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It's 5.05 and welcome in to a Tuesday edition of the Carolina Journal News Hour, News Talk 1110-993 WBT. I'm Nick Craig. Good morning to you. Last week, Representative Mark Harris, who represents the 8th Congressional District across North Carolina. Introduced a bill alongside Senator Marsha Blackburn from Tennessee to repeal the congressional charter of the nation's largest teachers' union.
That's the National Education Association or the NEA. According to a press release from Harris's office, the NEA voted to support LGBTQ related events in public schools and cut all ties with the anti anti-defamation league. A press release from Harris's office reads, Congress established the NEA in 1906 to support American teachers and strengthen our schools, but it has abandoned that mission in favor of a radical agenda. From branding President Trump a fascist to embracing diversive gender ideology and walking away from efforts to fight anti-Semitism, the NEA has become nothing more than a partisan advocacy group. Since the NEA is clearly not prioritizing students, parents, or even teachers, it's time to remove Congress's seal of approval from this rogue organization.
During the NEA's 2025 Representative Assembly, delegates voted to move forward a recommendation to the NEA and the NEA's Executive Committee not to endorse, use, or publicize any materials from the Anti-Defamation League or participate in any of their programs. NEA President Becky Pringle said in a statement, quote, as educators, we are committed to ensuring students of every race, religion, or natural origin have a safe and welcoming space to learn and grow. The National Education Association and its members are unequivocally committed to the cause of educating, organizing against, and combating all forms of hate and discrimination, including anti-Semitism and anti-Palestinian bigotry. This is a fundamental principle that will never be abandoned. The discussion goes on to say anti-Semitism is a very real and urgent problem in our country and throughout the world.
It is an insidious hate and cancer. NEA is committed to combating this hate in our classrooms, on our campuses, and in our communities. This commitment was evident at the 2025 Representative Assembly where the NEA hosted a panel about how to combat anti-Semitism. The group noting that they've also hosted other events in the last couple of months and years dealing with civil rights, honoring Jewish American Heritage Month, and more. If the bill were to go forward, it would repeal the federal charter granted to NEA under U.S.
Code Chapter 115, Title 36. It is not a lengthy piece of legislation. The page is really only about six lines, just straightly revoking the charter of the National Education Association. This is after, according to comments, again from Congressman Mark Harris and others, that the NEA has become a rogue organization and is no longer doing what's best for parents, students, or teachers, and has become essentially a left-wing activist group. We've got some additional details on this story.
We will continue to track this legislation as it makes its way through the United States Congress. We'll have those. Continued details over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com, and of course, right here on the Carolina Journal News Hour, where it's now 509, News Talk 1110-993, WBT. More than 100,000 voters in North Carolina are set to receive a letter from the State Board of Elections starting next month that they are missing what is known as a HAVA ID. We've been walking through this very interesting process over the last couple of months here on the Carolina Journal News Hour.
They give us some more details this morning. It's my pleasure to welcome Dr. Andy Jackson of the John Locke Foundation to our airwaves. Andy, there's been a lot that's been made about individuals registered in North Carolina that do not have the proper identification on form or on record, I should say, with the State Board of Elections, going back to an early 2000s law passed by the federal government. You've been tracking this for quite some time.
What's the latest that you got?
Well, the latest that we have is that this, that this is part of a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice. The State Board of Election has agreed to go ahead and start collecting those numbers. And this is required by both federal, as you mentioned, but also state law. And in state law, the state board and the county board are supposed to make, and this is a direct quote, a diligent effort to collect all the required information.
And that includes these HAVA numbers, which are either your driver's license number or the last four digits of your Social Security number. The reason those numbers are important is that it allows us, or government officials, to match your voter registration records with other records. And that helps us have cleaner voting rolls. It helps like if somebody's moved to another county, they can find that out sooner. And we have cleaner voter rolls.
It helps prevent, potentially prevent voter fraud. It helps prevent Poor administration by election officials. When you have cleaner books, they have to go through less of a rigmarole to look up voters.
So it's better all around to have these numbers. And so as part of the settlement, they're moving forward with going ahead and collecting these numbers. They're going to be notifying the people on the list, each of the counties, and then they're going to have time to go ahead and reply, send those numbers in, let them know that those are required numbers. Folks who do not reply to that, if they show up to vote, they're going to be asked to provide those numbers. They will vote provisionally.
And then once those numbers are verified, their votes will count.
So there's nobody going to be automatically taken off of voter rolls for this. Everybody's vote is going to be counted as long as they provide those legally required numbers. Andy, I'm sure some folks might be scratching their head based off of what you just said. You mentioned that this was federally required. That happened back in 2004.
It's also in state statute as well. How are we at a position where more than 103,000 individuals are set to get some notifications from the State Board of Elections next month that they don't have this required information? How is something like that even possible? You know, I'm not really a fashion guy or a design guy, but this is one of those things where sometimes a design failure can lead to real, real problems. This was basically a design failure for the people that designed the voter registration forms in North Carolina a couple of decades ago.
In that the required information, I'm doing this from memory, is in a pink box with red numbering, lettering, you got to fill this out.
Well, because you can either do the driver's license number or the social security number, well, As long as you have one, the other one's not required.
So they went ahead and highlighted that in a color that indicated that it was optional. And so people, especially folks that maybe don't like to give out that kind of information unless they absolutely have to, understandably didn't give that information out. And so this is something that has been allowed to fester for a couple of decades now. And it wasn't until a meeting in November of 2023 where the State Board of Elections finally agreed to fix the forms to indicate that these HAVA numbers are required, but they didn't say, despite state law saying they had to make a diligent effort to get this information, they decided that they weren't going to go ahead and try to collect that from voter registrants who had registered but didn't provide the information as required. Andy, how are these individuals admitted to the voter rolls in the first place without this required information?
Obviously, as you know, maybe there were some design discrepancies on the form itself. But as you look at somebody within a local county board of elections inputting somebody into the system as a registered voter. How were those numbers and how were those people entered without some of that required information?
Well, that once again was just a real failure of the system. I mean, part of it is, once again, the design seemed to indicate that this was optional information. And a lot of times, in these local county boards, you know, they're not necessarily reading up on all the statutes. They'll take the forms, they'll follow the forms, they'll follow the directions and the guidance from the state board of election. And if the state board of elections is not telling them, hey, you need to go ahead and get this information from folks, it's required, then they're not going to get it.
This fits into the categories such as race or sex, where we want to collect that information in North Carolina, but it's optional.
So you don't have to provide it. And so folks didn't do it. And then they're put into the system. And the way it works, Carolina is, they're still allowed to vote. Um, because basically, if there is a problem with your registration, but you're otherwise a legal voter, you're and you show up and vote, and they accept your ballot, then you can't retroactively take it out.
For example, this is part of Jefferson Griffin's lawsuit. The reason he failed is that he was trying to fix this on the back end. You can't do that in North Carolina. This had to have been fixed in the front end. This is the reason that the Justice Department went ahead and sued this time around so that we can fix the problem now rather than have to try to deal with it after the fact in 2026.
We'll continue the conversation with Dr. Andy Jackson from the John Locke Foundation after this. You're listening to the Carolina Journal News Hour. Ah. It's 5:21.
Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, News Talk 11:10, 99.3 WBT. Don't forget, if you miss any of our show weekday mornings, 5 to 6, you can check out our Carolina Journal News Hour podcast. It's available in Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, anywhere you get your shows. Just search for the Carolina Journal News Hour, tap that follower subscribe button, and get a new program delivered each and every weekday morning. It's the Carolina Journal News Hour podcast.
Download and subscribe now. A three-judge panel concluded a six-day trial last week challenging North Carolina's congressional and legislative election maps with no ruling expected at least before the beginning of August, as final written arguments are due back to the court by August the 5th. The NAACP, Common Cause, and Individual Voters argue that Republican-drawn maps unlawfully dilute black voting power in violation of the Voter Rights Act and the United States Constitution. Specific challenges target Senate Districts 1, 2, 8, 40, and 41 with multiple House districts, as well as congressional districts 1, 5, 6, 10, 12, and 14. Judges have already ruled in favor of Republican lawmakers on Senate District 40 and 41, but resolved judgment on some of the other districts.
They also dismissed claims related to several other districts due to lack of standing and threw out a variety of allegations brought forth by the two groups, NAACP and Common Cause, as well as some of those individual voters. The maps, as of right now, remain in effect. If the plaintiffs are to succeed, lawmakers could be in a position where they need to be. To redraw districts, that would have to happen very quickly before December the 1st of this year to avoid any disruptions in the 2026 midterm elections. Again, we are expecting some sort of decision from the court coming up in the month of August.
We'll keep an eye on these election map lawsuits over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com, and right here on the Carolina Journal News Hour, where it's now 5:23, News Talk 11:10, 99.3, WBT. Continuing our discussion this morning with Dr. Andy Jackson of the John Locke Foundation over HAVA identification numbers and voters affected in North Carolina. This is, as you noted, has been the case for at least for HAVA going all the way back to 2004.
So more than 20 years, this has been on the books federally. I don't know exactly how long it's been on the books in state statute here in North Carolina. Andy, is it a fair question to ask why it took this DOJ lawsuit back a couple of months ago to get the state board of elections to go through this process and remediate some of these issues with more than 100,000 voters across the state? That is definitely a fair question. We got to this point.
What led us up to this point was a series of citizen complaints. There's a North Carolina, I think she's out of Surrey County. Could be wrong about the county. Her name is Carol Snow. She had been doing a series of complaints to the state board.
And she made so many complaints on these Hava numbers that they actually changed the way they handled complaints so that they could streamline the process a little bit. And then they finally concluded at this meeting back in November of 2023 that, yes, in fact, we have not been following the law. But they listened to their advice of their general counsel, Paul Cox, who said, Yeah, we need to, I agree that we need to fix this problem. But he advised the board that they don't have to go ahead and correct the mistakes of the past, that they can just keep going as they have been going with these registrations. That was.
An unfortunate decision at best because he was basically advising them that they didn't have to do that due diligence, they didn't have to make that diligent effort to collect this missing information when state law clearly says that you do. And so it took this lawsuit from the federal government to make this thing happen, but really we should have done this on our own 18 months ago. Over the last couple of months as well, I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up the fact that the State Board of Elections has recently changed its major political party that is in control of the five-member board. It has been a Democrat-controlled board going all the way back to the beginning of Roy Cooper's term.
Now that authority and those appointments being made by the state auditor and Dave Bullock, who is a Republican. Andy, do you think there's anything there as well now that this board is a 3-2 Republican, the Democrat board, as some of these changes are beginning to roll out?
Well, that's definitely a part of it. I think it probably made it easier for the board to decide to settle, although I will say it was a unanimous vote. Both of the Democrats on the board also agreed with this. But you also have to remember, the North Carolina Supreme Court, when Jefferson Griffin brought this lawsuit saying that you should toss out the ballots from these registrants with the missing HABA numbers, the state board, I'm sorry, the Supreme Court agreed with the substance of Jefferson Griffin's arguments that these were illegally constituted registrations, but they disagreed with that post hoc tossing the ballots.
So the state board of elections was already on notice from the North Carolina Supreme Court that they were in violation of North Carolina law and they were going to have to fix this problem. Then the lawsuit comes from the federal government and this provides essentially an opportunity for them to do what they were going to have to do anyhow, but in this case, doing it under this Settlement with the federal government. And so this was something that was going to happen anyhow, but this kind of puts a little more oomph in the process, kind of forcing them to move at maybe a faster pace than they would have on their own. And that's a good thing because we're going to have. local elections, municipal elections later this year.
Then we've got the primary. If they don't get it done by the end of the summer, it's going to be very difficult for them to complete this process before you get lots and lots of voters starting in the primary in 2026. And that process is a kind of a three-step plan that the state board has rolled out or has been talking about and is beginning to roll out over the next couple of weeks. They're going to be sending mail to these 103,000-plus individuals on the list. Andy, they've got a new website set up where you can go in and search for your name, your family members, your friends, and alert them that way.
And they seem to be really pushing hard for people to go to the DMV, the My DMV web portal where you can renew your license. I guess you can make some of those changes through there or visit your local county board of election office. Or as you were just mentioning earlier, the last kind of step in all of this is when you show up to vote, there's going to be a flag on your voting profile if you still fall into this category.
So it seems like they're going to try to catch every possible person on this list if they're an engaged voter and are going to show up and vote in either the municipals or some of these elections next year. Right. And that's hopefully this is going to really diminish the number of registrations that are missing this required information. The good news is, since we have voter ID in North Carolina, that's probably going to help that last step a lot because, you know, the most common ID used is your driver's license. And so folks already know to bring that in, and it's going to help smooth out that last process, that last phase a lot.
Now, there may be folks that bring in a different ID and they can't provide that number. They don't have either number memorized. Then they may have to come back and show it to election officials to have their ballot counted as long as they show up before election day. I think that's going to be a very small number of folks that don't have that memory, because who doesn't remember their social security number?
So those numbers are going to be available. There's going to be a really small number of folks that they're going to have to go back and get those numbers later. And I expect we're going to be, at least for people that show up to vote, we're going to be looking at close to 100% compliance with the law at this point. For people that have either moved out of the states, these are old registrations, obviously that's going to be a lot less compliant.
So we'll hear some panicking numbers somewhere down the road, like, oh, you know, only 50% of people will lose their right to vote. Nobody's going to lose their right to vote under this system. You just, when you get the chance, provide the numbers, your vote will be counted. We've got a lot more details on how this process is set to roll out and how you can check your own registration and make sure that that is up to date and you've got all that required information on an article over on our website this morning, CarolinaJournal.com. We appreciate the update.
Dr. Andy Jackson from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Lowe's knows that as a pro, your reputation means everything. That's why we're proud to offer Valspar and HGTV Home by Sherwin-Williams primers that meet all of your needs. Whether you need to mask minor imperfections, block tough stains, or seal new drywall, you and your wallet are in good hands.
Shop primers from Valspar and HGTV Home by Sherwin-Williams at Lowe's today. It's 537. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour. News talk 1110-993WBT. An interesting story we're tracking this morning over at CarolinaJournal.com.
A North Carolina mother recently faced an unexpected obstacle while registering to homeschool her children. This is according to the Homeschool Legal Defense Association. The state officials questioned the validity of her college diploma because it was written in Latin. Her name is Kristen Barclay, and she recently moved to the state from South Carolina and submitted her diploma from Sweet Bear College, which is a well-regarded liberal arts school in the state of Virginia. Sweet Bear issues diplomas in Latin like many other historical institutions, including all of the Ivy League schools.
However, North Carolina's Division of Non-Public Education, DNPE, rejected Barclay's submission, stating that her diploma could not be accepted as evidence of a sufficient education because it was not written in English. This led to an automatic classification of her home school as non-compliant. Placing her in violation of state law unless she provided acceptable proof of academic credentials. The North Carolina DNPE mandates that parents who wish to homeschool their children must have at least a high school diploma or its equivalent. There is no requirement that says that the documentation must be in English or accompanied by a certified translation.
Despite this, DNPE sent Barclay an email indicating rather that the evidence of her education was, quote, not written in English and could not be accepted until further information was provided. The email reads as follows. One or more problems exist in your notice of intent. Specifically, the diploma evidence was not written in English. Your homeschool is not legally registered with the state of North Carolina.
Attempting to resolve the issue, Kristen Barclay obtained an English translation of her diploma directly from the college that she went to in Virginia. The translation restated the contents of the original diploma.
However, then state officials objected again, this time pointing out that the translation did not include her name. They asked her to submit her college transcripts as additional proof. Barclay then reached out to the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, a nonprofit organization that advocates for the rights of homeschool families across the United States. Attorney Darren Jones of the Homeschool Legal Defense Association reviewed the case and found that the state's request exceeded what is legally required under North Carolina law. He contacted DNPE directly to dispute their actions and to clarify that the documents already submitted met all applicable legal standards.
Jones Emphasize that there is no legal basis to reject a diploma solely because it is in Latin. The DNPE quickly responded to Jones, informing him that the status of Barclay's home school was changed from pending to open.
Now, the vast majority of very many college degrees have some level of Latin written on them. That's what makes this such an interesting story. We've got a full rundown on this this morning over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. The headline, Latin diploma confuses officials, stalls homeschool effort. It's a very interesting story.
Again, those details over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. Keeping our threat on education this morning, last week North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson joined 24 other mainly Democrat-run states in suing the federal government to prevent it from freezing funds for North Carolina's schools and educators. He joined the lawsuit filed in Rhode Island. By the attorney generals of nearly 24 other states, including the governors of Philadelphia and Kentucky. In a press release, our attorney general said that schools in the Tarheel State will lose more than $165 million in funding.
That's the state's share of $6.8 billion in nationwide federal funding, and about 1,000 educators across the state will lose their jobs, according to Jeff Jackson. The cuts make up nearly 10% of all of the state's federal education funding, with the Attorney General writing, public schools across North Carolina, especially in rural areas, need this money to keep teachers in the classroom and keep kids safe while they learn. It's unlawful and unconstitutional for the Department of Justice to withhold money that Congress has appropriated. I'm going to court to get this money out for our students, our schools, and North Carolina families. Democrat Governor Josh Stein also reacted to the news, writing, Today North Carolina is taking action to unfreeze funding for North Carolina public schools that was appropriated by Congress.
Without these funds, nearly a thousand teachers will have their jobs taken from them. This money also provides after-school programs, supports children learning English, and helps adults learn to read. If the grants are eliminated, Wake County public schools stand to lose more than $8 million in federal funding. CMS, the Charlotte Mecklenburg school system, is estimated to lose over $12.2 million, with Western North Carolina schools losing the most funding per pupil or per student. The Wake County Public School System instituted a hiring freeze two weeks ago in anticipation of the funding freeze with the Charlotte Mecklenburg School System and the school board rather sending a letter to the Department of Education asking officials to reverse their decision.
Nine of the ten school districts losing the most money per student are in rural North Carolina. Many of those counties, of course, devastated by Hurricane Helene combined, are facing a cut of roughly eighteen million dollars. Mo Green, the Superintendent of Public Instruction, wrote in a press release last week, while the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction respects the federal administration's right to review programs, I must emphasize that our legal obligations to serve these students remained unchanged, and this timing creates a significant and unnecessary challenge for schools, community organizations, and most importantly, the children who depend on these services. I support efforts, including the nationwide lawsuit, to resolve this situation quickly and ensure that North Carolina students receive the support that they need and deserve, and that our federal government agreed to provide them. In addition to school budgets and teacher salaries, the grants go toward before and after school programs for students, community learning centers and teacher development programs.
The funds were supposed to be released on July the 1st of this year, but the Department of Education suspended them back on June the 30th. Brian Balfour, the Vice President of Research of the John Locke Foundation, said, quote, North Carolina public schools spend $3 billion in funds from the federal government per year. The Trump administration's freeze would represent about 5.6% of federal funding and is targeted to specific programs and may prove to be a temporary hold on the funds rather than a permanent reduction.
Furthermore, total spending on North Carolina public schools was eighteen billion dollars last year.
So one hundred sixty nine million dollars is less than one percent of the total statewide spending. Attorney General Jeff Jackson also noted that the loss of nearly 1,000 teaching positions across the state could have a major impact on school districts throughout North Carolina, with an ongoing teacher shortage stating that from the 23-24 school year data shows that almost 9,000 teachers left their profession in the state of North Carolina. NCGOP Communications Director Matt Mercer responded to the press release from the Attorney General, noting, Multiple North Carolina cities have seen homicide rates increase in 2025, and some North Carolina sheriffs still refuse to cooperate with ICE. But Jeff Jackson's top priority is joining with other radically left-wing attorney generals to spend taxpayer money on a lawsuit against President Trump so he can raise money for his next act of political opportunism. The lawsuit came around the same time that the Supreme Court announced that it would allow the Trump administration to fire over 1,000 Department of Education employees, paving the way for President Trump to dismantle the department.
We've got some additional details, including a list of some of the more affected schools. As I noted, nine out of the ten school districts losing the most money per student, that per pupil allocation, are in Western North Carolina. You can view the details on that. You can also read the letter from CMS to the Department of Education asking them to reverse their decision. All of that available this morning over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com.
The headline: NC joins other states in suing the federal government for frozen education funds. Fuck. It's 5:53. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, News Talk 11:10-993WBT. The town of Enfield, North Carolina, which is between Rocky Mount and Roanoke Rapids, it's about 45 minutes south of the Virginia border, has entered its fourth day without power as most of the town is still struggling to receive electricity following severe storms that affected that area over the weekend that damaged the town's own aging electrical infrastructure.
Mayor Mondale Robinson declared a state of emergency last night, citing risks to public safety, especially for vulnerable residents who rely on electricity for medical needs.
Now, we know temperatures have remained dangerously high across the state of North Carolina, with heat indexes topping more than 100 degrees over the last couple of days. The town's nearly 50-year-old power grid has made restoration challenges take place. As of Sunday, five of the six circuits were restored, but with that, many residents are still without power, hundreds still without power this morning. Mayor Robinson is calling for state and federal health, including emergency disaster status and long-delayed infrastructure funding. Noting that the outage's serious impacts include spoiled food, uncooled homes, medical concerns like refrigeration for prescriptions, and the use of CPAP machines.
The town is fed by Dominion Energy, and it clarified that it supplies power to a single delivery point within the town, and that the issue lies within the town's internal electrical grid, not the grid of Dominion Energy. They noted that they are supporting repairs as needed. There's currently a shelter, a cooling center, and charging station that is open at the Infield Middle School, and mobile medical clinics are opening in the area as well. There's been a lot of discussion over the last couple of years here in North Carolina about some aging pieces of the electrical grid and the electrical infrastructure. You'll remember back just a couple of Christmases ago, some big-time power outages in North Carolina on Christmas Eve.
That was due to supplier and demand issues from. Duke Energy at the time. An electrical substation attacked back last year, causing some long term power outages. And of course, as we continue and head deeper into the Atlantic hurricane season, A lot of discussion over aging infrastructure in certain areas of the state, especially when you look at a small town, which Enfield is. It's only got a population according to the 2020 census of about 1,800 individuals.
So it's a relatively small town. They do control their own electrical grid. As you can imagine, some big-time problems getting that up to date and getting some of those restoration projects done due to some of that aging infrastructure and likely some financial challenges. We'll see if we get any additional details on this story, and we'll continue to track those right here on the Carolina Journal News Hour.
Well, it's been slow in the General Assembly over the last couple of weeks.
However, we are expecting that to change as we head into next week. Both the North Carolina House and Senate are set to gavel back in. They have got a variety of issues to deal with, including more than 11 veto overrides, discussion. Discussions over the full budget, potential discussions over mini-budgets. We're going to have all eyes on the General Assembly as we head into the latter parts of this week and early next week, right here on the Carolina Journal News Hour.
That's going to do it for a Tuesday edition. WBT News is next. Followed by Good Morning, BT. We're back with you tomorrow morning, 5-6, right here on News Talk 1110 and 99.3, WBT.
