentially, to take the COVID-19 vaccine. Senator Tillis said that he would take it.

That created national news, Rick. Is that an issue that could turn this race? It could move some votes. There's no question about that because Cal Cunningham essentially took a position that's been taken by some on both the right and the left who are against vaccinations or some on the left who don't trust the ability of the Trump administration to go through the proper safety protocols through the Food and Drug Administration to deliver a vaccine that would be effective and safe both. Senator Tillis basically said, look, I trust the experts on this to do the job right. He also added that initially he would take the vaccine the first day it were available but he would prefer not to take it right away because he would prefer to make sure that people who are especially vulnerable to COVID-19, people in congregate living centers such as senior centers and the like, first responders, healthcare professionals, that sort of thing, those folks would get access to it first.

But he said as far as being hesitant to take it if it were available to everyone, he wouldn't hesitate one bit. That drew headlines. Folks across the country wrote about it in news stories. It made all the major cable networks did segments about this. And so it made a national impression from Cal Cunningham.

I'm not sure it's the one he wanted to have make initially. Tell us about what we're seeing in the polling at this point. Polling is fascinating because the polling here shows that the real clear politics average when we're talking here has Cunningham with about a three and a half percentage point lead. But the thing that's very interesting about this is that that lead has been very stable over the past 90 days or so, even though the numbers have changed quite a bit. Cunningham had a larger lead early in the summer, seven points or so, and then it sort of collapsed down to about three, between three and four, and it stayed stable, although the whole time Tillis' support has gone up. So Cunningham lost support and Tillis gained support, and the percentages have remained remarkably stable through that period of time. So this is not completely unlike what happened when Tillis ran for the seat in 2014, in that he had actually a larger deficit to make up early in the summer. But the weekend before the election, the polls had him about two points down, and he came ahead and ended up winning, I think, by about two points.

So I mean, he showed that he's a good closer, a good finisher, and he's fairly much where he was six years ago when he first ran for the seat. It's interesting you would bring up six years ago because that gets to kind of the history of this seat. It has a history of flipping back and forth between Democrat and Republican. So normally we would think, well, the incumbent has a leg up, so to speak, because they're more well known. They have the bully pulpit, et cetera. But this seat is is really not showing that.

That's right. This was the Jesse Helms seat, which Senator Helms retired in 2002. Elizabeth Dole won the seat in 2002, and then in 2008 she lost to Kay Hagan, who then served for one term and was defeated by Tom Tillis, the late Senator Hagan.

So this seat has flipped every time since Jesse Helms held it for 30 years. And the volatility of the seat is a good, strong indication that North Carolina is very much a swing state, that it's it's very difficult to to maintain some stability if you're running for a statewide office, especially a federal office statewide. Well, we know, of course, that North Carolina is key to the presidential race. We've already seen President Trump and his family members and surrogates in the state a lot.

And we've seen the Biden campaign as well, expecting more of that. Is Senator Tillis tied to the fortunes of President Trump in this state? I think he really is. And the senator had a notable break temporarily with the president in early part of 2019, where he said that he would not support an emergency executive action to require the funding for a border wall with Mexico. And then he reversed course almost immediately. But unfortunately for him, after he had written an op ed that was published in The Washington Post that pretty well staked out that that position. Since then, he's mended fences with the president. It turns out that if you look at various sites that track votes, he's voted with the president's agenda somewhere between 90 and 94 percent of the time.

And so they're not very far apart on policy issues at all. The way I see this is I see very, very few people who will vote for for Donald Trump and and Cal Cunningham. And so I think that the senator, Senator Tillis is very much tied to the president. If the president loses North Carolina, it's going to be almost impossible for Tom Tillis to win North Carolina. Cal Cunningham has some national backing from national Democrats. And this first televised debate that we were talking about a few moments ago may have been really the first time for a lot of North Carolinians to have the chance to actually see Cal Cunningham in person, live, so to speak, and to make their assessment of him as a candidate. Is he going to be doing more public events or really is he going to be relying on that national influence through paid advertising? If he does more and more public events, he will need to sharpen his focus and sharpen his message, because he very much came across as someone who had not been on a major campaign debate stage since he last ran.

And it actually wasn't even a statewide successful race that he had in 2001 where he was in the state Senate in North Carolina. He looked rusty. He wasn't very focused. He did a lot of the sort of mouth gesturing and shaking his head and things like that. I mean, he reminded me a lot of Al Gore in the first 2000 debate with President George W. Bush.

He was not someone who came across with a very forceful presence. That's not a good look when you're going against Thom Tillis, because he's extremely focused. He's always prepared, and he's an extremely good debater and campaigner. Cunningham was running very much like a front runner. He was just trying not to make any mistakes, and he probably did. So that was Tillis' advantage.

Tillis is very good when he is both defending his record and being on the attack very specifically against his opponents. And very quickly, Rick, there are two other candidates who are vying for the seat in the United States Senate. The Libertarian is Shannon Bray. The Constitution Party candidate is Kevin Hayes.

What about their impact? I don't see a lot. I would be surprised if the two of them get more than two or three percent of the vote combined, because this is very much a race focused on the two candidates, and the two major party candidates serving as proxies for the presidential campaign, and also to some extent for the governor's campaign. And so I just think the focus is going to be there. The issue is going to be whether the supporters of each candidate can turn out people who want to vote for them but can't decide if they're going to go to the polls or not.

I don't think there are a lot of voters who are movable right now. Rick Henderson is editor-in-chief of Carolina Journal. Rick, thanks for joining us.

Thank you so much, Donna. Join me with this much more Carolina Journal radio to come in just a moment. Tired of fake news?

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We hold government accountable for you. Welcome back to Carolina Journal Radio. I'm Mitch Kocai. It's safe to say the new academic year didn't start the way college leaders across North Carolina had hoped, joining us for an expert assessment of the ups and downs of the return to colleges and universities is Jenna Robinson. She is president of the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal. Jenna, welcome back.

It's good to be here, Mitch. It hasn't turned out the way the people had planned. I think that they could have rolled that out better. The schools that did bring their students back, a lot of them brought them back without a testing plan. They only tested students who came in and said, I'm pretty sure I have COVID instead of doing, you know, either pool testing or testing everybody as they returned. You know, they just really didn't have a robust testing plan in place. And I think that's the reason they had to turn around and send everybody home so quickly. And in some cases, from what I understand, North Carolina University's standing contrast to those in other states that did have some more robust plans in place.

Absolutely. Even Duke right here in North Carolina, they have a robust testing plan and they are still in person. What kinds of problems is this creating for students? Obviously, this is not what they signed up for.

Right. A lot of problems. I mean, obviously, there's the logistical problem of thinking you were going to be, you know, in your university town on campus or off campus and then having to go home. But also there's the problem of having to take all of your classes virtually instead of in person, which is not as easy as it could be. Now, almost all of these schools have been dealing in some ways with virtual learning because most of them shut down in the spring and finished the year that way. Is the virtual learning that students are having now different from what they had at the end of the last school year, or is it still more of the same? For the most part, it sounds like it's more of the same. Faculty did get some training at most schools, but it was superfluous training, or not superfluous, but, you know, very surface level training, the kind of training that makes sure that they aren't making amateur mistakes anymore. But it's still not a well-developed online virtual environment. It's, you know, it's Zoom U. And we have seen some concerns among people who follow these issues very closely that it looks as if the university, especially the University of North Carolina, decided, hey, let's tell everyone that we're going to have in-person classes and have them pay as if they're going to have in-person classes.

And then as soon as the bills are paid, we're going to go back to online. Is that criticism warranted? I think the criticism of keeping the fees the same and the tuition the same is warranted. Fees in particular, because clearly students are still getting an education. They're getting something.

And the quality obviously varies. But they are very clearly not getting an athletics experience. They are not getting the student activity experience. They're not even having access to the Student Health Center. And those are all fees that they pay, which are supposed to be directly to support services that they receive.

And so I think, to me, the fees are the more important one, especially since here in North Carolina, we do keep tuition very affordable, relative to other states. And we didn't even mention room and board. If you paid for your dorm room to come back and now you're not in that dorm room anymore.

Right. Well, fortunately, they did refund housing and dining. And so that is obviously an inconvenience, but the students will get their money back. We are chatting with Jenna Robinson, who is president of the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, a group that keeps a close eye on public education at the higher education level in North Carolina and across the country.

As you look at the University of North Carolina and the situation that it faces now, what are some of the things that you want to see moving forward? Well, I want to see a plan for robust testing for spring. I do think that in person for most students and for most classes is still the ideal for a university education. I think virtual learning can be a lot better than it is.

And so the other thing I think they should be working on is improving their virtual models. It shouldn't be just logging into Zoom a couple of times a week. We knew this was going to be an issue way back in the spring when things first shut down. Does anyone deserve some blame for how this was rolled out or is this one of those situations, as we've seen with other things with COVID-19, that no one really knew what to do?

Right. Well, I think that some blame belongs with the university administrators who waffled for a long time about what fall was going to look like. Students didn't know.

Professors didn't know. And I think crucially, if professors expected that they could teach hybrid courses or in-person courses, they weren't preparing those courses to be online. And the preparation is very different for an online course than for an in-person course or even a hybrid course. And so I think if university officials had, from the beginning, said, have a virtual plan, that we would be seeing better virtual courses right now. Do we run the risk for the students who are in universities right now that the spring semester of 2020 and the fall semester of 2020 are going to in some ways end up being lost in terms of the education that they get?

Well, as I've heard from many sources justifying keeping tuition the same, the students will still get those credits. But whether they've actually learned anything during that time is totally different. I've heard from several university students saying they're just not absorbing the material in the same way. It's hard to pay attention. It's hard to interact. The classes are just not set up in the right way. And then, of course, there are some things you just can't do online.

You can't do your labs online. And yet they're still trying to. And so, yes, in terms of educational outcomes, I do think that this fall at least will be a lost semester. What kinds of problems does that set these students up for in the future if they do get just sort of a bare minimum sort of education, but not what they need is the building blocks for the rest of their career?

Right. I think it's going to be especially hard for the students who are missing out on practicals during this time. If you're a nursing student, if you are doing a lab science, the things that you learn in those in-person, hands-on courses can't be replicated online. And those, they're going to have to make it up.

You know, you won't necessarily have to make up Spanish 2. You know, you checked that box, you moved on, you know, as sad as it is to say that they're, you know, it doesn't matter for their future, you know, probably for most students doesn't. But for the practical skills that students in those hard sciences have to learn, they're going to have to go and do it again. The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal is going to be talking about online education again. Tell us about your event coming up October 1st. On October 1st, we're having an event via Zoom, of course, about online education.

We have a great panel lined up. We've got Marty Kotis, who is the chairman of the Working Group for Online Education for the University of North Carolina Board of Governors. We've got Doug Shackelford, who is the dean of Keenan-Flagler Business School and was also involved in creating their MBA online, which is a very well-respected online program. Kathryn Truitt, who is the chancellor of Western Governors University in North Carolina, which is an online school, mastery-based. And then Scott Ralls, the president of Wake Tech, which has been voted number one for online education for community colleges. And we also have a student panelist to talk about her own experiences.

And so I think that it's going to be a great panel and we'll be able to talk about what really works and how do we get this right. One person who's going to be watching very closely as the university makes its decisions is Jenna Robinson. She is president of the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal. Jenna, if someone wants to participate in the October 1st event, what should they do?

They should go to jamesgmartin.center and click on events and they will see it right in front of them. Jenna, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you. We'll have more on Carolina Journal Radio in just a moment. If you love freedom, we've got great news to share with you. Now you can find the latest news, views and research from conservative groups across North Carolina all in one place. North Carolina conservative.com.

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I'm Mitch Kocay. State Senate Leader Phil Berger wants to help parents help their school kids. In a recent news conference, Berger explained why state lawmakers promoted a state stimulus check for parents. It's important to note that every parent in the state of North Carolina is also a teacher, not a teacher's assistant, a teacher.

Nobody can honestly say that virtual learning is adequate. Frankly, I don't understand how a single parent can really do this. When my kids were young a long time ago, I painted apartments at night while I was in law school. Fortunately, my wife was able to shoulder a great deal of the responsibility for looking after our kids while I was either in school or working. How a single mother handles that working parenting and teaching all the same time is amazing to me. I don't know where she finds the time.

I don't know when she sleeps. Parents across the state of North Carolina are at their wits end. I know $335 isn't going to pay off a mortgage, but it'll put a dent in the cost of electronic devices or help pay for a tutor if a child can't seem to tackle a new concept.

Or maybe it'll pay for a babysitter and a dinner out. Berger also touted opportunity scholarship school vouchers. Most public school students cannot get into their classrooms. Some places like Durham are actually charging low income families for the privilege of entering a school building to help with virtual learning. The science is clear.

The science is overwhelming. Keeping kids out of classrooms is harmful and some students may never recover. So now more than ever, it should be a time when leaders in North Carolina embrace parental school choice.

I think about that single mother. Maybe she can see her child slipping, not grasping concepts. Maybe she knows intuitively that her child needs to be in a classroom. Why shouldn't she have the opportunity to send her child to a school that's open? Senate Democrats said there are, quote, better, smarter uses for opportunity scholarship funding. And they've said our proposal is for, and this is the term they use, special interests. Only a Democrat would think that our state's parents and children are a special interest. How can it be that in a society focused on equality, it is okay for a major political party to say making decisions about your child's education is reserved only for the wealthy elite? School choice should not be a privilege available only to those who can afford it.

Parental school choice is a right and we need to fund it. That's Republican State Senate leader Phil Berger speaking during a recent news conference. We'll return with more Carolina Journal Radio in a moment. We're doubling down on freedom.

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I'm Mitch Kogai. Among those who wonder about the future of North Carolina public schools are the people who set the budget. State Senator Deanna Ballard is one of those people leading a powerful education committee in the General Assembly.

She recently discussed education issues in an online forum for the John Locke Foundation. I've talked with a lot of parents. Parents are definitely uncertain about how to plan their schedules going into the fall, their work schedules.

I work with a lot of parents who have full time jobs. So they're concerned about, you know, how the school year might look and how it might look, you know, or how it might start when it might start exactly and, and what that looks like. But I also hear from parents, they're ready, they're ready to get their kids back in the building. And they're ready to get, they're anxious to see, I think, to some of what learning loss, you know, has happened within even their own students and their own their own children, and just really understanding and assessing kind of where they are getting back into the school year. I probably hear a little bit more anxiety and angst from teachers.

And, and I totally, absolutely get that. And I think that's understandable as well, just not knowing maybe kind of what level of instruction or what format of instruction is going to look like and what is going to take place again going into the fall. And then also, you know, we know that children tend to be less at risk for, for COVID.

And I think it is that population of teachers and those, you know, the support personnel and those folks in the building that tend to be a bit more sensitive to just contracting the virus and then, you know, being mindful of that and ensuring that we are all, you know, following the safety guidelines that the, that at North Carolina Health Department and, you know, CDC guidelines and DPI and everyone that's been working together trying to ensure they're in place. There is just a lot of anxiety and uncertainty. But I do think a lot of local leadership has stepped up with the superintendents and really trying to assure families and the community. I do think there's a lot of opportunity. As challenging as it has been, it is and it has opened a lot of doors for just a new way of thinking and a new mindset. North Carolina is more poised than ever to really change kind of how education looks moving forward.

Ballard says COVID-19 has affected different parts of North Carolina in different ways. I was trying to dive into like throughout COVID, like who's doing the remote learning well, who's really pivoted more smoothly than other districts to just so we can maybe perhaps learn best practices or what resources are in place. And it's really interesting because I do think like Elkin City Schools, I mean, it's a smaller, smaller school district and you have smaller schools in that system. So they already even like pivoted very smoothly and swiftly during that process when we went to remote learning. And then you have Rowan Salisbury District, which is the Renewal School District, which has already been incorporating some remote learning into the culture of education in the system.

So they actually, you know, were pretty pleased and proud of just how they kind of had to pivot, you know, just like everyone else did. But it's going to be interesting, I think, to look at maybe some of the smaller schools in those smaller areas, even in rural or whatever, and looking at how, you know, what resources were in place, you know, even as far as the quality of teaching and the support services that are there and even goes to the broadband connectivity and those local partnerships that they have with providers to understand, you know, hey, how can this work better even on a larger scale if we kind of take some of those best practices? There's just a lot of information still out there and data that's being collected on stories and a lot of anecdotal type stories. I mean, I know one kid who actually has learned better remotely versus in the classroom. And so, you know, it's just really fascinating how this has just highlighted the individualized learning environment that we, you know, want to focus on and move into and just how you really employ that on, you know, more consistently and diligently. So I think that is kind of a challenge moving forward, that personalized learning.

That's State Senator Deanna Ballard, panelist during a recent John Locke Foundation online forum. It focused on public education in the age of COVID-19. Ballard discussed the development of online learning.

There was no infrastructure, I guess, in place for remote learning and the notion of remote learning. I mean, one thing to keep in mind is out of the COVID relief package, what we did was really direct the local LEAs to develop remote learning plans. And I think it's important for everyone to understand that we're trying to give as much, you know, say and flexibility and just, you know, that control of understanding how to deliver instruction in their district and their school and their classroom in the best way that they know how to do that. They know those students. We talk a lot about testing and assessments when we come back in the fall. But there are also teachers that I talked to in March and beginning of April who were like, I know which students at this point need additional help over the summer.

And I know which ones are going to, you know, come back in the fall. So it's like, all right, if you know that, then like, what are we going to do to help that particular kid in the interim? Like, so there's a lot to be said for just the understanding of the teacher and the principals and knowing their student population and what is in the best interests of their kids in that particular district. How is Ballard approaching the future of North Carolina public schools?

I'm excited. I'm hopeful. I mean, we have North Carolina's blessed with a lot of human resources that we have at our fingertips in those classrooms and in those school buildings. I think there's a lot of hard work left to, you know, to do. I mean, we've made progress and will continue to make progress.

And it doesn't happen overnight. And I think it's important. I mean, one thing I think it's a good takeaway from today is just how important leadership is in making decisions and making a decision and moving forward. And that's something that I think we're going to have to do every single week, every single day and month moving forward. We're in a dynamic time. There are a lot of scenarios, but I think it's important.

You have to make a decision and you have to keep moving forward and moving the needle and not get paralyzed by the ifs, the ifs here and there and what can happen. I think we are well led with, you know, a lot of innovative and leadership locally, especially that think outside the box, that know their communities, that know their schools and know how to take care of those kids. And I think we have to trust our principals and we have to trust our teachers to know how to do that and be very careful about how, you know, how much I guess legislation may get in the way of that or be involved in that.

Because I think one thing out of this that we are trying to do is really just reiterate the value of just the local, that local authority and that local control. And, you know, in the home, I mean, from the home, I mean, to the school building and to that district, I mean, they have been a part of it. There have been surveys that have gone out to parents for them to chime in on, out of the school districts. I know I'm not the only legislator that actually talks to folks on the ground and is in the school buildings and seeing what's happening.

I'm also excited just about partnerships that can come up. That's what we need to set the example for, for our kids and for our state is how do we lead with just, you know, confidence and hope and just optimism about what's ahead. That's State Senator Deanna Ballard, a co-chair of her legislative chambers education committee. She spoke during a recent John Locke Foundation online forum. We'll return with more Carolina Journal radio in a moment. Real influence.

You either have it or you don't. And at the John Locke Foundation, we have it. You'll find our guiding principles in many of the freedom forward reforms of the past decade here in North Carolina. So while others talk or complain or name call, we provide research, solutions and hope. Our team analyzes the pressing issues of the day, jobs, health care, education and more. We look for effective ways to give you more freedom, more options, more control over your life. Our goal is to transform North Carolina into a growing, thriving economic powerhouse, the envy of every other state. Our research has helped policymakers make decisions that ensure you keep more of what you earn, expand your choice of schools for your kids, widen your job opportunities, improve your access to doctors. The recipe for stability and a bright future for truth, for freedom, for the future of North Carolina. We are the John Locke Foundation. Welcome back to Carolina Journal Radio. I'm Donna Martinez. A huge new ruling on voter I.D. from the North Carolina Court of Appeals is now focusing all eyes on North Carolina's Supreme Court and on the three court seats that are up for grabs this election. Becky Gray is here to explain why she is the senior vice president at the John Locke Foundation has been following all of these court cases and the election really closely.

Becky, welcome back to the show, Donna. All right. Let's set the stage here. Back in 2018, we had an election and we North Carolina voters approved two amendments, one related to requiring a photo I.D. to vote, another one related to a cap on the tax rate in the state. Right. And of course, these are amendments to our state constitution.

Absolutely right. So we approved those by vote. But then in 2019, a trial court came in and overturned the voters vote. That brings us to just a couple of weeks ago, Becky, we have a court of appeals ruling here in North Carolina that has made another change. Help us understand what this means. Well, you know, and it is kind of complicated because this court case overturned a rule of the people, a vote of the people, as you mentioned.

And so, you know, it's alarming for that reason. The other thing that is really concerning about this is this lawsuit was based on that this General Assembly was illegitimate and everything they did was illegitimate, specifically these two provisions in the for these constitutional amendments. So anything that they did doesn't matter.

It should be wiped away. I mean, that was a trial court then ruled and agreed with the NAACP where this will go. And the question that remains is, you know, was the General Assembly that the courts again said had gerrymandered the districts. Is that a legitimate General Assembly?

Well, if you buy into that argument, and this was part of the opinion of the Court of Appeals, if you buy into that argument, then everything that the General Assembly did was illegitimate. So are the teachers going to give back their pay raises? Are we going to take the money back that we spent for roads?

Are we going to take back the money that we put into the education system? You know, and this isn't the only district or General Assembly that served and made actions under districts that were declared gerrymandered. This goes back decades.

So you open that Pandora's box, where does it end? And in fact, the North Carolina Court of Appeals in a two to one ruling decided that that that argument made no sense. So they have now reinstated the North Carolinians votes on those two constitutional amendments that was to approve voter ID and to approve this tax cap measure. So the important thing to know for our listeners, Becky, is what does this mean for this election in terms of voter ID?

Well, it is off the table, because Donna, you know, again, you know, nothing is easy. And this is way more complicated than we can talk about in the short amount of time that we have. But you know, in addition to this NAACP lawsuit, there are other lawsuits that are out there, there has been a stay, if you will, on the voter ID. So one thing that I think our listeners really need to know is this doesn't make any change for what we're currently going through with this November election. So no voter ID is required. Now, subsequent elections, you know, we'll see how this shakes out, you know, we may in fact, be able to go back to what the people voted on to require a voter ID.

But that's on down the road for right now. So again, complicated, lots of different things going on at the same time, while this court case is going on, whether to determine whether or not North Carolinians are going to have to provide a voter ID, our election for November is going forward, no voter ID is required. So for now, at least based on this North Carolina Court of Appeals ruling, they have reinstated essentially the people's vote from 2018, which was to approve these two constitutional amendments.

But because of all the court wrangling the 2020 election, no photo ID required because there's still court cases to be heard. Before we get to the issue of the North Carolina Supreme Court, the highest court in our state, and what role that body is going to play in this whole conversation. Let's talk a little bit about this second constitutional amendment that voters approved in 2018, then was struck down by a trial court in 2019. But now again, just a few days ago, the Court of Appeal says, no, we're going to reinstate this one too.

What was it? And that was a cap on how much you can pay out of your personal income for taxes. Now, the change was this has been part of our constitution for decades that it was capped at 10%.

You don't have to pay any more than 10% of your income in income taxes for North Carolina. This just brought that cap down to 7%, from 10% to 7%. So it ensures it gives some integrity and ensures taxpayers that their personal income that they're getting, they will always be able to keep part of it. Again, voters voted overwhelmingly in favor of that cap. I think it's important to understand on when we're talking about could was the General Assembly properly seated in order to make these decisions.

The General Assembly did not make a decision on the voter ID or the tax cap. What they did was by a three-fifths vote of the General Assembly, they voted to put that in front of the voters. Now, how those members of the General Assembly voted when they went into the ballot box, we don't know and it doesn't matter. The people of North Carolina voted to put those provisions in our constitution.

So that's one thing that gets really murky to me looking at these court decisions and what the judges are looking at. You know, even if for some crazy reason they would agree that the whole General Assembly was illegitimate, the vote of the people in my view ought to take precedence over that. We know that specifically in terms of the new Court of Appeals ruling on voter ID, again reinstating the North Carolina vote from 2018, the NAACP has already said they're going to appeal this to the North Carolina Supreme Court. Tell us so. First of all, no surprise there at all. You know, we certainly anticipated this.

They have made it official. So we'll go to the North Carolina Supreme Court. Currently, the North Carolina Supreme Court, of course, we have an election for three of those seats coming in November, that currently there are six Democrats on the North Carolina Supreme Court and one Republican. Now our colleague Mitch Kokay has written extensively and brilliantly on a lot of the decisions that have come out and how those votes have fallen and how the justices have voted.

I'd certainly refer anybody to that. But as it goes to the North Carolina Supreme Court, it's important for people to recognize these are the kind of decisions that the Supreme Court makes and who sits on that court and the balance of the court is incredibly important for voter ID. Now, Donald, one of the things is, as we've seen in the past, these judicial races, sometimes it's hard to know a lot about the judges and they're, you know, at the bottom, they don't get a lot of money, so you're not going to see the television ads.

You've done a fabulous job with moderating some panels of these judges to bring that to light so people have a better idea of who they're voting for. But with this, the voter ID, the tax cap, but in addition to this, opportunity scholarships are, you know, on the chopping block. That's going to go before the North Carolina Supreme Court. And that's an education voucher for low-income kids in North Carolina. Right.

Yes. Redistricting, again, redistricting issues, tax issues. I mean, it goes on and on. The different things that the North Carolina Supreme Court, public safety, law and order issues is also, you know, the top of the list there. So what I'm hoping will come out of this, and it is confusing and there's a lot of stuff going on, a lot of moving parts, but what I'm hoping is that voters will look at these Supreme Court candidates and the Supreme Court, our right to vote on these folks for the North Carolina Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals and realize how critically important it is and the kind of things that affect our everyday life that is in their hands.

And so who sits on that court is just incredibly important. So if you are a voter who cares about voter ID, if you care about limiting the amount of money that government can take out of your pocket, if you care about school choice and making opportunities available, particularly low income kids, if you care about those things, then you ought to care a lot about this, these judicial elections for the North Carolina Supreme Court and Court of Appeals that we have an opportunity to vote on. Becky Gray is senior vice president with the John Locke Foundation. She writes about all of these issues.

Be sure to check out johnlock.org and carolinajournal.com. Becky, thank you. Thank you, Donna.

And that's all the time we have for the show this week. Thank you for listening. On behalf of Mitch Kokai, I'm Donna Martinez. Hope you'll join us again next week for more Carolina Journal Radio. Carolina Journal Radio is a program of the John Locke Foundation. To learn more about the John Locke Foundation, including donations that support programs like Carolina Journal Radio, send email to development at johnlock.org or call 1-866-JLF-INFO.

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