It's 5.05 and good Monday, good Tuesday morning to you. Welcome into the Carolina Journal News Hour, News Stock 1110-993 WBT. I'm Nick Craig. San Francisco based company GeneTech, a member of the Roche Group, held a groundbreaking ceremony in Holly Springs yesterday to mark the start of its construction of its first East Coast manufacturing facility. The $700 million project is part of Janine Tech and Roche's $50 billion investment in U.
S. manufacturing and infrastructure. The more than 700,000 square foot facility, which will support the production of metabolic medicines, includes next generation treatments for obesity, and will create more than 1,900 jobs, more than right now 1,500 jobs in terms of construction to build the facility, and more than 400 manufacturing jobs with an average annual wage of $120,000 a year. The Janine Tech CEO was in attendance along with U.S. Representative Deborah Ross, the Democrat out of the 2nd Congressional District, Governor Josh Stein, the Commerce Secretary and Lee Lilly, as well as State Senators Sidney Batch, Elisa Grafstein, as well as State Representatives Aaron Perre and other members of the Wake County Commission and mayor of Holly Springs.
According to the CEO of Genine Tech, they wrote in a press release, quote, we are proud to break ground on our new manufacturing site in Holly Springs, North Carolina, with its world-class biotech talent, top research institutions, and a robust infrastructure that will enable our growth for years to come. With this step, we are taking action to deliver more life-changing medicines to patients faster, contributing to the local economy and bolstering manufacturing and innovation in the United States. The CEO said that the company supports President Donald Trump's goals to bring more pharmaceutical manufacturing stateside and back to the U.S. and appreciates the work that the U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Luttnick and the Department of Commerce's U.S.
Investment Accelerator are doing to remove regulatory barriers that cause delays in establishing manufacturing sites all across the U.S. The CEO also thanked North Carolina, Wake County, and Holly Springs officials for their continued partnership. Governor Josh Stein also in attendance and said, quote, North Carolina has earned its reputation as the best state for business and Genine Tech's decision to put down roots in Holly Springs is further proof of our leadership in the biotech sector. From our top-tier research universities to our world-class workforce, North Carolina has exactly what companies need to succeed. I am pleased to welcome Janine Tech to Holly Springs as they expand their operations to the East Coast.
This isn't going to happen immediately. The new facility is expected to be completed and operational by twenty twenty nine, and the more than one hundred acre lot includes space for potential future expansions.
Now it will be partially funded through a job development investment grant. We've been talking about those over the last couple of months, a J Dig grant. The project is estimated to grow by more than three billion dollars over a twelve year term. Under the current J Dig agreement, the company may receive up to $9.8 million in potential reimbursements over that 12-year time period, with that, however, being contingent on creating at least 420 jobs. These state payments are issued only after the Department of Commerce and Revenue confirm that the company has achieved its job creation and investment targets.
Additional incentives comprise of $756,000 from the North Carolina Community College System, $827,000 from the Department of Commerce's Division for Workforce Solutions, and $19.7 million from Wake County, including an additional $13 million from Holly Springs itself, the small town in Wake County, according to a press release from Janine Tech. Another company known by Amgen, A-M-G-E-N, broke ground in Holly Springs on its $1 billion manufacturing facility in January, as well as Fujifilms Biotechnology has also announced plans to expand in the area as well.
So as we look across the state of North Carolina, comments there from Governor Josh Stein in the press release about North Carolina being the number one state for business. We are seeing some accelerated growth here across the Tar Hills state. You can read more about Genine Tech and what they are planning to do over on our website this morning. CarolinaJournal.com, the headline story, biotech company Genine Tech breaks ground on Holly Springs facility. It's now 5.10.
You're listening to the Carolina Journal News Hour. Last week, we talked about the social media giant and TikTok, their parent company ByteDance, and some ongoing litigation here in the state of North Carolina. We do have some updates this morning as it relates to the state's highest court. To walk us through that, Mitch Kokai of the John Locke Foundation. Joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour.
Mitch, just a couple of days ago, chatting about TikTok and some of the issues here in North Carolina. Looks like they're looking for the high court to step in. What's going on? That's right. The business court in North Carolina is overseeing this lawsuit that the state filed against TikTok and Byte Dance.
And basically, the most recent significant development was that business court judge Adam Conrad said that he was not going to grant TikTok's motions to dismiss the lawsuit on various grounds.
So the suit continues to go forward. But TikTok is now asking the state Supreme Court to step in and reverse that decision, saying that they think that Business Court Judge Adam Conrad. Got it wrong.
Now, this case has attracted some national attention because, in addition, to the order that allowed this case to move forward. Throwing out TikTok's motions to dismiss. The judge, Adam Conrad, also unsealed some evidence in the case, including. A video that some people are saying is very damning. Toward TikTok, because it's an internal video showing some video of meetings that TikTok staffers had, in which they seem to suggest that they realized that the TikTok algorithm was harmful or addictive to young people, which is in fact the entire lawsuit that North Carolina has.
The TikTok went out of its way in an unfair and deceptive way, which is why they say it would violate state law to addict young people to this social media app.
So, in addition to the order saying that the lawsuit could go forward, the judge also unsealed this evidence, which attracted some national attention. We saw reports on CNN and other outlets saying, look, TikTok staffers knew what they were doing. And TikTok has put out a statement saying that the video was misleading. In fact, they referenced it as the state attorney general's sizzle reel designed to show something that wasn't actually. True, but this is getting a lot of attention, not just in North Carolina, but nationally, because of the developments in this case.
It remains to be seen, and we won't know for a while. Whether the state Supreme Court will take up this case, but TikTok would like to see that happen so that the Supreme Court can review whether to throw out. the the state's lawsuit. Mitch, from a procedural standpoint, the fact that TikTok and their subsidiary parent, ByteDance, have asked the state's highest court to take this up, does that put a pause on any other legalese or anything else moving forward as this case currently sits in business court? Is that kind of like a break being pressed on everything else going on?
Or can stuff still continue to move forward? The case will still proceed.
Now, my suspicion is that there will be a ruling from the state Supreme Court about whether to take the case before there is any major procedural development.
Now, TikTok could try to put a pause on this if it files a motion for what would be called a temporary stay or some sort of injunction or something that's called a writ of supersedes. If you have any of those things and the Supreme Court goes along with it, that could pause what's happening at the business court. But based on where things stand with the case as it is now, my guess is that the Supreme Court will decide whether or not to take the case without Affecting in any way what's going forward with the case at the trial level. But if TikTok is worried about that, worried that something is going to happen in this case that it would like to prevent, then it could file with the Supreme Court to have some sort of action that would stay proceedings. At this point, it hasn't.
It's just filed a notice of appeal. We'll obviously continue to keep an eye on both what's going on in the business court side of it and if the state Supreme Court decides to take this up. Mitch, from a legal perspective, it is kind of interesting to watch, in this case, we're talking about the state of North Carolina and Attorney General Jeff Jackson go after an industry that is so fast moving and evolves so rapidly. I mean, over the last 30 years, you can see a variety of legal cases over evolving technology like social media and TikTok. It sets out a very interesting situation for the courts to deal with, which typically kind of lag behind some of these new technological developments and inventions like social media.
It's certainly true. And you mentioned Jeff Jackson. It's very interesting to see Jeff Jackson leading the charge now from the state because a lot of people, if they knew anything about Jeff Jackson before he became Attorney General, it was he was the TikTok congressman. He used TikTok as a member of Congress to talk to his constituents and to a national audience about what things were happening on Capitol Hill.
So he's certainly someone who has used this application to his own benefit. I think it'll be very interesting to see whether the courts will end up saying that what TikTok does, which is not entirely dissimilar from what other social media organizations do to get people enticed to continue following what they're doing, if that in some way violates this law against unfair and deceptive trade practices. Part of the argument here is that TikTok was designing this algorithm to be addictive to young people while at the same time telling everyone that it was safe and that parents shouldn't be worrying about it. If a court ends up deciding that this is a violation of the state's law, that would hurt TikTok's operations in North Carolina and could potentially have implications in other states, many of which have similar laws against unfair and deceptive trade practices. Yeah, and many other states also have similar not exactly the same, but similar lawsuits against TikTok and ByteDance for things of that nature as well.
It's definitely a very interesting legal challenge to watch unfold. We appreciate the update. Mitch Kokai from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Bye, Kickley. It's 5:25.
Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, News Talk 11:10, 99.3 WBT. Turning our attention to our state capitol this morning, the North Carolina General Assembly is set to return to session today as lawmakers return to Raleigh for the first time since its action-packed legislative session last month, where they dealt with a variety of veto overrides. Back in July, the Republican-led North Carolina General Assembly did work with a handful of Democrat lawmakers, and including representatives out of Charlotte Mecklenburg, to vote and voted to override many, but not all of Democrat Governor Josh Stein's vetoes. And taking a look at the legislative calendar this morning, important to note: just because it is on the calendar does not necessarily mean it is set to get a vote. There are a couple of big-time issues for folks across North Carolina.
Constitutional carry, Senate Bill 50. Is on the House calendar this morning. A handful of diversity, equity, and inclusion legislation, pieces of legislation, the North Carolina Border Protection Act, that's Senate Bill 153, and another immigration bill, House Bill 96, the expedited removal of unauthorized persons. Those six pieces of legislation do sit on the House calendar for their session, which does begin at noon today. Again, however, it is not immediately clear that Republicans have at least one Democrat vote to come across the aisle to get that veto-proof super majority.
However, we'll see how that unfolds this morning. The legislature, or this afternoon, I should say, the legislature did wrap up most of its work this year in June and will remain in this part-time mode, returning just three more times before the end of the calendar year. With the new fiscal year, however, beginning on July the 1st, questions do continue to remain. Remain about a full budget. We did see lawmakers in the previous session in July pass a mini budget.
That would then go on to be signed by Democrat Governor Josh Stein.
However, it's not immediately clear whether a full budget will be taken up in this legislative session or if there will be maybe one or two more mini budgets. And then, of course, as we look into the second year of the biennium in 2026, whether the same process will unfold there, some additional mini budgets to fund some of the or continue to fund some of the additional state priorities. It's important to note: unlike the federal government, the state of North Carolina does not enter a government shutdown when lawmakers do not pass a full budget. The previous spending from the prior budget does continue and remain in place.
So teachers are still getting paychecks. State employees are still receiving their paychecks as well under last year's funding. With that, however, no raises are part of, of course, last year's budget.
So those plans and those salaries do remain the same. This is, of course, all coming on the heels of some major increases by the state health plan. Covered that story last week, some big-time premium rises and deductibles for the more than 700,000 members of the state health plan across North Carolina. As I mentioned, lawmakers did pass a stopgap measure last month to fund some increases to basic functions of state government, but have not touched any of those other big-ticket items like teacher and state employee raises and some other legislative priorities for Republicans in a larger budget bill. We do understand, and with sources over at Carolina Journal, indicate at the highest levels of state government in the General Assembly, high-level discussions do continue, albeit not immediately clear whether a full budget is.
Budget bill is likely to be dealt with, indicating probably not at this point.
However, it is a very dynamic and volatile situation. The House and the Senate are both set to gavel back in at noon today. We'll keep an eye on anything going on in the GA, and we'll pass it along to you, of course, over on our website, that breaking news coverage. If that is to unfold at Carolinajournal.com, and we'll have the latest details coming up for you tomorrow morning right here on the Carolina Journal News Hour. It's 5:36.
Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour. News Talk 1110-99.3 WBT. Good Tuesday morning to you. Turning our attention to some additional statewide news this morning. TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, are asking the North Carolina Supreme Court to overturn a lower court ruling that allowed a state lawsuit against the platform to proceed.
Last week, business court judge Adam Conrad rejected TikTok and ByteDance's efforts to dismiss the case, unsealed internal evidence, and compared the app's design to gambling in its addictive efforts on effects rather than on minors. Conrad's 29-page order emphasized that nearly 1 million North Carolina teenagers use the very popular social media app, and the app's algorithms allegedly exploit, quote, youthful immaturity to drive compulsive use, which could cause harm such as anxiety, depression, sleep deprivation, and other issues. The state lawsuit, first filed by then-Attorney General Josh Stein in 2024 and later defended in court by current Attorney General Jeff Jackson, argues that TikTok engaged in unfair and deceptive trade practices by knowingly designing the app to be addictive to minors while misleading the public about its safety. Conrad ruled that the federal law and First Amendment do not shield Byte Dance from its stated claims, noting that the company actively targets the North Carolina market. TikTok disputes the allegations, calling a key internal video citing the case misleading and now asking the state's highest court to step in while they wait for a decision from this North Carolina Supreme Court.
The case does have the ability to remove to continue to move in business court. We just had an update last week from the business court. We'll see what happens in the coming weeks and months, whether the Supreme Court takes it up or not, and what the latest is from business court judge Adam Conrad. You can read details not only on the request to the state Supreme Court, but a ruling last week in business court over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. The headline story this morning.
TikTok asks top NC court to take up state lawsuit. Again, those details over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com, or it's now 538, News Talk 1110-993, WBT. A recent decision by the North Carolina Supreme Court over a fire Department of Transportation employee might not be that interesting of a story.
However, the ruling and the decision could have some broader implications across the state of North Carolina. To walk us through those details, this morning, Mitch Kokai of the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Mitch, I guess for the fire DOT employee, a lot weighing here on this decision, but for the rest of folks in North Carolina, there could be some additional consequences of the state Supreme Court's decision. What are you tracking? That's exactly right, Nick.
I'll give you first some of the specifics of this case. This guy named Thurman Savage, who worked for the DOT, and his job was to certify school bus drivers in North Carolina.
Now, DOT fired him some years back after he admitted that he had recertified some bus drivers without doing the right-alongs that he was supposed to do. One of the reasons that DOT said it was firing Savage was that a particular state law seemed to say, in the DOT's perspective, that if someone violated this record-keeping function, that the person had to be dismissed.
So, basically, their argument was: we don't have any say in this. The law says we have to fire you because you did what you did, and so that's the end of the story. Savage, when he went to court, said that the DOT got it wrong, that it was applying the law incorrectly, and that once the an administrative law judge ruled in his favor, Then the State Court of Appeals stepped in and reversed that ruling. And sided with the DOT and its interpretation of the law.
Now, the state Supreme Court decided to take up this case, and as it turns out, in their opinion, They don't end up resolving the case for Mr. Savage one way or another because the DOT made some other arguments about why they fired him, and those are going to have to be addressed again by the Court of Appeals. But what really stands out. is that the state Supreme Court went out of its way. To say that courts in North Carolina should not use what's called judicial deference.
For people who follow the U.S. Supreme Court, they might remember that there was a recent case dealing with chevron deference and ending chevron deference after 50 years. This is a similar issue in North Carolina. And the idea is that judges, in some respects, have taken on this idea that when there's a dispute about a state law, And a government agency is one of the parties in the case that judges should defer. to what the government agencies think the law says.
This ruling from the state Supreme Court was very clear in saying that that is not what is supposed to happen in North Carolina courts. Justice Richard Dietz wrote the majority opinion, and he basically said that sometime within the last 25 years or so, the State Court of Appeals has allowed deference to creep into its rulings, but it shouldn't have. And the court specifically expressly disavows deference and says that the judges need to review the case. They need to give all the parties' arguments equal weight. The government's argument doesn't get any additional weight beyond what was in the initial pleadings.
And so deference is thrown out. Justice Tamara Berenger wrote a concurring opinion. She agreed completely with what Dietz said, but wanted to weigh in herself and say, Yes, I completely go along with this. Judicial deference has no role in the courts.
Meanwhile, that part of the ruling was 5-2. The two Democrats dissented, and Anita Earls wrote that she was concerned that they were striking so much against deference and that government agencies should get some sort of consideration for their expertise when they're looking into a state law.
So the bottom line is: this is going to be good news moving forward for any individual or family or business that goes to court. And is challenging either the actual what is said in a state law or how it was applied in their case, and is going up against a government agency. Judges are not just going to say, oh, the government agency thinks this is what the law says, we've got to go along with that.
So the government wins. No, moving forward in North Carolina, the government will get to make its arguments, but so will the individual or the business, and the judges will rule those by looking at it and deciding which is the better argument, not tipping the scale in the favor of the government. Mitch, I'm glad you drew the parallel between the United States Supreme Court and their decision in the Chevron case, which predominantly a lot of that dealt with EPA and various regulations around ocean life and zoning and a whole bunch of different things in which the federal government would go in front of the courts and say, well, these are the regulations, these are the rules, essentially where the subject matter expert take our word for it. And as you noted, that was a 50-year decision that had been ongoing here across the United States. Many conservative groups and others applauding that change from the United States Supreme Court back a couple of years ago.
Is it accurate to say that we're seeing a similar thing now taking place in North Carolina? Yes, it's exactly what we're seeing in North Carolina. That once the Loperbright case ended Chevron deference after about 50 years of it kind of making its way through the court system, we're now seeing the North Carolina court, the state Supreme Court, trying to ensure that deference doesn't play a future role in the state courts. And basically, Justice Tietz's opinion could have stopped very short. He could have said, And I think he would have had a unanimous opinion on this because the two Democratic justices went along with it: that the State Court of Appeals read.
The state law that was used in firing Mr. Savage, Thurman Savage, read it wrong. And so they could have just sent it back to the State Court of Appeals, said, You got it wrong.
Now you gotta deal with the rest of the case. What happened instead was Diet said, Well, they got the appeals court got it wrong. The case is going to go back to the appeals court to deal with other issues. But in the meantime, we're going to go out of our way here to say that we're not having deference and any. previous state court of appeals ruling that Gave the sense that there was going to be difference.
We throw those out. There's not going to be any difference moving forward. All courts will have to give what's called a de novo review, which means you look at the case fresh, you don't weigh the scales toward the government in any way. And that, I think, is going to be good news for litigants in the future when they're going up against the government. The government can't just say, well, this is what we think about the law, so it has to stand.
The government can make its case. The litigants can make their case. The judges will decide who has the stronger case. And that was spelled out very clearly in this case in the Savage versus State DOT. Obviously, state law is one thing traditionally that has to go through the General Assembly, passed by both chambers, signed by the governor.
But Mitch, another angle of this is regulation, which does not traditionally go through that same process. Many agencies and entities are allowed to come up with their own rules and regulations without them going through the traditional legislative pathway to beyond the books here in North Carolina. I would imagine this is going to have a huge implication on entities like NCDEQ and others that some folks may believe have a ridiculous amount of overburdensome regulation.
Now maybe individuals can challenge those and get a nice opinion in the courts. It'll be very interesting to see. In fact, there is another case that's within the state Supreme Court that has yet to be decided that's on that point almost exactly, and that is this case dealt with how an agency. Views a state law and not giving any special treatment there. But there's another type of deference where you defer to the agency about how it interprets its own regulation.
And there is a case in front of the state Supreme Court involving a fired. State Winston-Salem State University professor that deals with this idea of. Deference to how the agencies View their own regulations. And depending on how that case comes out, you could see even more protection for the litigants who challenge something that a government agency does, saying that not only are they not going to get deference for the way they view a state law, but they won't even get deference for the way they view their own regulations. The judges will look at the regulation, look at what it says, take the government's argument about what that regulation means, but also take the argument of the litigants challenging the regulation and see which is the better argument.
And that, of course, would open the door to even more opportunity for litigants to challenge regulations and laws that they don't think are proper and may be unconstitutional. It may not sound like it right now, but there could be some monumental changes in state government as a result of this case and potentially some others. We appreciate the update this morning. Mitch Kokai from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Good morning again.
It's 5:53. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, News Talk 1110-993 WBT. All eyes on Raleigh this morning as the North Carolina General Assembly is set to return for a short session this week, as lawmakers will be back for the first time since the month of July when they dealt with a plethora of veto overrides. Back in July, the Republican-led legislature worked with a handful of Democrat lawmakers in the House and voted to override a few of the vetoes signed by Democrat Governor Josh Stein throughout the year. And taking a look at the House calendar this morning published by the General Assembly, there are still a couple of big-ticket items for Republicans across the state of North Carolina to be dealt with in the House, including constitutional carry.
That's Senate Bill 50, a handful of diversity, equity, and inclusion bills, Senate Bill 200. 227, 558, and House Bill 171, and some immigration bills. Senate Bill 153 is the North Carolina Border Protection Act, and House Bill 96 is the expedited removal of unauthorized persons.
Well, part of the reason that these pieces of legislation have not gotten a vote yet is that Republicans are one vote shy in the House of a veto-proof supermajority, meaning that either a Democrat has to cross the aisle and vote with them, or a couple of members would have to be absent to make up the difference for the percentage there and the math to work out for those to go forward. In the North Carolina Senate, well, that's not a problem. Republicans do have that veto-proof supermajority, so it's not immediately clear, even though those items are calendar for noon today when the House is set to gavel back in. It is not immediately clear whether those votes will actually take place or not. The legislature did wrap up most of its work for the year in June and is remaining as it is a part-time legislature with just a couple of voting days left for the rest of the year, a couple coming up this week and a couple over the next few months, as the question still remains.
Remains whether lawmakers in Raleigh will be able to get together on a full budget. The fiscal year began on July the 1st.
However, unlike the federal government, North Carolina does not go into a traditional government shutdown when there's no new budget in place. Previous year spending does continue for state government, meaning that everything is funded to the exact same level that they were last year. Republicans in the GA did put together and get a mini budget signed by Democrat Governor Josh Stein last month as well. Possibility that we see some new mini budgets or some additional spending when lawmakers are back this week. Again, a lot up in the air this morning at very high levels in the General Assembly.
We are told that budget negotiations are continuing, and the question will be: is it a series of mini budgets through this year and next year, the second part of the biennium, or does a big budget package come forward sometime before the turn of the calendar? All that remains unseen. We will potentially get some more details about that this morning. Morning, we'll keep our eye on the General Assembly over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. Any breaking news over there and the latest details coming up for you tomorrow morning, right here on the Carolina Journal News Hour.
Well, there was a groundbreaking ceremony for a San Francisco-based pharmaceutical company known as Janine Tech. They held that groundbreaking in Holly Springs, North Carolina yesterday. That's in Wake County, southwest of Raleigh. And it is a $700 million project as part of Janine Tech and their parent company, Roche's $50 billion investment into the United States manufacturing and infrastructure. This is set to be a 700,000 square foot facility, which will support the production of metabolic medicine, creating more than 1,900 jobs, more than 1,500 on the construction side, and 420 manufacturing jobs with an average wage of $120.
$50,000 a year. They are set to get some state funding through JDIG grants. You can read some additional details on that this morning over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. That's going to do it for a Tuesday edition. WBT News is next, followed by Good Morning BT.
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