It's 5.06 and welcome into a Thursday edition of the Carolina Journal News Hour on Charlotte's FM News Talk 107.9 FM. WBT, I'm Nick Craig. Good morning to you. We start off in the North Carolina General Assembly this morning where the North Carolina House has given final approval to a bill delaying the use of new property tax values in counties that conducted 2026 reappraisals. That measure is now sitting on the desk of Democrat Governor Josh Stein.
House lawmakers approved Senate Bill 889, which is named the Property Tax Reappraisal Moratorium. Excuse me, by a vote of 70 to 42. Senate leader Phil Berger, the Republican from Guilford County, said in a statement: Residents across North Carolina are seeing their property values skyrocket after reevaluations, and it is imperative that the General Assembly take a thoughtful approach to address property tax concerns. This approach gives residents some clarity on their property tax bills while allowing policymakers ample time to put forward proposals to rein in property tax increase. Property primary sponsors of Senate Bill 889 are Senator Berger, as well as Senator Brent Jackson, the Republican from Sampson County.
Senator Steve Jarvis, the Republican from Davidson County, as well. Both Jackson and Jarvis are members of the Senate Property Tax Working Group that Senate Leader Phil Berger convened earlier this year.
So, getting into some of the details under the bill. Counties that conducted property reevaluations this year would be required to ignore their newly updated property values for the 26-27 fiscal year and instead continue using values from their previous reappraisals. Beginning in the 27-28 fiscal year, which will start July the 1st of this year, counties would then adopt the 2026 reappraisal values and continue using them until their next scheduled reappraisal cycle. Senator Berger said, This is a good first step for residents across North Carolina who are feeling the tax impacts of increasing property values. The Senate passed the measure in May.
That's the first time we discussed it in a vote of 35 to 8. Backed in the House by Representatives John Bluss, the Republican from Guilford County, Alan Brenson, the Republican from Guilford County, the measure comes as Guilford County residents are seeing significant increases. Assess property values following the county's latest reevaluation. Those higher valuations could translate and will translate if set to move forward into significantly larger tax bills depending on the rates adopted by local officials. Blust recently said Guilford County's reevaluation numbers make it clear that lower and middle-income families will be hit the hardest by rising property taxes at the time when many are able to make ends meet.
If property tax increases to the point where people can no longer afford their homes, then we have a serious problem. This moratorium gives Guilford homeowners breathing room so that families aren't taxed out of their own communities. Branson, who has operated a small business in Guilford County, said that the proposal is intended to give residents relief from higher tax bills tied to rising property values. He said in part, I've spent years running a small business Business and serving the people of Guilford County. And I know what happens when local government starts treating taxpayers like an endless source of revenue.
The issues facing our county won't be solved by sending our people higher property tax bills. That is why I support this legislation to protect the hardworking families who simply want to stay in their homes. During debate on the NC House floor, several Democrats spoke in opposition to the legislation, including Representative Tracy Clark, a Democrat from Guilford County, saying in part, I strongly believe that this bill is a short-sighted attempt to ease short-term financial pain. It will cause catastrophic trickle-down effects to all of the vital services uplifting Guilford County from our schools to our public safety and beyond. Clark suggested that the legislation would cost the Guilford County School District some $50.
$88 million in the upcoming fiscal year. More commentary from Clark included, saying we are continually showing in this building that we make our public schools do more with less. And the fact that we have no state budget and now we're passing this moratorium to prevent our county from doing what they need to pass a budget. Taking away $58 million from Guilford County Schools, I think it's disgusting and a disgrace. Several Guilford County Democrats, including Representative Clark, who we just heard from, Representative Almos Quick, Pricey Harrison, and Amanda Cook, spoke and voted against the bill on the House floor.
Under current law, counties must reappraise all real properties at least once every eight years, though counties may choose to conduct reappraisals more frequently. Many counties across the state do that in a four-year cycle. This only will affect nine counties with their reappraisals that were scheduled to take effect January the 1st of 2026. The measure now heads to Democrat Governor Josh Stein, who can sign it, veto it, or allow it to become law without his signature. The reappraisal moratorium is one piece of a broader property tax debate at the North Carolina General Assemblies, as lawmakers have also sent voters a proposed constitutional amendment that would require limits on local government property tax levies.
The increases. We've talked about that in recent weeks as well. You and I, the voters here in North Carolina, will have the ability to decide and vote on that coming up in November. That measure, House Bill 1089, will appear on the statewide ballot after passing the House 73 to 46 and the Senate by a vote of 31 to 15. It is called a levy limit and it would restrict how much total property tax revenue a local government can collect.
Through the amendments, leaves the detail, though the amendment, I should say, leaves the details for lawmakers to set if voters approve it. And so that is one of the major things that we will be keeping an eye on in the months to come as we get closer to the November midterm election. You can read more on this discussion over property tax reappraisals and some of the delays there being proposed by state lawmakers over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. In some other statewide news this morning, with a third consecutive month of more than $11.5 million or more, North Carolina has moved within just $826,000 of more than $300 million in proceeds from legal sports wagering in May. This is two years after illegalized sports betting, electronic sports betting, started here in North Carolina.
Based on day on the daily average, it will look Likely surpass that mark sometime in the month, or will in fact surpass that mark in the month of June. May's take of more than $11.5 million, which is the fourth lowest of 11 months so far, pushed the fiscal year 2026 total to more than $133 million according to details from the State Lottery Commission. The inaugural full year was $116.5 million with daily averages of more than $319,000. This year's average is $397,000 per day worth of revenue for the Lottery Commission. The total since its beginning back on March the 11th of 2024 is more than $299 million over 812 days.
For a perspective on state revenue, the individual income tax is the state's largest revenue source, no question about that. And its income In the fiscal year 2025 was more than $637 million. Sales and use tax generated an estimated $5 billion annually, with the corporate income tax and franchise tax topping some of those numbers here in North Carolina. The calculation for the state of North Carolina is 18% of gross wagering revenue. That sum is the amount received by interactive sports wagering operators from individuals across the state that are authorized under the state law, less the amount paid as winnings before any deductions for expenses, fees, or taxes.
Total gambling exceeded $561.1 million in the month of May, and total won by debtors topped $510 million. The gross wagering revenue was over $64 million, factoring in adjustments. The best month for the state so far was April of 2024, right after it got started at more than almost $19 million. November and December, January of that year also saw some significantly high numbers as well. Five things per session law 2342 can happen with the proceeds.
There's $2 million annually to the Department of Health and Human Services for what is called gambling, addiction, education, and treatment programs. $1 million annually to the North Carolina Amateur Sports to expand the youth sport operations across the state. And also a third element, $300,000 to each of the state's 13 public school collegiate athletic departments. Another million dollars to the North Carolina Youth Outdoor Engagement Commission, which awards grants, and 30% goes to help North Carolina attract major sporting events. From time to time, we do check in on some of these numbers as the details come out from the state lottery commission on a pretty regular basis.
We'll continue to do that as we head through the remainder of 2026, right here on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Granger knows when you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing. One building. You're managing all of them. And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners.
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It's 5:20. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk 107.9 FM. WBT, I'm Nick Craig. A good Thursday morning to you. A busy week at the North Carolina State Board of Elections.
A couple of different public hearings taking place. One of them dealing with recount rules, not really a whole lot going on there. The other, however, dealing with voter ID. We know that has been a very hot conversation in North Carolina over the last couple of years. To walk us through the details of that hearing, Dr.
Andy Jackson from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Andy, you promised us fireworks when we chatted earlier in the week about this previous hearing that took place as it relates to recounts. You were at the meeting, spoke at the meeting earlier this week. Did the fireworks ensue as you anticipated? I'm a liar.
Both of these were relatively sedate. We had one with fireworks over removing non-citizens from the voter rolls or procedures for that a couple of months ago. But this one, people came in, they gave their comments. I didn't get booed this time at either one of these meetings. And so it was kind of a more normal process.
Usually, these rules review public comment periods are pretty sedate. They're in an office. The Board of Elections is actually not in the room. It's only staff. And so it's just people saying their piece.
And these are things you could otherwise do online or by email or even by snail mail if you want to, if you want to make those kinds of comments.
So yeah, it was a pretty casual day on both occasions. Before we get into some of the proposed changes and get into the comments that you made in front of the staff of the State Board of Elections earlier this week, do you think maybe, Andy, some of the temperatures being turned down on voter ID? We know it's still a pretty hot political issue, but now that we've been through multiple election cycles and if you live in a municipality, even more election cycles over the last couple of years with voter ID in effect and for the most part, it really not having that big of an impact on anybody? I think that's part of it. And part of it is, I mean, once again, we're dealing with a very small sample size, an N of one here as far as this one meeting went.
But and also Groups were not really organizing their masses to come out to this because you can tell, like if the General Assembly, sometimes you'll have the rafters all full of people yelling, holding signs, and that sort of thing during debates in the House or the Senate. You have the same thing at some of these rules meetings where you get the organized groups, and it depends on the nature of the organized groups getting their folks there and the kind of things that they are sharing with them ahead of time. And so, I think that's what we had a couple of months ago with that overseas voter rules that we were talking about. But this time, the groups really didn't decide that they weren't going to kind of bring out the troops, as it were. And so, they had, you know, at least for the one dealing with voter ID, you had about a dozen commenters, which is more than you usually have for these sorts of things.
But they were just there stating their facts. There wasn't any yelling or booing or gnashing of teeth. I'm very glad to hear that you didn't get booed at this meeting. I guess there's always probably another one in the future that you can look forward to that taking place at. Walk us through some of the proposed changes and whether you are for or against what the State Board is looking to roll out.
Well, the first one, the one that was on Monday, was dealing with recount rules. That was essentially streamlining the process and making it a little easier for the, for example, the county boards to appoint unaffiliated members of the recount teams. Also, it's going to smooth out the process of who can declare. Used to be had to have the whole board on site. With this rules change, they can delegate a couple of members to do that.
The state board of elections, if the state board's in charge of recount, doesn't all have to be on site. You don't have to come in from Watauga County or Brunswick County and come into Raleigh for that. They can delegate that to the executive director. And there are still safeguards in place to make sure that you can't have like a runaway recount. The state board still has to be informed of the results before they are made final.
On the changes of the rules for voter ID, the big one here, part of the rules. Part of it is just Changing some of the timing to comport with state law about when you have to report these. But the big one is changing whether or not the county board is going to approve an affidavit. It used to be under the rules that were passed a couple of years ago. It had to be unanimous.
Every single board member had to say, We don't believe this affidavit is true. That's being changed over to a majority vote. I support that. I think that that is going to help smooth out the process. We don't have a situation where the majority has a reason to believe that there is a problem with this affidavit and at least requires more investigation.
And you have one holdout that says, no, no, I'm just going to pass it. Yeah, no, no question about that. And I guess maybe let's dig a little bit further into the process here, Andy. For the vast majority of people that show up to vote, whether we're talking about a general election or during a municipal election, the vast majority of folks use their state-issued driver's license or state-issued ID card as their valid photo ID.
However, for individuals that do not have one of those or do not have a free voter ID card that is issued by all 100 county board of elections here across North Carolina, they can fill out this affidavit that you were just mentioning, and that's called the voter exemption form, correct? Correct. And there are several reasons you could do it. If, for example, your ID got lost or stolen, that's considered a potentially valid excuse.
Some people have, there's a small minority of people that may have religious objections to having their photo taken, for example. That's a box that you can check as well. And so when you do that, once you turn that affidavit in, you are allowed to vote a provisional ballot. And then that affidavit and that provisional ballot will go to the County Board of Elections under current law. By noon on the Friday after election day, the county board is gonna meet.
And at that meeting, among other things, they're going to assess those affidavits and either approve them, in which case the provisional ballot is counted, or they're going to disapprove them, in which case it is not counted.
So, this comes back to, again, you're filling out this sworn document saying that in the example you used, which I actually ran into a voter that had this problem during the last election cycle, their purse was stolen just a couple of days before election day. Obviously, for those that keep track of what goes on with the DMV here in North Carolina, Andy, that is not a very quick task to get another ID. And so, she was actually talking to me outside the voting location about that. She walked in and filled out that. But if she had been lying, that could have been a problem because, again, you're filling out this application, making these claims.
So, it sounds like. based on some of these proposed changes, the these local county board of elections will have a little bit more leeway again with that majority to decision to determine whether what somebody is attesting on this signed piece of paper is actually true or not. All right. And I will say the boards still have to make these determinations based on the evidence that they have, not on conjecture.
So you can't have a situation where the board will say, well, I just don't believe her. There has to be some evidence. They have to have grounds for believing that. And what that may entail, you know, will vary from case to case. And before they can make that determination, I don't think you're going to have many cases of a three-two split board voting not to accept an affidavit.
That's going to be, I think, disappearingly rare. And so I don't certainly not see a big enough impact to affect the outcomes of elections, but, you know. One or two, there may be a couple of cases across the state in each election of this. When do we, so this public comment period is going on right now. I believe public comments open until mid-July or so for these voter ID changes.
So if folks do want to comment, as you mentioned, they can do snail mail or email over the next couple of weeks as we transition into the early and middle parts of July. When will the State Board of Elections, the actual board itself, be voting on some of these proposed changes? Right, so I expect that they'll do that during their August meeting, which is going to be a doozy of a meeting. They're probably also going to be making their selections on early voting sites at that meeting.
So I expect there to be now you're not supposed to be making comments there. That's what we've already done here. But I expect there to be a pretty good crowd on hand for that meeting in August.
So maybe the fact that fireworks did not materialize in Raleigh earlier this week, Andy, we've got something to look forward to after the 4th of July. We've got continuing coverage of this over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. You can also read Andy's comments in their entirety over at johnlocke.org. We appreciate the information this morning. Dr.
Andy Jackson from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. It's 5.38. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM, WBT, I'm Nick Craig. A good Thursday morning to you. A group of voters in North Carolina known as never residents will not be able to vote moving forward in North Carolina elections.
If that sounds vaguely familiar, back just a couple of weeks ago, both the state and national Republican groups claimed victory in a lawsuit here in North Carolina. Again, that was about two weeks ago.
However, in the last couple of days, we have officially received the court order laying out this decision. It walks through some of those details this morning. Mitch Kokai from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Mitch, a little bit of an odd situation here. Everybody's kind of beating their chests saying, yeah, we won.
We got our victory. Yet as you were continuing to file this, there had been no additional details from the court and the judge as to what exactly this ruling was.
So can you bring us up to date on the latest? Certainly. We first heard about the possible resolution of this case in late May, as you said, a couple of weeks ago, when both the Republican National Committee and the North Carolina Republican Party went onto social media, put out press releases saying, we've won. These never residents are not going to be able to vote in North Carolina elections again. And it was interesting that they were saying this because there was no court order saying that this was happening.
So the Carolina Journal reported on this, but basically reported on it as the Republican groups are claiming victory. But we also pointed out at the time that there had been no confirmation of this.
Well, we got the confirmation. A couple of weeks later, Superior Court Judge Hoyt Tesner issued a very short order that basically said. The Constitution is clear that only people who are residents of North Carolina can vote in North Carolina elections, and a state law that says otherwise. Cannot stand. No never resident can vote in any North Carolina election, whether it's a state election or a federal election.
To back up just a little bit, Remember that this was an issue that the state and national Republican groups brought out in 2024. Before the 2024 election, they filed suit saying this federal law that allowed the Never residents to vote in North Carolina elections violated the state constitution. There was no resolution of that lawsuit before the 2024 election, but then it ended up playing a minor role in the battle between Jefferson Griffin and Allison Riggs over the 2024 state Supreme Court race. Never residents were among the voters that Jefferson Griffin challenged. And as that case was moving through the courts, Appellate courts in North Carolina agreed with Griffin that these never residents shouldn't count.
But that didn't end up making a difference in the resolution of the Riggs versus Griffin case because the federal judge Richard Myers ended up saying you can't change the rules after the election's already taken place. Riggs needs to be certified as the winner. We're going to end this election now. But he didn't say anything that overturned what North Carolina appellate courts had said about Never residents.
So, with that in mind, the Republican groups went back. To the Wake County Superior Court and said, Look, you should rule in our favor because. We're going into another election season, and this seems to be somewhat unresolved, even though appellate courts have said that these never residents can't vote in a North Carolina election. And what the state board of elections was doing was basically a two-part process. The state board of elections was saying, Yes, we agree these never residents cannot vote in a state election.
So they're not going to count, but they still can vote in a federal election. And the Republican groups were challenging that, saying, no, the never residents not being able to vote means not being able to vote in any election. And that's what the ruling from Judge Tester basically said, that no, they cannot vote in an election for. legislatures, local school boards, city council, but they also can't vote for president or Congress or Senate in North Carolina because the state constitution says they cannot cast a vote.
So, Mitch, some folks probably listening to this are wondering, what is a never resident, right? We're not talking about individuals that have lived in North Carolina and are overseas, whether they have moved over there for their own purposes, maybe they're over there on work. These are individuals that have truly never lived in the state of North Carolina, yet they were registered to vote. They were able to vote in elections in the past. How does somebody fall into this category?
Yeah, the never word is key because they never have lived in North Carolina. It's not as if they lived here before they could vote and then moved overseas and North Carolina was the last place they lived. These people that we're talking about never lived in North Carolina and their only connection here is that their parents were North Carolina residents at some point. The parents moved overseas. After they moved overseas, these.
uh never resident voters were born. They've lived their entire lives overseas, have never lived in another state, so they didn't. They weren't born overseas, then moved back to the United States somewhere else, and now are back overseas. They've never lived in the United States at all, never lived in North Carolina at all, but have the connection because the last place that their parents lived before moving overseas was North Carolina. And you might think, We're probably not talking about that many people, maybe a handful across the state.
But as we learn from the Riggs versus Griffin election, you could be talking about hundreds of people who fall into this category. And they were allowed to vote in North Carolina elections based on a state law called UMOVA, the Uniform Military and Overseas Voters Act. They basically said, These people are citizens. They have a right to cast a ballot in an election. And so, North Carolina is going to allow them to cast a ballot in a North Carolina election.
And because they were allowed to vote in the federal elections, that law allowed them to vote in a state election as well. And basically, the state board of elections approach. before this ruling has been Well, we understand that the state constitution bans them from voting in state elections, but they still, as citizens, have a right to vote in U.S. elections, and so we're going to allow them to vote in the federal elections. But the Republican groups had said, no, the state constitution is clear.
You have to be a resident of North Carolina to be able to qualify to vote in a North Carolina election, whether it's state or federal. And that is what the ruling from Judge Hoyt Tester said: that yes, this decision and the state constitution trumping this UMOVA law means that a never-resident cannot vote in a state election or a federal election in North Carolina. And Mitch, you talk about the numbers there, and other folks might be saying, you know, whoa okay, you're only talking about a couple hundred people. There's millions of votes that are cast each election cycle here in North Carolina. But I will remind our audience from a high-stakes Supreme Court race just a couple of years ago where the current Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court and Justice Paul Newby only won a statewide election by a couple hundred votes.
So this is very relevant. We have seen increasingly tight statewide elections over the last couple of cycles. And a couple dozen votes here, maybe 150, 200 votes there could actually have a major difference on one of these outcomes. And that's one of the reasons why the Griffin campaign Latched onto this.
Now, the never resident votes that were identified would not have been enough to swing the election from Allison Riggs to Jefferson Griffin. But if you had taken the never residents into account, if you had taken into account overseas voters who didn't provide photo ID, those two together might have been enough to flip an election from Riggs to Griffin. And of course, the major category that he was challenging was people who had incomplete voter registration records, which was 60,000 or more. But as you said, if there's an election that's very close, if you end up in one of these local elections that are decided by two or three votes. What if two or three of the voters were these Never residents?
They could have been the swing votes to put the race in one candidate's hands or another.
So I think it does have the potential to affect. A closely fought election. But the larger principle is: if these folks are not qualified to vote, By allowing them to cast a ballot, you are canceling out The vote of someone who would have voted on the other side who is eligible to vote. It's the same issue that we talked about before with the folks who are voting who should not have been able to vote because they said on a jury questionnaire that they're not citizens. A non-citizen who casts a vote.
Is canceling out the vote on the other side from someone who is eligible to vote and cast a vote.
So all of this is tied into election integrity efforts and making sure that anyone who is eligible to vote and goes through the proper registration procedures is able to cast a ballot. But the people who are ineligible to vote don't cast ballots. It's pretty simple. Bitch, is there any sort of ladder here to appeal for the side that lost this? Again, we're going back a couple of weeks to when we first found out about this, as you mentioned at the open, both the national and state Republican Party commenting, just getting the judge's order actually this week.
What do you think happens after this? Yeah, there is definitely a potential for appeal. I don't know if the state board of elections will appeal. Remember that when this suit was filed, the state board of elections was run by Democrats. It's now run by Republicans.
And I don't know if the 3-2 Republican majority on the state board of elections is going to want to take this to an appeal. The Democratic National Committee also intervened in this case and was against the Republicans. Shocker that the Democrats would take an opposite position from the Republicans on this.
So, as an intervener, the Democratic National Committee might want to appeal this ruling, even if the State Board of Elections decides that it's fine with the way that this thing has turned out.
So, I would definitely say that we have not seen the last of this issue at this point. And I also wouldn't be surprised if the Democratic National Committee tries to move this back into federal court because this does have a federal issue to it, since if These folks whose only connection To the United States is through North Carolina. If they're not allowed to cast a ballot in any election in North Carolina, then where can they cast a ballot? If they're citizens and they can't cast a ballot for the presidential race or congressional and senate races, and their only way to cast it would be in North Carolina, my guess is that there's going to be an argument that there's got to be some way to enable these folks to cast a ballot since they are citizens. Yeah, interesting question there.
We'll keep an eye as to whether an appeal is filed or not. You can read the judge's order. We've got those details this morning over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. Mitch Kokai from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Big color, bigger savings.
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Good morning again, and welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk 107.9 FM. WBT lawmakers have wrapped up their week in Raleigh. There are no scheduled votes to be taking place in the North Carolina House or Senate today. This is as we eye the start of next week, where we have heard in rumors in the past that lawmakers could be set to unveil the state budget the week of the 15th. That would be Monday.
There are scheduled voting days, at least in the North Carolina House, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday as it stands right now, according to a House calendar produced back just a couple of weeks ago from the House Majority Leader in Destin Hall. That remains a top priority for lawmakers, and the calendar still as it stands right now expects to have lawmakers or supposes to have lawmakers out of Raleigh as late as July the 2nd. Just a couple of days ahead of the July the 4th, 250th anniversary here in the United States.
So that remains a major topic of conversation in Raleigh. There are also multiple veto overrides whose fate remains looming this morning as lawmakers continue to try, and Republican lawmakers, I should say, continue to try and get an additional vote. They need just one more in the North Carolina House to meet that veto override threshold.
So as we hit the middle part here of June coming up early next week, leaving just a few days left for lawmakers is going to be a very interesting couple of days in Raleigh. We, of course, will have continuing coverage of not only the veto overrides, but waiting for this full unveil of the state budget, plus other legislative priorities that we have been covering over the last two weeks or so. We'll have those details over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. Our good friend Andrew Pomerance will be down at the General Assembly for the remainder of the short session. And keep us up to date.
He'll join us consistently right here on the Carolina Journal News Hour. That's going to do it for a Thursday edition. WBT News is next, followed by Good Morning, BT. We're back with you tomorrow morning, 5 to 6, right here on Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM, WBT.
