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Create your first Monday agent in minutes at monday.com. It's 505 and welcome in to a Tuesday 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.
Well, we've got a major political controversy brewing in Western North Carolina. On Monday, U.S. Representative Chuck Edwards, the Republican out of North Carolina's 11th congressional district, was found in violation of the House Code of Official Conduct by the House Ethics Committee. This is regarding the prohibition of sexual harassment, resulting in calls for him to be censured within the United States House. Edwards was first reported by Axios to be under investigation by House Ethics back in the month of May.
Yeah. This was due to allegations of an inappropriate relationship with a female staffer. According to the report, Edwards, quote, failed to adhere to the spirit of the rule regarding sexual harassment and unwanted advances towards house staffers. The committee found that Edwards consistently exhibited, quote, unprofessional and inappropriate, end quote, conduct directed at two young female staffers, a 19-year-old intern who had not yet graduated from college and whom Edwards insisted on having as his scheduler, despite the complications of such a demanding role for a full-time student, and another who worked for him when he was a state senator and became a legislative assistant in his congressional office, wrote the report. While Edwards denied that his behavior was a romantic or sexual advance, his actions, including lavishing the women with expensive and reoccurring gifts like jewelry, firearms, and roses, commenting on their appearances and attires, sending notes of affection, and inviting them to intimate dinners and vacations, all took place according to the report.
Those findings confirm the allegations that were initially reported when Axios broke the story back in the month of May. Axios reported allegations that Edwards vacationed with the women in Las Vegas after she left his office and receipts allegedly obtained by Axios indicated that Edwards booked two rooms at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas November 8th through the 11th. A second female staffer in her late 20s was also the recipient of gifts from Edwards, including purses, reported Axios at the time. The second staffer also accompanied him to several events, including the 2024 White House Christmas party. Axios reported that the staffer had declined to discuss her interactions with the congressman in Chuck Edwards.
He also complimented their outfits and appearances. Multiple sources confirmed both women were frequently taken out for one-on-one dinners with Edwards. Edwards at the time. Reading directly from the report from the House Ethics Committee, it reads in part: the committee found no evidence that Representative Edwards engaged in sexual activity with or explicitly propositioned any individuals under his employment. Representative Edwards was aware, however, that his excessive attention towards the young women had led to rumors and innuendo in the office.
Both women were uncomfortable with his behavior, which they attempted to communicate, but were put in an untenable situation by virtue of his status as their boss and a member of Congress. Numerous instances were identified by the committee in which Edwards' conduct towards staff members one or two, that is how they are labeled in the report, was incredibly unprofessional, made the women uncomfortable, and or gave the appearance of a romantic or sexual advance, according to the House Ethics report. The committee's record included testimony from numerous witnesses and text messages. The committee's record is pretty thorough, all things considered, and Edwards has been given the opportunity to address many of the specific examples. Of conduct that took place over years in Washington, D.C.
With some of these new allegations coming to light. The report from the House Ethics Committee runs about 25 pages and lays out some of the additional details in the report, including some of the situations that we've already talked about, including leaving early from events attended by members, skipping votes on the House floor to decorate a Christmas tree with one of the staffers at their house, which he would skip votes in the House the next evening. Booked and paid for massages or other spa treatments, wrote poems for staffers, including one that read at her at a going-away party in a congressional office accompanied by a slideshow during which he, the congressman and Chuck Edwards, allegedly cried, according to the report from the House Ethics Committee. They write that several staffers present testified that they felt very. Very uncomfortable, and Representative Edwards acknowledged in his own testimony that he could, in fact, tell that that situation was making the staff uncomfortable.
According to a campaign spokesperson for Edwards and Paul Shoemaker, he said the committee's finding completely exonerates Representative Edwards under the House rules governing sexual misconduct or harassment. They contradict the committee's conclusion. They concluded that he neither engaged in sexual activity with nor explicitly with any individual staff members. They concluded that the allegations in this matter do not implicate quid pro quo sexual harassment. They conclude he did not violate federal sexual harassment laws.
However, the committee staff has taken it upon themselves to write their own rules based on an interpretation that is inconsistent with the written rule of law or House rules. Representative Edwards looks Forward to having his name cleared and will work to ensure that the full light of day is brought on this process and that every member of Congress and the public can see this attempt to harm the congressman who has brought no harm to others. End quote there from campaign that spokesman to Paul Shoemaker speaking for Congressman Chuck Edwards. This race out in North Carolina's 11th congressional district is a tight one as his Democrat challenger in Jamie Agar has been consistently outraising, outpacing and out fundraising Representative Chuck Edwards, according to first quarter campaign finance reports from the Federal Elections Committee. Jamie Agar, the Democrat there, raised more than $950,000 from more than 5,600 donors with more than a million dollars in cash on hand.
That total now more than $1.6 million. At the same time, Edwards Bringing in just $55,000 in quarter one total receipts with those cycle-to-date receipts just shy of $785,000 and polling showing a very tight race out in North Carolina's 11th congressional district. Andy Jackson, the director of the Civitas Center for Public Integrity at the John Locke Foundation, laid out a timeline. If for some reason Edwards decided that he was going to resign and drop out of the race, he would have the ability to do that sometime before September the 4th. And at that point, it would be the Republican parties that would have the Republican parties in western North Carolina that would have the ability to determine his replacement.
We will continue to follow this and major political story rocking the western half of the state. Likely more discussion and reaction in the days to come. We'll keep an eye on the details right here on the Carolina Journal News Hour. You can read more details on our website, CarolinaJournal.com, with the headline, Guns N' Roses, Edwards Found to Violate House Code of Conduct. Hey, I've got the campaign brief ready, built from last quarter's data and the competitive landscape.
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North Carolina's pension fund just posted a whopping $17 billion gain.
Some major things there.
However, state treasurer Brad Bryiner is warning with some potential issues moving forward with Social Security. To bring us up to the latest on what this could mean for retirees across the state of North Carolina, Donna King, the editor-in-chief of Carolina Journal, joins us on the news hour. Donna, $17 billion there in the report, more than a 12% gain for the estate pension system.
Some pretty remarkable numbers. I guess maybe Brad Briner should be managing my finances and everybody else's. Wouldn't we be fortunate if that were the case? Yes.
So, Secretary, so the treasurer, state treasurer Brad Briner, has a long history, long professional history of being an expert money manager, investment banker.
So he's doing that now on behalf of the retirees in the state of North Carolina.
So what we're really seeing is this report is coming from the North Carolina Investment Authority. It's chaired by Treasurer Breiner. This was set up in. 2025. Before this, North Carolina state treasurer had was the sole fiduciary for the state pension plan.
This new system has a board of appointed folks with some experts in money management. They've been trying to grow the pension. North Carolina's pension is playing a little bit of a catch up. We're not quite at the level of growth that subsequent large pension funds are, but we're definitely catching up. And I think that's a good sign.
That's the message that the NCIA has for the retirees, state of North Carolina retirees. And it is a good news, good news, but you're right. There are some cautions out there because when you look at the federal Social Security plan, there's a new report out that says the reports from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget that say social security, federal social security, could be insolvent in six years. And that's sooner than we've been saying for the last few decades. Yeah, and obviously for many of the individuals that are on the state retirement plan, a social security check each and every month does play a very important part in those individuals' monthly finances.
Before we get into some of the additional details on Social Security, I'm really glad you highlighted the changes to the pension system and who is required for managing it. Don, I remember early on when Treasurer Briner came into the office and said, hey, guys, I want other people to have control of this too, not just solely myself. It raised a lot of eyebrows across the state. And as the treasurer has gone through this process saying, hey, more heads in the room, more people critically thinking and making these decisions will cause the pension system to be better for the state moving forward and all of its retirees. And the math very clearly would show that that's been the case, at least in this fiscal year, which ended on June the 30th.
Yes, it does seem to be the case, and it's encouraging. One of the things that they've said is that when they look at geopolitical turmoil around the world, if they look at interest rates, they're going to scale back some of the risk in the pension plan, not by a lot, by just a little bit, just to make sure that they have the growth that they want, that they're hitting those benchmarks. And what Secretary Breiner said in an interview with me after the meeting, he said that, look, we're going to be still returning and hitting our goals. We're just going to do it with just slightly less risk moving forward. His perspective is really interesting to me because, one, he is not a government bureaucrat.
He's not somebody who has spent his entire career in state government. He has spent it investing and making a lot of millionaires a lot of money.
So he's taking those talents and those skills and putting it to work for the people of North Carolina. And I think that's really encouraging if you are on a state pension plan, a state pension, you are a federal employee, teachers. That's promising to have somebody like Secretary or Treasurer Breiner managing that money. There are a few things. It's important to note: one, that the federal Social Security Plan and the State Pension Plan are separately funded.
They are separately administered. The commonality is that we have a lot of folks who are on our state pension who are also on Social Security. That number has grown in North Carolina over the last 10 years from about 18% of our population on Social Security to now about 21% of our population is on Social Security. And, you know, Donna, I would imagine this puts people like Treasurer Breiner and his equivalent in many other states across the nation that are responsible for literally hundreds of thousands of state retirees looking at some of these dooming numbers from Social Security. It probably puts the treasurer and this investment authority in a position where they might say, all right, well, maybe we need to make some riskier investments so we can try and make some additional dollars and try and maybe deal with some of the floodgates here as it relates to Social Security.
If in fact, there is some solvency issues moving forward, as you said, just six years potentially down the road. This puts pretty much everybody in a pretty miserable position. It's frightening. I mean, there's a couple of things about it. One, this report says that if that happens, if they exhaust their reserves and Social Security becomes insolvent, it would result in a 22% benefits cut.
That is really alarming. And Treasurer Breiner said if that were to happen at the federal level, our pension plan couldn't make those folks whole.
So it would be too much to expect that they would then be able to make up the money in their state pensions. It's just not possible. But he also said he just does not think that those on Capitol Hill, those elected leaders, are going to let this happen. That the pressure is going to be enormous to make big changes to Social Security over the next few years so that that doesn't happen. There's a few things.
One, he said they need to change the formula for the index for inflation. Perhaps they need to change the qualifications for Social Security to make sure it does not become insolvent. But at the end of the day, he said we really need to expect folks to be responsible for their own retirement. Plan that we just, he said we got the math wrong 70 years ago, and what we've been doing is doing it on the backs of the next generation, and that's not sustainable. Yeah, I mean, you look at some of the advent of Social Security and it was essentially pitched as what you're describing and the treasurer is describing, Donna.
Don't bother saving for retirement. You can work your life and when you're eligible, get Social Security and you'll be able to live a comfortable life. And as we have seen in the decades that have transpired, that is not anywhere near the reality as it relates to Social Security. Exactly. And that's what he's saying: that folks really need to be paying attention to what's happening around them and what investments they can make to plan for their own.
I mean, if you look at the numbers, even if you were to have taken all the money the government took from you over the years for Social Security and invested it yourself, you could have done a lot better than what the federal government is providing.
So it is exciting to be able to do your own. I think I think you would do better. We would each do better on our own than Social Security would have done. But he said one of the government programs that he thinks is a great idea are these new Trump accounts. He said that this may not do much to help this generation, but those born in 2025 or later, if they're able to do those Trump accounts, that that actually does what Social Security would have, could have done and did not, because it does it without the government intervening in it.
Yeah, unfortunately, another example of a government program may be well-intentioned when it was first brought forward and first being discussed, but as we've seen the reality of it play out, it really has not materialized to that point. All right, final question for you, Don. I think there's an interesting tie here. We've seen a lot of discussion in North Carolina over the last couple of years as it relates to property taxes and specifically dealing with individuals that are retirement age, are no longer working, and their sole income is something like Social Security or a state pension, many of them being essentially boxed out of their houses, not because their mortgage payments are too expensive, their houses are paid for, but because the property taxes keep going up. We've seen a lot of these discussions taking place in our major municipalities.
I would imagine that's going to factor into some of this as well. Oh, absolutely. That's a cost of living issue. And it's certainly a housing affordability issue because in North Carolina, we have a lot of retirees. We have two and a half million retirees, many of whom they are living on Social Security or a pension.
Their house is paid for, but they're still paying property tax. But they may have bought that house in a hot area, an area now where all the people from the north want to come, or you know, young families wanting to start. They want to live in those areas. The property tax, Wake County, Macklinburg County, going up and up and up, and it's becoming unaffordable for some of those retirees. There is going to be a chance, though, for voters to do something to make their voice heard on this in November.
We're expecting to see a ballot initiative where you can say you can approve what's called a levy limit, meaning that municipalities can only raise property tax based on a formula of population and inflation growth.
So, more information about that certainly is available at CarolinaJournal.com, and I know you'll be hearing a lot about it in the coming months.
Okay. Yeah, we'll be talking about it here on the Carolina Journal News Hour, bringing in some of our experts over at the John Locke Foundation. You can read more about this story as it relates to a very good return on investment for the retirees here in North Carolina and some of these troubling figures coming out of Social Security at the federal level. Those details over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. We appreciate the update this morning.
Donna King joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Hey, I've got the campaign brief ready, built from last quarter's data and the competitive landscape. Approved. Oh, agents, where would we be without you? Somewhere with a lot more tabs open.
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Keep the car. Skip the dealership. U 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. Good Tuesday morning to you.
Over just the last couple of months, not only here in North Carolina, but seemingly around the rest of the United States, there has been a major push in local municipalities to put a moratorium on data center expansion in a variety of different communities across the Tar Heel State and across the nation. We've been keeping a very close eye on this over at Carolina Journal. To walk us through the latest this morning, Andrew Pomerant's CarolinaJournal.com. Andrew, this is a very hot issue for a lot of folks. We've seen city council meetings packed across the state of North Carolina with residents and citizens showing up and saying, hey, you're using too much energy, draining our reservoirs, you're making too much noise.
These data centers are no good.
However, there are some unintended consequences of some moratoriums that have been put in place. You're watching kind of both sides of this. Walk us through the latest that you're following. Yeah, hey Nick, good morning. Happy Tuesday.
You know, we talk a lot about moratoriums and data centers right now across the state of North Carolina, especially as local, like you mentioned, local municipality meetings have really been taken over by groups who are both for and against their expansion. We talk about here city council people who vote in favor of data centers coming to their areas being voted out of office, being recalled time and time and again across the state. And here in North Carolina, we've just crossed more than 30 counties and towns that have adopted moratoriums, right? And so this is becoming a growing trend. We continue to see across North Carolina, but also across the Eastern Seaboard.
We saw New York implement a full data center moratorium just this past month. But I think there are serious consequences to these. And I think they are great temporary blockage. And we've seen the state legislator try to kind of go in behind them and clean up some of the root problems of this instead of handling it. But we're getting to a point where we have a really puzzle of these complex.
Complicated moratoriums that are expiring at different times and have different legalities that the industry is really struggling to navigate. And so I think as we continue to move forward in a world that we're increasingly dependent on these data centers, they are truly energy intensive, they do require a Somewhat large physical footprint. They use a lot of water a lot of times. We have to learn how to adjust to having these in our backyards and in our communities because they are something that we need and can be a true source of income and tax revenue for localities across North Carolina, especially when we are continuing to see affordability be really tested at the local level, right? And so, an opportunity here if North Carolina handles this issue the right way, but we've seen so much concern from these localities and these moratoriums that will continue to kind of hold the state back unless something comes in and fixes that and more of a sweeping action.
You know, Andrew, not to minimize anybody's concerns, and we'll get into some of those details. No surprise, people would be rather frustrated. I think everybody would be if one day you woke up and there was a major Amazon or Google or meta data center literally in your backyard, right? There's no surprise that that's causing some level of outrage. But it has been interesting to watch this process as these city council meetings, as you noted, have largely been taken over by this discussion and it is stunting business growth across the state of North Carolina.
We saw back just a couple of weeks ago, CNBC ranking the Tar Hill State as the number two state for business. That is now the fifth year in a row that North Carolina has been in the top three in that survey. Businesses, regardless of what they do, whether it's small mom and pop businesses, other large manufacturers outside of data centers, which I'll note also use a lot of electricity and can create a lot of noise pollution, or these data centers themselves. They want to be in North Carolina, but as you just mentioned, it's becoming increasingly difficult. Difficult with this kind of hodgepodge of random moratoriums being set up across the state of North Carolina and questions as to whether some of these are even legally binding or not.
Yeah, and I want to first start with the idea that, you know, in my backyard, we talked with John Sanders over at the John Locke Foundation extensively about the placement of these data centers. And, you know, a lot of times we're seeing these moratoriums in counties that have not had interest in data centers actually come to them yet. Places out west, that largely the reason for that is the infrastructure is just not there yet.
So you talk about the energy demand, you cannot put a high energy demand. Power station like this in a residential neighborhood.
Now, you can put them near residential neighborhoods, you can put them outside of those, but you cannot put them physically inside these areas because of how intensive they are for energy and things. And, you know, we talk about other concerns like water and noise. I think they are continuing data centers to get better about these programs. And speaking with data centers experts from across the state, they'll tell you. Water usage for data centers is one hundredth what it used to be, right?
We're on a decline for that kind of intensive part of this.
So, some of those concerns being addressed, but some of them still existing, right? Thoroughly. But as you mentioned, I think this business community issue may be the biggest part of this. And I spoke with the chamber. Of Commerce's President Gary Salamedo, about this kind of tension between businesses coming to North Carolina and balancing both the needs of citizens locally and data centers.
And he really. Lead into this idea that moratoriums send a message to these businesses, right? Whether they already have projects that are here or they're interested in bringing these projects, that we are not as a state on board with them being here and that we are going to put up these barriers to their entry, turning a lot of that attention away. And we see states like Virginia continue to struggle with data center expansion, but be more welcoming in some ways to data centers, and we lose that revenue to competing states. And so, you know, he said, you know, companies are really looking to make a long-term investment into communities.
And this is a They appreciate a clear, predictable path. And these moratoriums are really doing the opposite.
Well, you talk about a long-term investment, Andrew. It's no surprise to get one of these things off the ground, even a small to medium-sized data center, you're talking about hundreds of millions, if not into the low billions of dollars worth of investments. Companies that are making these very serious financial investments obviously would want to do it in an area where they believe that, hey, we're going to dump a couple hundred million dollars into this area. We need to make sure that we can operate this facility for the long term until this thing eventually pays itself off.
Well, and you know, I think data centers a lot of times get a bad rap when it comes to that financial impact. And you mentioned hundreds of millions of dollars in investments, right? They get a bad rap a lot of times because they don't employ as many people as maybe other manufacturing projects. They maybe lack some of the ongoing direct impact on communities, but the tax incentives or the tax revenues that could be collected from data centers are huge, right? There's in the billions of dollars estimations on what the direct impact on localities could be in funding things like public education or reducing property taxes, right?
This is an extra source of revenue that they point to and say, you know, we can really come into a community, invest in that community, whether that be upfront in the labor cost or that ongoing revenue to these localities to really change the way we fund local governments here in North Carolina. The other thing on this, and I think this is just as important with these data centers in their economic impact, is we talk about energy, we talk about The impact they'd have on the grid. Duke Energy actually came out and said, you know, they believe that having these large load consumers on the grid may actually, in the long run, reduce the cost because they're able to have some sort of additional fee on top of their electricity that'll pay for the rest of the generation or upgrades that have to happen across the system, right? Not only for those large residential customers, but as North Carolina heads towards that 2050 net carbon neutral goal, we have to somehow fund these energy projects to get into more renewable energies. And they see this as a potential revenue source to fund a lot of those projects and take those costs off of residential consumers.
Andrew, let's tackle the revenue side of this first. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I remember some language that ended up making its way into the state budget that actually reduced some of the sales tax breaks that many of these major data center operators were getting when they were purchasing certain kinds of equipment. They weren't paying the full tax burden on that. That is now in effect with the state budget now being signed back just a couple of weeks ago by the governor.
So right off the bat there, you should have some additional revenues flowing in. Yeah, right.
So going back to the early two thousands, there's been this data center tax exemption on the book here in North Carolina. And there were two, right? There was one for kind of like you mentioned, this construction equipment, this additional revenue, startup costs, and then there was one for electricity.
So the state budget gets rid of the electricity tax exemption. will average about a $40 million a year increase in revenues by just removing that one exemption. The second one remains in place. There were a number of bills that were introduced this year in conversations bipartisanly around removing both. One made it into the budget.
I expect we'll see the other one fall by the wayside here shortly as well, potentially going forward in future budgets. But yes, data centers are getting less of a tax break now than they were just a couple months ago. And I think that environment will continue to change. And important on electricity here, right? I think that's a lot of people's concern is that electricity costs going up because of this.
And that's where the state budget addressed that tax exemption. Yeah, and it's no surprise they feel that way. They've seen their electricity bills in some cases double, triple, even quadruple over the last couple of years. And these major data center projects, who do in fact use an insane amount of electricity, have kind of been the guilty party for a lot of this, at least in the public opinion and a lot of folks' minds, regardless of whether data centers, as you noted, in some communities where electric prices have gone up, there is no interest for data centers for a variety of different reasons. I want to close on this, Andrew.
One thing that doesn't seem to get talked about a lot as it relates to data centers is the national security concern. We talk a lot here in North Carolina about farmland and about the threat from foreign adversaries, purchasing up large plots of farmland. And a great commentary from the chamber president Gary Salamito. These facilities are going to be built. The question is: are they built in states like North Carolina or are there neighboring states, or are they built somewhere else across the world where the United States loses any sort of control or ability to decide?
exactly how this process plays out. Yeah, and this sentiment was actually echoed by Representatives David Willis and Jeff McNeely out of Eiredale County back in an op-ed ran in March. And they said, you know, if we don't build the infrastructure here, it is going to get built somewhere. And maybe in Virginia or maybe overseas. And do we want China and the AI revolution happening where it's going to include, you know, contain our data from our phones, our doorbells, our kids' school accounts, they mentioned?
Do we want those things stored in China on servers? Or do we want them here in North Carolina where they'll invest in workforce and infrastructure and communities going forward? And so I think from a business point of view, that National security in this, I think, may be the bigger driving point for this. And as the East Coast continues to turn away from data centers, North Carolina has an opportunity to lead the charge here instead of turn it off. And I think experts across the state are now beckoning this call, saying, you know, localities, let's look at this in a way that makes sense from a statewide perspective rather than just the counties individually.
Yeah, and again, it's a tough situation for local individuals, as you noted at the open. We've seen recall elections as it relates to votes that have been made by city councils and county commissions as it relates to their decisions and their stances on data centers. This is one of the hottest political issues, interestingly enough, not dealing with politics in itself that we've seen in quite some time. We'll continue to watch it unfold here in North Carolina. We have continuing coverage this morning over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com.
We appreciate the update. Andrew Pomerance joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Hey, I've got the campaign brief ready, built from last quarter's data and the competitive landscape. Approved? Oh, agents, where would we be without you?
Somewhere with a lot more tabs open. Create your first Monday agent in minutes at Monday.com. Uh Good morning again. It's 5:56. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour.
Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM, WBT expecting a busy couple of days in the North Carolina legislature. As the North Carolina House is set to gavel in today and tomorrow for what could potentially be their final votes ahead of the November midterm election, a couple of things that we are keeping an eye on: House Bill 3834 and House Bill 958. Those are two of the pieces of legislation that we discussed last week as it relates to changes to elections. Important to note, not expecting any of those major impacts to be implemented for the midterm elections. Most of those provisions will start January the 1st of next year, 2027.
A budget technical correction as well. House Bill 268 is also on the calendar for later on this afternoon. As it stands right now, the House set to convene at 4 p.m. We'll be watching a movement on those election bills and any other progress on legislation out of the North Carolina House. We'll keep you up to date over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com.
That's going to do it for a Tuesday edition. WBT. BT 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.
