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. As we have been talking about over the last couple of days, it has been and will continue to be a busy week in the North Carolina General Assembly as lawmakers on Monday met in Raleigh to review newly proposed congressional districts ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. That process began last week when the Republican-led General Assembly proposed changes to North Carolina's first and third congressional districts and opened a public comment period for citizens to share their feedback.
Senator Ralph Heiss, the Republican from Mitchell County, who is one of three co chairs of the Senate Elections Committee, really didn't mince any words as he walked his colleagues through the proposed congressional map and why it is happening. The motivation behind this redraw is simple. and singular. Draw a new map that will bring an additional Republican seat to the North Carolina congressional delegation. Republicans hold a razor-thin margin in the United States House of Representatives.
And if Democrats flip four seats in the upcoming midterm elections, they will take control of the House. and torpedo President Trump's agenda. This is a political arms race. that Republicans did not start. Democrats-controlled states across the country adopted far more aggressive gerrymanders.
that systematically diluted Republican votes. To take an example from last week alone, Barack Obama was featured in an ad campaign endorsing California Governor Gavin Newsom's efforts to double down on California's already severe political gerrymander. President Trump has called on Republican-controlled states across the country to. Fight fire with fire. This map Answers thy call.
In fact, on Friday, President Trump signaled his support. for this plan. That's Senator Ralph Heist, the voice of Senator Ralph Heist that you're hearing yesterday, or a little after 10 o'clock, talking to the Senate Elections Committee, also in some cases called the Senate Redistricting Committee, about the proposed maps that were released late last week that, again, do make some of those changes to the first and third congressional districts. North Carolina's 14 U.S. House seats are currently split up 10-4 in favor of Republicans, with just one district being considered either a swing or toss-up district.
Under the new proposal, 11 districts would lean Republican, with just three leaning Democrats. Towards the Democrats, I should say.
Well, after the senator walked through the process and how these maps came about and some of the background on them, he was asked a variety of questions about the maps themselves. And one of the big questions was racial data used in drawing these maps. Senator Ralph Heist said, well, absolutely not. Absolutely no racial data. was used in the creation of this map.
I stood before this committee two years ago. And talked about our decision not to include racial data in the congressional and legislative plans. Those words are worth repeating today. The predominant use of race to draw districts. violates the US Constitution.
unless doing so serves a compelling government interest. In other words, if the legislature draws districts predominantly based upon race, Without a compelling interest, those districts would be declared illegal racial gerrymanders. As for the Voting Rights Act? In order for the predominant use of race to be justified under Section 2, There must be a strong basis and evidence of three jingles preconditions. Even assuming the presence of three jingles preconditions, the use of race to draw districts must also be supported by the totality of circumstances.
This was true then? And it's true now. Past decisions and court records demonstrate That there is no evidence of three jingles preconditions in North Carolina. In fact, Just weeks ago, a federal court told us in a case concerning Senate districts in the northeastern part of the state. That there was no evidence of legally significant racially polarized voting that would require a majority-minority district.
In the absence of any evidence of the three jingles preconditions, the chairs elected not to use race. in the drawing of these proposed districts. Strictly to protect The state from lawsuits alleging illegal racial gerrymandering. To be clear, the chairs do not believe that the use of racial data would have been helpful in reaching any political or other legislative redistricting goals. Any political consideration?
In line drawing have been informed by political data and not racial data.
So, in order to not deal with ongoing litigation, or at least an attempt from my vantage point, to not deal with ongoing litigation, lawmakers, as you heard there from Senator Ralph Heist, who is one of the three co-chairs of the Senate Elections Committee, to not deal with some of that litigation. They have used no, and you heard that from him very clearly, no racial data used at all in the redraw of the first and third congressional district. That did not stop Democrats on the committee from asking the question probably close to a half a dozen times. And then, during nearly an hour of public comment, speaker after speaker, talking about how the maps themselves are racist and used race, even as lawmakers from Raleigh, Senator Ralph Heist, saying very clearly that none of that racial data was used in redrawing those maps. He also had some additional details on the maps themselves, some of the changes to the first and third congressional districts.
This is what Senator Ralph Heist had to say. The new congressional plan makes no changes. to 12 of the 14 districts. The only districts that are changed in the new proposal are NC1 and NC3. The following changes in the new Congressional plan consists of the following.
Greene, Lenore, Wayne and Wilson counties Our move from District 1 Today. Beaufort, Carteret, Craven, Dare, Hyde, and Pamlico counties are moved from District 3 to District 1. To balance the population of the two districts, 4,853 people according to the 2020 census numbers. Out of the 204,576 and Onzo County, that is 2.4%, are moved from District 3 to District 1. The split occurs in Swansboro Precinct leaving much of the town in one district, NC1, as possible, minimizing the municipal split.
As I stated previously, The motivation behind this new plan is straightforward. The new congressional map improves Republican critical strength in eastern North Carolina. It moves NC District 1 from a district where President Trump earned 51 percent of the vote in 2024. to 55% of the vote, an increase of four points. To balance strength, NC3 loses the same amount, NC1 gains four points, moving from a 60% presidential truck performance.
in the previous map to a 56 performance in the new map. The end result is a congressional map that should perform to elect 11 Republicans. Not only does the new congressional map better improve Republican political strength in eastern North Carolina, giving Republican candidates a better opportunity to win in NC I. The new map adheres to a traditional redistricting principles, Importantly, it is more compact. than the current districts in all recognized measures.
That's Senator Ralph Heis during the Senate Elections Committee explaining the process after about a two-hour meeting, which included his comments, some questions from various members of the committee, and as I noted, about an hour of public comment. The Senate Elections Committee approved the map Monday morning. Later that afternoon, the full North Carolina Senate, in a 25-20 vote, adopted the plan as a third reading of that map will take place coming up today. After that third reading, which we presume will pass based on the two previous votes, the map will move to the North Carolina House for consideration.
Something interesting to note: unlike most legislation, even though this is not a legislation, it is a map, they cannot be vetoed or blocked by the governor. Back when the veto was added to North Carolina back in the 1990s, Democrats who were in charge at the time determined that they did not want a governor being able to either approve or deny congressional maps.
So, Governor Josh Stein will have no ability to have any say on these maps. He can, of course, speak publicly on them, which he has done, but he will not be able to stop the process. After the vote in the Senate, the Senate leader and Phil Berger, the Republican from Rockingham County, said in a press release, quote, the Democrats want to do everything they can to block President Trump's America First agenda. North Carolinians support President Trump, and it's incumbent on us to fight back against all attempts to defeat the will of the people of North Carolina as expressed in the 2024 presidential election. This process will continue to roll over the next couple of days in Raleigh.
We will have a continued analysis over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. And of course, we'll be keeping a close eye on the activities of the General Assembly today, right here on the Carolina Journal News Hour, and bring you the latest tomorrow morning. Uh It's 5:23. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour. News Talk 11:10-993WBT.
North Carolina drivers are turning online to renew their licenses at a record level as expanded digital access through the Division of Motor Vehicle or DMV. takes effect. More than 18,000 renewals have been completed online in just two weeks since Senate Bill 245, which was called the Expand Remote Driver's License Services Act, took effect. The bill passed the North Carolina Senate unanimously on September the 22nd after it passed in July in the House 109 to 7. All of the seven noes were on the bill were Democrats, with Democrat Governor Josh Stein signing the bill into law on September the thirtieth.
The law lets both real ID and non-real ID license holders renew online for a second consecutive time. This reduces the need for in-person visits. In a press conference Monday, Governor Stein and NC DMV Commissioner Paul Tyne said that the state's DMV offices typically serve about 8,000 people daily, indicating that online renewals have already eased office traffic by more than two full business days. Real ID driver's licenses can also be renewed online for a second time if a person has visited a DMV office for a transaction since their last renewal. And I'll note that most, and actually every individual that has got a real ID now would have had to visit a DMV office to provide all of the paperwork required to upgrade from a regular license to a real ID.
Or if you have just moved to North Carolina or are just getting a driver's license for the first time, all of that documentation. would have been required to get a real ID. In addition, 95% of the 632 examiner positions have been filled, including the additional 64 slots that were funded through the General Assembly in August. NC DMV Commissioner Paul Tyne said that the DMV's short-term goal is to reduce demand by allowing more online transactions, increasing capacity by hiring additional frontline staff, and driving process improvements. All of those remaining provisions of Senate Bill 245, which allows teen drivers to upgrade from their level 2 limited provisional license, which is also named a before 9s, 9 p.m., to the level 3 full provisional license after 9s online, which he said will be available in the next two weeks.
Teen drivers can already upgrade from a level three to a full provisional Class C driver's license online on their 18th birthday without having to visit a DMV location. The NCDMV also estimates the new online services will move up to 400,000 customers each year out of the office. That is obviously a very significant number as the frustration, rightfully so, continues to grow across North Carolina with individuals having to wait months to get a DMV appointment. After waiting months, standing in line for hours, taking a day, if not more, off of work to get their business done at DMV, it has been a major strain and headache for residents across the state. Paul Tyne said that they have also revamped their training program to shorten the time at the home office and maximizing the effect of new examiners in the field.
On their way to clearing a six-month training backlog, all of which will help get new hires contributing. In the field within two weeks of their hire date. NCDMV has also developed a program that certifies driver education schools to provide tests and encourages parents and teens to check with their local driver education school to see if they've joined the state program. Currently, NCDMV runs about 90,000 rather tests a year. New scanners are also being piloted that will save up to 90 seconds per transaction on or about 100,000 additional transactions per year.
Paul Tyne acknowledged that wait time remains a problem and started working on improving the process this summer with taking walk-ins all day and adding a new queuing system for individuals. He said, quote, we developed a streamlined process to get you in the queue quickly and allow you to wait from anywhere. We then text you a link where you can watch your place online from your phone. When it's almost your turn, we send a message and invite you back into the office where you'll have a much shorter wait time before you get service. This is a much better experience than waiting in line outside of the office for an extended period of time exposed to The elements.
That will, of course, become ever more prominent as we get deeper into the fall and winter months and the temperatures continue to go down in North Carolina. Paul Tyne said that the public doesn't have to have an appointment to come into the DMV, noting that they serve 87% of customers as walk-ins and that they don't have to come in the early mornings as their offices don't typically hit capacity before 9 a.m. In some cases, many long after that 9 a.m. time period with this new queuing system that has been implemented and is in place. We have got some additional coverage on this story, some of the ongoing problems at DMV, some of the solutions brought forth by the General Assembly and by Paul Tyne, the NC DMV Commissioner, and some details of that press conference that happened on Monday.
You can read those details over on our website this morning, CarolinaJournal.com, the story headline, DMVC Spike in Online Renewal. Renewals after a law change. It's 5:36. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, News Talk 1110-993 WBT. We've got a couple of economic stories here in North Carolina as tariffs and trade continue to be major discussions, not only across the United States, but here in North Carolina.
Recent data from the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina, or EDPNC. shows that pharmaceuticals have become the state's top global export. The industry, which produced 15% of North Carolina's exports in 2019, accounted for more than one quarter of exports in 2024. Of North Carolina's three largest exports in 2024, it included pharmaceutical products, industrial machinery, including computers and electronic machinery, things like sound equipment, TV equipment, and parts, and some others. Only pharmaceuticals experienced significant growth since 2019, both in total sales and as a production of the state's total exports.
Between 2019 and 2024, pharmaceutical exports grew at a whopping 134%, with North Carolina selling almost $12 billion in pharmaceuticals globally in 2024 alone. Industry machinery, in comparison, grew only 10% during that same period and contracted as a share of the state's exports. And electronic machinery, things computers, TVs, things of that sort, similarly grew by 5% and accounted for a smaller share of total exports than in 2019. Total exports of all other commodities experienced similarly modest growth numbers with about a 6% rise there. The largest majority of North Carolina's pharmaceutical exports have come specifically from the biopharmaceutical sector, $8.72 billion of the roughly $12 billion in pharmaceuticals that the state exported.
Last year, which comes out to about 73% of such exports. That means that North Carolina's biopharmaceutical industry, which directly employs just zero point three one percent of the state's approximately eleven million residents, produced twenty percent of its export value in twenty twenty four. North Carolina's trade with China has experienced the same trend as in the state's global trade, albeit in a more pronounced fashion. In 2019, pharmaceutical industry machinery and electronic machinery together accounted for just over half of the imports to China. Of that number, pharmaceuticals were nearly 40%.
By 2024, those pharmaceuticals alone accounted for 57% of North Carolina's exports to China. Of the $2.67 billion increase in North Carolina's exports to China since 2019, $2.12 billion came from growth in pharmaceutical exports. Much of this growth can be attributed to a two-year period between 2020 and 2022, where those exports increased by a remarkable 471%.
Some pretty remarkable numbers when you look at the major amounts of growth in some of these sectors, 471%. Even when pushing the start bait start date back to 2019 to account for 2020's low export numbers, a lot of that of course due to COVID-19 and some of the shifting global trade policies and dynamics in that year, pharmaceutical growth rates over the now three-year period remain still very high at 217%. As a result of this rapid growth, North Carolina's exports to China have nearly doubled in a just six-year span of time. Pharmaceutical levels of growth have not been matched by any other export category of significant volume, with the total growth of all non-pharmaceutical exports to China being just 28% over six years, compared to pharmaceuticals' 167% growth in the same time period. Those exports to China from North Carolina have not been matched in volume by Chinese pharmaceutical imports to the state.
Imports of Chinese pharmaceuticals through 2024 were negligible, two orders of magnitude lower than exports to China. And as a result, North Carolina has maintained a multi-billion dollar trade surplus over China in that sector since the year 2020. Although the growth of pharmaceutical exports has so far appeared durable, with the industry growing by nearly 9% year to date, those numbers I'll note are through July of 2025, while all other exports shrank by an average of 4%, the impact of a proposed 100% tariff on branded and patented pharmaceuticals remains to be seen. Additional market uncertainty of retaliatory tariffs by some of those impacted countries have impacted growth in other sectors in North Carolina. And of course, we continue to watch some of those other exports, imports, and tariff discussions.
And that brings us to our next story about steel imports. As we continue to examine the impacts of some of those federal trade policies on North Carolina's major industry, we are now talking about steel. Earlier this year, according to Joseph Harris, the fiscal policy analyst for the John Locke Foundation, the Trump administration imposed a 50% tariff on all steel products not melted and poured in the United States, with Harris saying now the European Union is proposing to reduce the amount of steel it will accept tariff-free nearly in half and apply its own 50% tariff on volumes above the cap. With the United States tariffs now at fifty percent, steel exporters, particularly in China, have redirected shipments towards Europe, putting new pressure on the European Union's domestic producers. In short, as the cost of doing business in the United States rose, exporters of cheap steel began looking for other markets to absorb their output.
And quote there from Joseph Harris. The European Commission has introduced a proposal which would protect the European Union steel industry from adverse effects of global overcapacity, ensuring the long-term stability of this vital sector for the EU. The proposal safeguards the steel industry, which is set to expire in June of 2026. The proposal responds to a call from EU workers, Member States, members of the European Parliament and stakeholders to provide permanent and robust protections for the EU's steel industry, which would include safeguarding jobs within the EU and bolstering the industry's efforts across the globe. Delivering on commitments outlined in the EU Steel and Metal Action Plan, the proposal upholds the principles of open trade while fostering collaboration with global partners to address overcapacity.
It does so by limiting tariff-free import volumes to 18.3 million tons per year, which is a 47% reduction compared to 2024 steel quotas, doubling the out-of-quota duty to 50% from the previous 25% under the safeguard, and strengthening some of the traceability of steel markets through the introduction of what they are calling a melt-in-pour requirement designed to prevent circumvention, according to the proposal. Data from the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina, or EDPNC, year to date through July, shows that iron and steel exports have declined from $201.3 million to just $185.9 million, representing a decrease of about 8%. During the same time period, exports of articles made of iron or steel have increased slightly, rising from $158.6 million to $161.9 million, or about a marginal 2% increase. Taken together, total exports in these categories have remained relatively flat year to date and are now being felt by some of those steel industries in North Carolina. Harris concluded saying, quote, year to date through July, imports of steel, iron, and articles thereof have remained relatively flat.
However, notable declines in May and June compared to last year suggests early signs of impacts from steel tariffs that took effect in mid-March. We, of course, will continue our coverage of the ongoing tariff discussion that is happening, most of it up in Washington, D.C.
However, localizing it and bringing you the impacts here on North Carolina. You can read details on both of our stories this morning over at our website, CarolinaJournal.com. The two headline stories: pharmaceuticals now top NC export, majority of exports to China, and the other NC may see impacts of EU's new 50% steel tariffs. Good morning again. It's 5:53.
Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, News Talk 11:10, 99.3 WBT. Continuing our coverage of what has already been and will continue to be a busy week in Raleigh, as lawmakers in the North Carolina Senate met yesterday to review newly proposed congressional districts ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. As we covered last week, the Republican-led General Assembly has proposed changes to North Carolina's first and third congressional districts to make them more competitive for Republicans. Senator Ralph Heiss, who is the Republican from Mitchell County, is one of the three co-chairs of the Senate Election Committee, and he came right out and said exactly why these maps are being redrawn. The motivation behind this redraw is simple.
and singular. Draw a new map that will bring an additional Republican seat to the North Carolina congressional delegation. Republicans hold a razor-thin margin in the United States House of Representatives. And if Democrats flip four seats in the upcoming midterm elections, they will take control of the House. and torpedo President Trump's agenda.
This is a political arms race. that Republicans did not start. Democrats-controlled states across the country adopted far more aggressive gerrymanders. that systematically diluted Republican votes. To take an example from last week alone, Barack Obama was featured in an ad campaign endorsing California Governor Gavin Newsom's efforts to double down on California's already severe political gerrymander.
President Trump has called on Republican-controlled states across the country to fight fire with fire. This map Answers that call. In fact, on Friday, President Trump signaled his support. for this plan. North Carolina's 14 U.S.
House seats are currently split up 10 to 4 in favor of Republicans with just one district, the first being considered a toss-up or swing district. Under the new proposal, 11 districts would lean Republican with just three leaning Democrat. Senator Sidney Batch, a Democrat from Wake County, who is a member of the Senate Elections Committee, questioned whether lawmakers drawing the new maps had been in contact with President Donald Trump or the White House. Senator Ralph Heiss replied that he had, quote, no direct communication with the White House or others.
However, he did acknowledge that there has been a lot of public commentary, including from the president himself endorsing the map on his truth social platform. The president did that on Friday and thanked Republican lawmakers in North Carolina. After a nearly two-hour Senate elections committee, they voted to approve the new maps that happened Monday morning. After that, later in the afternoon, the full North Carolina Senate met, gaveled in, and voted 25 to 20 to adopt the plan after Democrats attempted to adjourn the North Carolina Senate until March of next year as they were not getting favorable votes.
However, after those unsuccessful efforts, the map did move forward in the Senate where a third reading will take place today. After that third reading, the map will move to the North Carolina House for consideration. And I'll note, unlike most other pieces of legislation that we talk about, redistricting maps cannot be vetoed or blocked by the governor. We will be keeping a close eye on the ongoings in Raleigh throughout the rest of the week. Continued coverage this morning over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com.
That's going to do it for a Tuesday edition of the Carolina Journal News Hour. We're back with you tomorrow morning, 5-6, right here on News Talk 11-10 and 99-3 WBT.
