It's 5.05 and welcome in to a Thursday edition of the Carolina Journal News Hour, News Talk 1110-993 WBT. I'm Nick Craig. Good morning to you.
Some major political news is unfolding in North Carolina according to multiple media outlets. Former Democrat Governor Roy Cooper is expected to announce his campaign for the North Carolina Senate potentially as soon as Monday, according to multiple people directly familiar with the former governor's decision being reported by both Politico and Axios. the popular, a former two term governor, is entrance into the Senate race for the seat that Republican Senator Tom Tillis is leaving open with his announcement last month that he will not seek reelection. Roy Cooper's entrance is expected to transform the Senate race into the most competitive in the United States in 2026. Back in May, the last Carolina Journal poll, we asked the voters across the state of North Carolina, what was their image of former Governor Roy Cooper?
47.5% said they had a favorable view of the former governor, while 36.6% said that they had an unfavorable rating. Important to note in his favorability: 33.2% said they had a very favorable view of the governor, while only 24.2% said their view of the former governor was very unfavorable. North Carolina represents one of the few offensive opportunities for Democrats who are looking to take a majority in the United States Senate next year. Turning our attention to the GOP side, Laura Trump, President Donald Trump's daughter-in-law, is considering her own bid for the seat, effectively freezing. Republican recruitment at this point, as she is expected to be the frontrunner if she decides to get into the race.
Again, no official announcement has been made on that. Tom Tillis, who was first elected to the United States Senate back in 2014, got into some controversy over Donald Trump's one big beautiful bill right ahead of the 4th of July holiday, warning about dramatic cuts to Medicaid across the United States. He then went on to dispel some of those comments against the president, all culminating in him announcing on a Sunday right before the turn of the month that he was not going to seek re-election. North Carolina's Senate, North Carolina's Senate seat is going to be, again, one of the most important in the nation, and it is something that we are going to watch unfold over the coming weeks and months. And of course, as we head towards a primary, which will be in March of next year, all culminating in that November general election.
Again, while no announcement is official according to multiple news outlets, Governor Roy Cooper is expected to make that announcement sometime next week. Could happen as soon as Monday. We will keep our eye out for any of those additional details right here on the Carolina Journal News Hour, and of course, on our website, CarolinaJournal.com, where it's now 508, News Talk 1110-993-WBT. School choice and education freedom have been major topics, not only across the state of North Carolina, but nationally over the last couple of years. We've got a new opinion piece over on our website this morning, CarolinaJournal.com.
The headline, North Carolina has the chance to double down on education freedom. The author of that, Donna King, the editor-in-chief over at CarolinaJournal.com, joins us on the news hour this morning. Donna, tell us a little bit about this piece that you've got up this morning and why it's such an important issue for North Carolina families. Sure. Hi, Nick.
It is interesting.
So, this tax credit was in the one big beautiful bill.
So, there's been a lot of focus about all the different elements of the bill, certainly when it was passed and signed.
Now, the pieces are starting to gel, and we're seeing now that this tax credit is interesting because it's really the first federal-level tax credit for school choice families. And, you know, that could be a double-edged sword for a lot of families. They maybe, you know, want the idea of more tax credits, more support for the school of their choice, but they also don't want the strings that could come with government money for education.
So, it is interesting to see and what it looks like. We're not really sure because the implementation hasn't started yet. But for the top lines, it's a federal measure that offers a dollar-for-dollar tax credit up to $1,700 for individuals who donate to what they call an SGO, a scholarship-granting organization. are nonprofits that can use that money to help families go to the school of their choice for tuition, tutoring, you know, that kind of thing, school-related expenses.
So it's really an incentive-driven model and it lets it empowers taxpayers to give to these student SGOs, these scholarship-granting organizations, and it could really just bust wide open access to private school or homeschool or other things that families who just can't afford a private school and aren't happy with their local public school or need something different, this could really expand the opportunities that they have. You touched on something pretty important. You talked about, you know, again, federal government program potential strings being attached. That's the biggest issue, or one of the biggest issues with public schools right now. A lot of mandates coming out of the Department of Education are being shoved down the throat of not only folks at the statewide level, but Donna in all of our 100 counties, local Board of Education, to keep all of that federal money that's funding things like free breakfast and after-school programs, all of those things that are tied to a lot of red tape up at the federal level.
Well, I think that's the concern. And we don't know what it's going to look like yet. And certainly, if North Carolina decides to opt in, what kind of rules will we put on that money? And what would happen with those tax credits? But a dollar-for-dollar tax credit is really something we have to look at.
You mentioned this, you know, the Reason Foundation has a really interesting column about this and saying, look, a federally run tax program could really become a vehicle for national mandates, testing requirements, curriculum constraints, admission standards, all these other sort of intrusive things that raise red flags for families who are really interested in school choice and why they want to leave public schools in the first place.
So, what is this going to look like? We don't know yet, but it is really an exciting opportunity to get the chance to double dip, so to speak, on programs like the Opportunity Scholarship. These innovations come from the states. North Carolina's Opportunity Scholarship program has been incredibly popular with waiting lists.
So, we need to make sure that those programs like that are still protected because. that kind of innovation needs to come from communities and from the state.
So I'm excited to hear what the federal government has in mind to implement this tax credit and what it would mean for North Carolina families. Donna, would you quickly opine on this national movement of school choice? There's been many think tanks and many activists and third party groups that have been pushing this charge in many states, including North Carolina. It's getting national attention. I'm seeing posts from all over the country on X and Facebook and videos on YouTube about this school choice movement.
It seems to have really picked up some wheels, really, just over the last couple of years. Yeah, I mean, I think really since COVID, I mean, that's really when we saw this just, you know, come onto the scene. School choice homeschooling has been around for a lot of families for decades. But when COVID happened, it became much more prominent, much more to the forefront because parents, one, were very frustrated with the lockdowns, particularly here in North Carolina. And we also have a whole generation of families and parents for whom technology and choice and all of these things are at their fingertips.
You've got all of this stuff right in your house. You can order on a website and have a product delivered this afternoon. Why shouldn't education be the same way? And so, you have a mindset shift from one generation to the next, and they see education very differently. It used to be a very conservative or Republican even idea.
It's not really anymore. You're seeing a wide spectrum of ideologies, political parties, socioeconomic backgrounds are really embracing the school choice movement because, one, you get one shot at your child's education. It's not a trend that you can fix over 20 years because your child is nobody wants their child to be the social experiment of a government bureaucrat.
So, that is what we're seeing right now. And this kind of tax credit could create SGOs that are able to make those dreams, those ideas of a different kind of education a reality for so many families. Here in North Carolina, we started the OSP program in 2013, incredibly popular. In the last two years, year and a half or so, the North Carolina state legislature has expanded it, lifted caps, and has made it available to all families on a sliding scale with the poorest families being served first. That's a great example of how popular this could be in North Carolina.
It's a great opinion piece this morning. Again, the headline is North Carolina has a chance to double down on education freedom. You can read it by visiting our website, CarolinaJournal.com. Donna King, the editor-in-chief of the Carolina Journal, joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. It's 520.
Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour. News Talk 1110-993 WBT. Immigration arrests in North Carolina are up 162% since President Donald Trump took office for a second time in January of this year, with more than 1,500 people being arrested. This is double the number of arrests made by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, that's ICE, during the same time period in 2024, according to data collected by the Deportation Data Project.
Started by David Hausman, an associate professor at UC's Berkeley Law School, the Deportation Data Project collects and posts public U. S. government immigration enforcement data from agencies including ICE and Customs and Border Protection. That's CBP. It gets its information via Freedom of Information Act or FOIA requests.
Arrests, however, are being made on an administrative basis, meaning that ICE is seeking to deport rather than criminally prosecute those arrested because they don't have a criminal record and doesn't include criminal arrests, arrests by ICE's Homeland Security Investigative Division or arrests by Customs and Border Protection. The Trump administration has received some criticism for such arrests, despite saying that only the quote worst of the worst illegal aliens would be arrested. The Department of Homeland Security released a statement on Tuesday countering the critics by saying that 70% of ICE arrests have been of illegal aliens convicted or charged with crimes. According to data from the Transactional Record Access Clearinghouse or TRAC at Syracuse University, 71% of the more than 57,000 people held in ICE detention as of June the 29th had no criminal convictions, while many detained were for minor offenses such as traffic violations. Nationally, there have been over 94,000 arrests since January the 20th.
That's up 124% from 2024, according to multiple reports. More than 8,000 have been deported to countries since that time. The biggest spike of arrests came in June, which saw 42% more arrests than May and 268% more than June of 2024.
Now turning our attention back to North Carolina, on average, there have been 11 people arrested per day across the Tarheel state, with the most in May, which saw more than 400 arrests statewide. Mecklenburg County has seen the most ICE arrests this year with 436 people being detained between January and June, followed by Wake County with 98 arrests, Cabaris 71, Union 52, New Hanover County 45, Johnson 27, Hardnett 21, Durham 15, Forsyth 14, and Moore County 9 arrests. Reports state that 48% of the 798 Of the 1,600 people arrested by ICE in the state had criminal records, and 20% were arrested for being undocumented. Over 80% of those arrested were from Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador, and close to 1,000 of those arrested were deported by early June. North Carolina has seen its share of problems created by illegal immigration with criminal records, including Trendearagua gang members in both the Raleigh and Charlotte metro areas.
Two brothers from Mexico, the Martin Salito brothers, were arrested in 2022 after the murder of Wake County Deputy Sheriff Ned Bird. One of the brothers then fled to Mexico where he was extradited in February and actually pled guilty to the murder in June. He is scheduled to be sentenced this month.
Now, this has been a very big issue for North Carolinians, and has been a top issue for the North Carolina General Assembly as well. House Bill 10 required ICE cooperation and budget adjustments to take place. It became law in November of last year after the General Assembly overrode former Democrat Governor Roy Cooper's veto. That piece of legislation requires sheriffs to cooperate with immigration and customs enforcement under North Carolina law rather than allowing every county to decide whether or whether they will not work with the federal agency to detain illegal immigrants arrested for major crimes. The legislature continued to tighten up against illegal immigration this year with Senate Bill 153, that's the North Carolina Border Protection Act, as well as House Bill 318, the Criminal Illegal Alien Enforcement Act.
Senate Bill 153 passed in a 26 to 17 vote back on June the 10th. and mandates broader cooperation between state agencies and federal immigration authorities. It also seeks to curb sanctuary city policies across North Carolina. Beyond law enforcement, Senate Bill one hundred fifty three instructs state agencies such as the Department of Health and Human Services and the Division of Employment Security to review public benefits distributed to unauthorized immigrants and ensure that those benefits are curtailed where prohibited by law. The bill also includes a provision to waive local government immunity for jurisdictions that are deemed sanctuary cities or counties.
This would allow private citizens to sue their city, municipality, county if they suffer harm as a result of illegal immigration activity. Additionally, it bars the UNC system campuses from adopting policies that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities. House Bill 318 compels law enforcement agencies to honor detainer requests from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. When an undocumented individual is arrested and ICE issues a detainer, local officials must hold said person for up to 48 hours to allow for federal pickup.
The legislation prohibits local governments from adopting sanctuary policies and introduces penalties, including potential loss of state funding for noncompliance. Additionally, it requires jail administrators to notify ICE when they reasonably believe someone in custody is unlawfully present in the United States, even if a detainer has not yet been issued. As you can imagine, both of those bills were vetoed by Democrat Governor Josh Stein back on June the 20th. He said he vetoed Senate Bill 153 because, quote, at the time when our law enforcement is already stretched thin, this bill takes state law enforcement officers away from their existing state duties and forces them to act as federal immigration agents.
Furthermore, under the current law, people without lawful immigration status are already being prevented from receiving Medicaid, SNAP, Section 8, and other benefits. Stein said that while he vetoed House Bill 138 because he believes it's unconstitutional, he does support the bill's efforts to require sheriffs to contact federal immigration authorities about people in their custody charged with sexual battery, armed robbery, arson, assault on a public official or court personnel, and other dangerous crimes. With the governor saying, Saying in his veto message, quote, people who commit these crimes should be held accountable whether or not they are here without legal authorization. And those charged with serious offenses ought to receive increased scrutiny from federal immigration officials.
However, he said that his oath to the office requires that he upholds the Constitution of the United States. He went on to write, Therefore, I cannot sign this bill because it would require sheriffs to unconstitutionally detain people for up to 48 hours after they would have been otherwise released. The Fourth Circuit is clear that local law enforcement officers cannot keep people in their custody solely based on suspected immigration violations. But let me be clear: anyone who commits a serious crime in North Carolina must be prosecuted and held accountable regardless of their immigration status. With those two vetoes coming out late last month, both chairs.
Chambers, the House, and the Senate are set to reconvene in Raleigh next week to try and override Stein's vetoes of not only those two pieces of legislation, but 12 other bills that Republicans have passed in the General Assembly. We will have additional details and coverage of those veto overrides over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com, and of course, right here on the Carolina Journal News Hour. For the ones who get it done, the most important part is the one you need now, and the best partner is the one who can deliver. That's why millions of maintenance and repair pros trust Granger, because we have professional-grade supplies for every industry, even hard-to-find products. And we have same-day pickup and next-day delivery on most orders.
But most importantly, we have an unwavering commitment to help keep you up and running. Call at Granger.com or just stop by. Granger for the ones who get it done. It's 536. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour.
In an effort to ease mounting frustrations with the North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicle, that's DMV, Governor Josh Stein recently signed Senate Bill 391 into law, which grants a temporary two-year grace period for North Carolina drivers. Under this legislation, licenses expired as of July the 1st will remain valid for in-state driving only through December the 31st of 2027. The measure was enacted in direct response to backlogs at DMV, where residents have encountered extensive wait times or unavailability for renewal applications. While drivers can legally operate a vehicle during this two-year waiting period, expired licenses are not valid for anything other than driving privileges. Also, this extension does not apply to non-resident nor to commercial, suspended, revoked, or canceled licenses.
Officials continue to urge drivers to renew early despite this relief effort. According to Paul Tyne, the commissioner of the Division of Motor Vehicle, he noted, We advise our customers to renew their licenses to ensure that they remain valid for identification purposes, including to fly, rent a car, get a bank loan, fill a prescription and have documents notarized. As part of the relief package, NCDMV has also expanded services. The department has reopened 20 offices on Saturdays through the month of August and is now accepting walk-ins for renewals and offering online renewals for convenience.
However, once your license is expired, licenses can only be renewed online once every other time, so every other renewal cycle. In May, Paul Tyne assumed the position of NCDMV Commissioner, succeeding Wayne Goodwin. Under Goodwin's leadership, which began in 2022, there was a lot of public backlash against the DMV. In a committee hearing earlier this year, in February, Goodwin faced harsh criticism from state lawmakers. Representative Brendan Jones, the Republican out of Columbus County, told Goodwin, under your tenure, the NCDMV has one of the most dysfunctional agencies in state government.
Tyne described the DMV as broken and promised significant improvements. Noting there is no shortage of challenges faced by our division, and it is critical that we get to work quickly to reduce wait times, make our website more user-friendly, and empower our frontline staff to ensure the highest level of service to our citizens. The much-anticipated audit of NC DMV is expected to be released soon, according to state auditor Dave Bollick. While appointments remain widely unavailable and frustrations still remain, advocates hope that this legislation will be a significant step towards expanding access to DMV services across North Carolina. We've got some additional details on Senate Bill 391, some of the ongoing problems with DMV.
All of those are on our website this morning, CarolinaJournal.com. The headline: NC drivers get two-year grace period to renew licenses. Again, you can read that over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com, where it's now 540. Talk 1110-993-WBT. There is a lot of competition in a variety of industries that consumers deal with day in and day out.
One of them is home security. There's a very interesting legal battle that's been going on in North Carolina with Charlotte-based CPI and one of their competitors. To walk us through some of those details, Mitch Kokai with the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Mitch, it's pretty cutthroat out there, but I guess when you're a competitor to CPI and you're actively lying about the company and your sales pitch, that's not only unethical, but it turns out it's actually highly illegal. And potentially very costly as well, Nick.
We're talking about the competition between CPI and Vivint Smart Home, two big home security companies. And basically, what caught my eye as I was looking through some court opinions was the fact that this was a very high-dollar legal dispute. As it turns out, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirming a ruling that says that Vivint may have to pay CPI upwards of $190 million because of some unfair competition practices. And basically, the story is that CPI was able to prove to a jury's satisfaction that Vivint sales reps would go to CPI customers and misrepresent what was happening with the company.
Now, there's nothing wrong with Vivint trying to go to a CPI customer and saying, hey, we have a better product. We provide better service. We're going to give you a better job. Deal, a better price, better equipment, better service for the equipment than what CPI provides.
So you should go with us. But what CPI showed in the evidence, according to the court records, was that vivid sales reps would sales reps would go to CPI customers and say, CPI is going out of business and we took over the business.
So basically, we already are your providers. And so you should get this new contract with us while you have the chance. And CPI said that this was not something that just happened every once in a while, some one rogue sales rep. This was something that was repeated over and over. CPI had documented more than 500 customers who were affected by this based on their complaints to CPI.
And they estimated, based on all kinds of numbers and algorithms and everything, that there could have been somewhere in the neighborhood of 11,000 customers of CPI that were affected. By this. That's why a jury, after finding in CPI's favor that it had proved that this had happened, they awarded something close to $50 million in actual damages that were done to CPI because of Vivint's practices. And then the jury award gets so large because of punitive damages that were thrown in in the neighborhood of $140 million.
So unless Vivint can get some sort of other court ruling, take this to the Supreme Court and get some sort of ruling from the Supreme Court in its favor or find some other way to challenge this in court, it's going to have to end up paying out nearly $190 million to this competitor, CPI, that has its home in Charlotte.
So Mitch, obviously many folks, regardless of what service that they're consuming or what provider they have in a litany of different services, there's often these discussions, maybe a little white lies about how we can provide the service better or we're a better company. Is it the blatant nature of going to customers and saying, hi, we're actually your new provider. We bought the company that you're currently using when that was not true at all? Is that what led them in this much trouble? Yeah, that's exactly the case.
We were talking earlier about the fact that there's no problem for a representative of Vivint or ADT or CPI or any of the other home security companies to go to a customer, even one who's already a customer of your competitor, and saying, hey, we can do it better. We can give you a better price or a better service, better technology, better response if you have a problem. All of those things are fair game. That's part of the normal competition for business. But the problem, as documented in this case and as spelled out in this Fourth Circuit opinion, upholding the ruling in favor of CPI and against Vivint, was that Vivint sales reps.
Over and over again, not just in one case or two, or even more than that in a handful of cases, but in a repeated pattern, would go to the CPI customers and misrepresent what was happening with CPI's business. And in addition to that, not just saying bad things about your competitor, but also saying, hey, we're taking over your business already.
So you should just sign a new contract with us and get the best vivant contract you can get. Since Vivin is taking over CPI, which is going out of business, that was a misrepresentation of what was happening. The jury was convinced of that, gave CPI almost $50 million in a judgment of actual damages to its business. And then the large size of the award, much larger than the $50 million, approaching $190 million, was because of punitive damages. And the punitive damages would only be put on there because of the nature of the offense.
I mean, it's one thing for CPI. CPI or for Vivit to have made a mistake and caused these damages, but the punitive damages are in there because of the way in which it was done. And I guess the question would be: this Viven is a very large company. They operate seemingly across the entire United States. Mitch, there's no question about it.
You can go back to laws from the 1940s. It's highly illegal to do what they were doing with the, through algorithms, more than 11,000 customers that could have been affected. As you noted, this wasn't just a rogue sales guy that was trying to boost his own numbers. Presumably, this had to be coming down from somewhere high up in the company for this to be taking place. What were they thinking?
Yeah, now I can't say based on anything in the court records that anything was said about the higher-ups at Vivint having some sort of plan about this. That was not necessarily spelled out in the court records.
So we don't want to say anything about Vivint having an actual plan to do this. I don't think the court record goes that far. But certainly, the court record shows that Vivant did not. Respond to any complaints about its practices in a way that would suggest that it was against what was going on with the sales reps. And in fact, part of what's spelled out in the court record is that this is not some one-time thing of Vivint just saying, We don't like CPI, we're going to attack its customers or attack its business and try to lure its customers in this way with just CPI.
Apparently, this has been something that's happened in other states with other companies, and that state attorneys general in other states have gone after Vivint because of its business practices.
So while the case doesn't say anything specifically about Vivint and its executives having any sort of a plan in place that called for these unfair business practices, it was widespread enough that this has been something that has been a problem for Vivint over and over again for years. Yeah. It's not only an interesting legal story, as you noted, Mitch, this is a costly mistake, almost $190 million. Folks can read some additional details by checking out the story over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. We appreciate the details.
Mitch Kokai from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Good morning again. It's 5:54. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, News Talk 1110, 99.3 WBWBT. We are tracking a major North Carolina political story this morning, according to multiple media outlets, including Politico and Axios.
Former Democrat Governor Roy Cooper is expected to announce his campaign for North Carolina Senate as soon as Monday of next week. Again, that's according to multiple media outlets. For the former two-term governor, back in May, we conducted our Carolina Journal poll and asked voters if they thought they had a favorable or unfavorable image of the former governor. 47.5% said they viewed Roy Cooper favorably, with only 36.6% saying they viewed him unfavorably. Important to note in those categories, 33%.
Said they viewed the governor very favorably, while only 24% said they had a very unfavorable view of the former governor.
So his popularity continues to be very strong here across the state of North Carolina. Of course, this discussion is all coming forward after Republican Senator Tom Tillis announced last month that he would not be seeking re-election. This is after he sparred publicly and privately with President Donald Trump over the one big beautiful bill, making claims on the floor of the United States Senate that Donald Trump was betraying his voters, betraying their trust by drastic cuts to Medicaid and other governmental programs. Trump sparring back and fighting back against Tillis, talking about getting a primary challenger ready, and well, that's exactly what happened the next day. Tillis released a press release and announced that he would not be running for re-election.
With Roy Cooper's seemingly guaranteed entrance into the race, again, coming as early as next week, that puts the eye on the Republican side of the aisle as who will be the frontrunner in that candidate. One of the more popular names that has been flung around over the last couple of weeks continues to be President Donald Trump's daughter-in-law, Lara Trump. The Wrightsville Beach, a southeastern North Carolina native, is reportedly considering her bid for the seat. With that, she would no doubt be the Republican frontrunner candidate and probably wouldn't be very hard to get the endorsement of her father-in-law in President Donald Trump. But until a decision is made, there is essentially a holding pattern for Republican recruitment.
There are multiple declared candidates.
However, none of them are rising to any significant level of prominence as it stands right now as all eyes continue to wait for Lara Trump to jump into this race.
Now, on the Democrat side, Governor Roy Cooper, as we just Recapped has an incredibly popular favorability and is a very popular figure across the state of North Carolina. With his announcement into the race, that likely boxes out other Democrats that were potentially looking and vying for that. One of them was Attorney General Jeff Jackson, who had been rumored to run for this position. You can imagine that former Governor Roy Cooper announcing his entrance into the race again sometime next week will probably guarantee that no other significant Democrats jump into the race for the United States Senate. This race, according to Politico, is set to be the most competitive in the 2026 election cycle.
We'll be keeping an eye on all of the details right here on the Carolina Journal News Hour.
Well, that's going to do it for a Thursday edition of the Carolina Journal News Hour. WBT News is next, followed by Good Morning BT. We're back with you tomorrow morning, 5 to 6, right here on News Talk 1110 and 99.3, WBT. WBT.
