It's five oh five, and welcome into a Wednesday edition of the Carolina Journal News Hour on Charlotte's FM News Talk one and seven point nine FM WBT. I'm Nick Craig. Good morning to you. We are expecting an incredibly busy day in the North Carolina General Assembly, as we have been previewing all week here on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Lawmakers, after months of us reporting that there would not be any additional work out of the North.
Carolina General Assembly until after the midterm election.
Well, things took a change over the weekend as both the Senate Leader Phil Berger and House Speaker Destin Hall both took to social media to announce that they would be asking and working with lawmakers to get them back to Raleigh this week to deal likely with North Carolina's gas tax. That is a forty-one cent tax that is added to each and every gallon of gasoline that is bought across. Across the state of North Carolina, regular unleaded gasoline. Lawmakers making that those announcements over the weekend, and while we officially have a House schedule for Raleigh today, we are going to see a press conference from Representative Robert Reeves. He is the Minority Leader in the North Carolina House.
That is set to kick off at nine thirty this morning. About an hour later, Senate Leader Phil Berger is set to hold a press conference at ten thirty. Ahead of both the House and the Senate set to convene at 12 noon today, this will be under what is called the 2026 first extra session that is going to be taking place in Raleigh today. It remains unclear exactly what lawmakers are going to do with that 41 cent 41 cent gas tax, whether they will revoke it in its entirety for a temporary period of time, whether they will shape. It down maybe in half.
That remains unclear. There was yesterday the council of state meeting for the month of October, and we did hear from individuals within the council of state. That includes folks like the governor and other elected positions across North Carolina, including the state auditor, a labor commissioner, the secretary of state. Democrat Governor Josh Stein said on Tuesday that while he was glad that the General Assembly would hold a special session today. To discuss a possible suspension of the gas tax, which he said should bring some relief to drivers, he'd wish that lawmakers had taken action sooner.
The governor said during the council of state meeting, "quote We are all aware that the legislature is coming back into session to do something on the gas tax, and I'm grateful that people who are really struggling to pay their bills are going to get some relief." I wish it didn't take the election season to get this attention, but for whatever reason, it's happening, and that's a good thing. And we need not only to be focused on this in the session immediately before the election, but it needs to be part of our daily work. There are many things we can do to help working people across the state, whether it's working families tax cuts or child care assistance or things that we can do. And I'm eager to work with the. North Carolina General Assembly to put families in North Carolina first.
Those press conferences will take place ahead. There will be two press conferences ahead of a special session that is coming up at noon. The tax currently sits at forty-one cents per gallon of gasoline and diesel. That is according to the detail from details from the North Carolina Department of Revenue, and that rate is set annually under state law. Any temporary pause would also require lawmakers to address the revenue that would otherwise flow into the state's transportation system.
The gas tax is a very large revenue generator here in North Carolina. The state relies heavily on motor fuel tax collections to fund road construction, maintenance, and other transportation spending across North Carolina. With the state budget anticipating nearly one point nine. Nine two billion dollars in motor fuel tax revenues for the highway fund, and another six hundred and thirty six point four million for the highway trust fund during the current fiscal year. North Carolina State Treasurer Brad Briner told reporters after Tuesday's Council of State meeting that he isn't concerned about any long-term effects on the state's fiscal health if such a pause is put in place.
He says the state is exceptionally well managed financially, and that predates me. I'm not trying to take credit for it, but we built a numerous reserves. It helps us. It helped us deal with Hurricane Helene. Recovery, and this is yet another potential use of those reserves.
Briner said that the state also has reserves to address specific problems such as high gas prices. Noting to reporters after the meeting, so the legislature in their decision thinks that is the highest and best use of reserves. Then by all means, we're not talking about any amount of money that will not hit the state's credit rating. We are a triple A rated state. We have 11 billion dollars in reserves.
We have a. Lot less than that in debt, so we can more than afford it. Governor Stein also said that it has been brutal a brutal year for farmers, whether due to crop losses from the drought, tariffs driving up costs of imports, such as things like fertilizer, or of course the war in Iran driving up gas and diesel prices. He also talked about his directive requesting that the North Carolina Department of Revenue provide penalty relief for highway use of die diesel fuel for farming. Agricultural purposes through December the thirty first.
That is also known as a red dye diesel, which is supposed to be used in off road equipment. Think about a heavy farm equipment tractors in the sun and the like, where there is no forty one cent tax on that due to the fact that well, it's not driving on the roads. The governor said, "I directed the Department of Revenue to not enforce the law against the use of red dye diesel on our roads, and I want to." Thank the colonel and the Highway Patrol for their partnership," said the governor. They, referring to the farmers, have these vast canisters, tanks of diesel on the farm that they bought at a much, much cheaper price, and so to be able to use that first will be a big savings to them. And I called on the IRS to join us, and yesterday they did.
I am very grateful to see that the feds issued the exact same directive. North Carolina Agricultural Commissioner of Agriculture or Agricultural Commissioner Steve Troxler told the governor that farmers across the state were thankful for his help. We did also see some movement this week from President Donald Trump and the IRS, which Governor Stein referred to, removing some of those same penalties at a federal level. I believe that rate sits at eighteen cents per gallon of gasoline that is not, of course, paid in that red dye diesel. Again, expecting a very busy day in Raleigh.
From all accounts, the only piece of business that lawmakers are set to take up is moving forward with a temporary suspension or a temporary pause on the state's forty-one cent gas tax. Taking us back to this weekend, as Senate Leader Phil Berger took to Twitter and wrote, "North Carolina families and farmers are feeling the impact of." Rising fuel costs every day. They need real relief, and they need it now. Today, this was on Saturday. Speaker Hall and I agreed to call the North Carolina General Assembly back for a special session to provide relief from high gas and diesel prices for all North Carolinians.
Additional details forthcoming. Speaker Hall also, around the same time, three thirty Saturday afternoon, wrote: Rising fuel costs are squeezing North Carolina families. Family's pocketbooks and creating challenges for farmers across the state. North Carolinians can't afford to wait. Today, Senate Leader Phil Berger and I are calling for a special session of the General Assembly to provide immediate relief at the pump.
Over the last couple of days, we have seen gas prices slowly begin the process of coming down. Nothing dramatic here across North Carolina. Gas currently sitting at four dollars and twelve cents a gallon per gallon here across the state, according to AAA. The national average currently four dollars and thirty six cents.
So, if lawmakers move forward with a full suspension of the state's gas tax, which is what We are expecting coming up a little bit later on this morning. We will see gas into the three dollar per gallon range, and as things continue to unfold in the Middle East, potentially that falling into the mid and low threes in the coming weeks and months, as lawmakers are expected to vote on that. Again, recapping the calendar, we will have a press conference from House Minority Leader Representative Robert Reeves at nine thirty. Senate Leader Phil Berger speaks. At ten thirty, and then both the North Carolina House and Senate will convene at twelve noon, where they are set to take up some of that business.
We will be tracking that throughout the day. We will have any breaking news and all of the relevant details as they become available over on our website, carolinajournal.com. Also, good opportunity to remind you to follow our Carolina Journal social media channels. We are on Facebook, X, and Instagram. Those links are available on all of those platforms, or you can click the icons up on our website.
They're right up in the homepage, on the top banner next to the logo, over at carolinajournal.com. This is Troy Millings from Earn Your Leisure. On Earn Your Leisure, we're all about smart money moves, and here's one most people skip, and it starts with Insurefy. Most of us never shop our car insurance. The policy renews every year.
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It's five twenty-one. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk, one hundred seven point nine FM, WBT. Over the last couple of years, here on the Carolina Journal News Hour, we have talked about a very interesting group that exists here in North Carolina called NC Innovation. There's been a lot of discussion and debate about that in political circles for quite some time. To walk through the latest on some questionable things and a new audit that did not get unanimous approval from.
The board Donna King, the publisher of CarolinaJournal.com, joins us on the News Hour this morning. Donna, before we get into some of the details on this audit, can you walk our audience through what has been a very interesting couple of years for this group called NC Innovation? Sure, sure.
So this was actually passed in 2023 as part of North Carolina's budget at the General Assembly.
So so lawmakers passed the 2023 state budget. NC Innovation is a private organization that got half a billion dollars, five hundred million dollars of taxpayer money in that budget. Didn't go through committee. It's so because of the Amount of money we're talking about, and that it did not go through a committee. We've been watching it pretty closely at Carolina Journal to see how it's operating, how is it managing?
It's is it transparent? Is it how is it managing its its money? Its taxpayer paid money. The important thing is one the concept of what NC Innovation is doing. It's supposed to be helping.
It's it's issuing grants to university research to bring it to market, to bring it to the commercial market. They have what they call the Valley of Death, which is between information and research happening at the state universities. To bringing it to a commercial purpose, there's this big dip in what happens. Is a lot of the the research stays in the labs because they just don't have the money to market it and bring it to to the market.
So that's what NCs R and D Innovation steps in. That group is saying that they are going to help issue grants to get those research products to market.
So we've been watching it pretty closely. The board of NC Innovation has some legislative. Appointed members, and then they have what they call elected members, which means that they were chosen to be on that board from among NC Innovation members.
So. Most recently, one of the things that we have to note is that lawmakers required UNC Innovation to consult with the North Carolina Collaboratory housed at UNC about the grants, and they're the pass-through for the money.
So it's one of the important pieces of this little puzzle is that lawmakers want to make sure there's sort of a third party keeping an eye on all that taxpayer money and where it's going.
So part of the process is there was a dispute this past week about whether. They had consulted with the North Carolina Collaboratory in 2024 or 2025, and when those when that was recorded as part of their audit.
So it gets really into the weeds, but one of the requirements of this group is that they follow accounting principles that are really transparent and really trackable.
So there's one board member, Art Pope. He is the he was the original founder of Carolina Journal and and of the John Locke Foundation. He's now head of the William Pope Foundation, and he is also a board member at NC Innovation.
So there was a Kind of back and forth going on at the board this past week that. Really brought into question in his mind how these accounting practices and whether they're being transparent and whether lawmakers feel like they really can review what's happening at NC Innovation. This has been an ongoing thing, whether it's about lobbying or whether it's about their audits. Pope and a few others, there's three members that in this case voted not to pass this audit because they felt like it just wasn't meeting the requirements set out by lawmakers. Donna, correct me if I'm wrong here, but I remember some debates over the last couple of years out of the legislature, and some pretty major and serious discussions about clawing back, if not some of all of the money from NC Innovation, because there had been some questions in years past about how exactly this group is operating.
We're not just talking about a couple of bucks. I mean, anytime we talk about taxpayer money, obviously it's a big deal. But as you noted at the beginning, Donna, we're talking about $500 million worth of taxpayer dollars. This No small sum of money, right? We're going to be talking about the gas tax coming up later on this week, and the estimated revenue loss there is six hundred million dollars through the rest of the year.
To really kind of shine, exactly how much money we're talking about here. I mean, you make a really good point. The sensei innovation money is almost as much as this gas tax break that we're going to be talking about.
So, yes, there have been a lot of discussions at the general assembly about clawing it back. Both chambers, the Senate and The House proposed different ways to claw the money back and spend it on something else.
So, in the meantime, one of the big criticisms of NC Innovation has been its transparency and the way it's handling its records. There was a changeover in leadership last year. Michelle Bolus, who's the new CEO after Bennett Waters, who was the founder, moved on to something else. Michelle Bolus, it appears, from at least from my perspective, has been really working to be more transparent to. You know, present more information when board members request it.
Respond more readily to questions from journalists and other groups like like me.
So there's been an effort to improve that, but I think a lot of what lawmakers were seeing, what we're saying then, was we're going to claw it back and we're going to prioritize something else because the idea may be good, but maybe the vehicle wasn't.
Well, so Donna, then let's get into the fundamental question here: Is this the proper role of state government? You already noted that all of this research, or the vast majority of this research that's going on here throughout the UNC system, is already being paid for by taxpayers, in large part through North Carolina's public school system. We then tack on top of that another half a billion dollars to take the research that taxpayers have already paid for and get it into the private market. Is this something that North? Carolina should even be dipping its toes into.
I mean that's that is one of the big questions, and maybe perhaps this would have flown under the radar in 2023 if it weren't such a big number. These are all public universities and public university funded research in most cases, and they are trying to focus on some of the smaller universities. That's not always the case, but and the Office of the State Auditor actually also was it drew the attention of the State Auditor who issued what they said was. A clean audit that warned them about transparency and being more responsive, and those kind of things.
So while the auditor was paying attention and said that right now it really looks like they do have an audit, they do have a clean audit. But there were he expressed some concerns about about management and strengthening oversight practices, improving parents transparency and reporting to the board, and starting to formalize the way they document their private fundraising.
So you. Management issues that I think Bolus has been trying to address. The question is: Is do lawmakers really think it's enough?
Well, and I would imagine, and do you think it's fair to say that as we flip the calendar over into 2027, obviously we still have a lot to go.
Well, as we approach the midterm elections, it's not immediately clear what the power dynamic and structure is going to look like in the North Carolina General Assembly next year. But Don, it's been a hot conversation the last couple of years. Fair to say that if things stay relatively the same in Raleigh, that that will continue. I think it probably will. Back when we were talking in the spring, about in that summer, actually, about the state budget, there was a move and some kind of behind the scenes to claw it back and put it toward claw back that five hundred million dollars and put it toward a children's hospital or put it towards savings, rainy day savings, things like that.
I think they just could not agree what to do with the money, and so it stayed in the budget. It was not clawed back. I think it's possible that we will see that in the coming year. Yeah, and obviously it's going to be a very interesting discussion to keep an eye. We've been tracking NC Innovation as Donna noted, going all the way back to when it's it's founding and during the 2023 state budget.
We've got continuing coverage of that this morning over on our website carolinajournal.com. We appreciate the update this morning. The publisher of Carolina Journal, Donna King, joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. This is Troy Millins from Earn Your Leisure. On Earn Your Leisure, we're all about smart money moves, and here's one most people skip, and it starts with Insurefy.
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Good Wednesday morning to you. As we have been doing since the beginning of September, once a week we take a look at what absentee by mail voting looks like here across the state of North Carolina. We continue that trend this morning as we welcome back once again Dr. Andy Jackson from the John Locke Foundation. He joins us here this morning on the Carolina Journal News Hour.
Andy, the clock continues to tick. Early voting kicks off next week here in North Carolina. What is the current status of absentee by mail since we chatted last week?
Well, the same trends have been continuing. They've actually been kind of snowballing. We do. We've been talking about how absentee voting has been down compared to the last couple of years. Since you know, we were comparing to twenty twenty two, certainly twenty twenty four.
Obviously, twenty twenty when a fifth of all voters voted by mail that year in North Carolina. But if you compare this year to last midterm in twenty twenty. 22, we're down 20 percent. That means a fifth less voters are voting by mail than they did at the same point last year. And the indications, if you look downstream at absentee ballot requests, that gap's even bigger.
You're looking at about a third less absentee ballot requests so far compared to the same time in 2022, and it could go down even more because we now have an earlier. Deadline to request the ballot than we did four years ago, because we also have an earlier deadline to return those ballots.
So I'm expecting we're looking at at least a third less absentee by mail ballots this year compared to four years ago. And let me ask you this: that that deadline for absentee by mail continues. Obviously, you've got that process has to all be wrapped up. Those rules have changed, and ballots have to be delivered to your local county board of election by close of poll on election night, November the third. Is it fair to assume that as we get closer to the early voting period and see that kick off next Thursday, that the amount of requests for absentee by mail by mail balloting doesn't necessarily spike, and as other Voting options are available.
More folks maybe trend towards those things.
Well, well, actually, it continues to go up a little bit on on both fronts, and then you know it drops off rapidly at the end, of course. But people that already plan to vote by mail, vote absentee by mail, they're going to do it.
Some of them, for whatever reason, haven't put in that request yet. But one of the things, if you look at our vote tracker app over at CarolinaElections dot com, you every week it's a step. It's like a little bit bigger. More a little bit more a little bit more a little bit more until that last week.
So it's not that that absentee balloting drops off a cliff once early voting starts. They kind of run up in tandem together, but absentee balloting is absolutely dwarfed on a day by day basis when you look at the returns compared to early voting. Yeah, and we'll see that starting on the fifteenth. Andy, have you had a chance to look at what's going on with absentee by mail in any other states across the country? I know that there are some states where almost all of the voting happens via mail.
That's in large part due to very spread around populations. But have you had a chance to see what other mail returns are looking like in some of our neighboring states? It's kind of hard to get those in other states. A lot of other states, I will say, in North Carolina, we are really blessed because by statute and by practice, we get a lot of data from the state board of elections. There's a lot of states where you cannot get easy access to the kind of data we can get to.
However, there are a few states, and the trend universally for states that have this as an option, not as like a requirement, like some of those out west. States they're going to still have you know pretty similar turnout for absentee ballots because it's the only game in town to vote by mail. But in states you know, especially on the eastern half where it's an option but it's not the only option, it's all down. Every state is down that that we've been able to look at, and it goes from a extreme lowest that I saw was Pennsylvania dropped around seven percent, Georgia dropped by about half compared to twenty twenty two, and so North Carolina. We're down quite a bit, but we're kind of in the middle.
It's kind of like North Carolina's normal position. You know, we're not really extreme on either end. We're kind of in the middle of this trend. All right, Andy. I'll ask you to take a look into your crystal ball.
Then, as we wait for the the fifteenth to roll forward next Thursday, are these people that are just not voting, or in your vantage point, at least as of right now, do you think these are individuals shifting back to normalcy prior to the COVID nineteen pandemic, and will likely show up to vote during that very lengthy early voting period here in North Carolina, or on Election Day? I'm expecting that it's the latter that this is really people moving back to normal because when you had that COVID election, you see the groups that shifted the most. To absentee by mail voting, were the Democrats? I mean, it went heavily Democratic for for the absentee balloting, and now we're seeing this kind of reverse. the The big trend, like I said, like about twenty percent lower for statewide absentee balloting for Democrats is twenty eight percent lower, so they have declined even more.
And there is no reason to suspect, since this is a Republican midterm election, that it's Democrats that are staying away from. The polls, so the indications are, and you're kind of reading the tea leaves here based on the data you have and projecting it to what you don't have. But reading those tea leaves, I think you're really looking at a shift in voting rather than a decline in voting. As it stands right now, a little bit more than twenty-one thousand votes cast in the midterm election. Forty-five percent of those coming in from those that are registered Democrats, thirty-eight percent unaffiliated, and sixteen percent Republican.
Those numbers are kind of on track with what we've been talking about over the last couple of weeks here on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Another quick update for us, Andy. If you would, you highlighted back a few weeks ago that. It seemed likely that Democrats would overtake Republicans for the largest party share registration here in North Carolina. We do know that unaffiliateds remain the highest, but it's not an actual party.
There are no unaffiliated candidates that we are seeing across the state. Is that trend continuing? And have you been able to really hone in on when that switch might actually happen? Yeah, it's we we had another. You know, Democrats had another good week this week.
They out gained Republicans in net gain of registrations by about two thousand, and so yeah, so by. Recent standards—that's a pretty big one-week jump for one party or another—and so every week it seems like Democrats are gaining a little bit more, a little bit more than the previous week on Republicans. And so now we're only a few thousand apart, and it looks like by the time that the State Board of Elections report comes out on October 18th, that will load up on a morning of October 19th. While I'm getting my morning coffee, Democrats will be ahead at that. Point.
And that's pretty big news. The GOP and Republicans made a very big deal about that in North Carolina when that happened back earlier this year.
So we'll continue to watch that trend and see if there's another push by both parties to remain at the top of the largest party share here in North Carolina. And before we let you go this morning, I do want to ask you about another election-related story that we have been tracking here over the last couple of days on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Letter from the State Board of Elections going out to about 1,600 voters here in North Carolina, where there are some questions through the federal save database whether these individuals are legally allowed to vote and register here in North Carolina. Have you been tracking that at all? I have been now.
This is a different process than the process that had gone through the Rules Commission.
So this would be a slightly changed version of that because in that process you're going through the counties. But aside from the fact of who's actually doing this processing, it's a similar process. And the important thing to know is that nobody's going to be automatically removed because they are on this list. The state board of elections is going to have to contact these people individually.
Well, let me take a step back. First, they're going to look and see if they have any data on hand that would indicate that this person is a citizen. And if they have that, then those people will not be contacted. But on the folks that remain, they will reach out to them and let them know that they have a challenge for their ballot, so they can come and either, if they can present data when they vote. That shows that they're citizens, or if they come to the county board of elections and present information—a passport, a birth certificate, something along those lines—something that would would indicate that hey, even though I am on this list of a potential non-citizen who's registered to vote, I am in fact a citizen.
And we, you know, you get both of these on this list, so it's not necessarily that we have exactly you know fifteen hundred ninety-nine non-citizens. It could be. One thousand. It could be four hundred. We have to actually sift through on an individual basis to make sure that we get the people who are not citizens off the rolls, and the people who are citizens will be able to cast a legal ballot.
You made a very important point there, and Andy. I remember having a conversation about something over the last two years with you. The rules when you get close to the election cycle are very particular. I believe this. There is some federal law that dictates this.
You can't really screw around with the voter rolls at all when you get within a certain window of an election. Correct. Right, it's a ninety-day window, and what what they can do is now you can remove people if you have what they call individualized evidence. And we just had a Supreme Court case about this because this the reason we're doing this now is that the Supreme Court upheld, at least temporarily, a Trump administration initiative to use this federal database to contact the states and let them clean up their voter rolls. And what the Supreme Court said, as long as this is used on an individualized basis.
That you're not just saying, "Well, here's two lists. Everybody that's on both lists, they're going to get removed." You actually have to go one by one through these people to get to make sure that they're either not citizens or they are citizens and they can stay on the voter roll. Yeah, we'll continue to watch that process go out as those letters are beginning the process of being sent out here in North Carolina. Andy, as always, thanks for the information on early voting, or excuse me, on absentee by mail voting. We will do that again next week and then transition much of our conversation leading up to November the third about early voting and what some of those numbers are looking like.
Continuing a coverage of this over on our website, carolinajournal.com. As always, we appreciate the. Update. Doctor Andy Jackson from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. This is Troy Millings from Earn Your Leisure.
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It's five fifty-three. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk, one hundred seven point nine FM, WBT. We are going to be tracking a busy day in Raleigh today, as lawmakers are set to make their way back to the North Carolina General Assembly to vote to likely suspend North Carolina's forty-one cent gas tax. We'll be tracking that throughout the day, continuing coverage over on our. Website carolinajournal dot com, our Carolina Journal social media channels, and we'll have all of the audio from the the General Assembly session coming up for you tomorrow morning right here on the Carolina Journal News Hour.
In some other statewide news, we are tracking this morning some bad metrics as North Carolina ranks 48th out of 50 states in a new Medicaid report card from the Heartland Institute, ahead of only Rhode Island and California. The State scored just twenty-eight out of one hundred points in the report released in late September. The Heartland Institute is a free market think tank based in Illinois. Its report, written by senior policy analyst Jack McPherson, scores states on sixteen measures in four areas: program design and enrollment, fiscal sustainability, program integrity, and healthcare provider markets. Kansas ranked first with 74 points, followed by Texas at 67 and Wyoming at 64.
The national average just 45 and a half percent. Medicaid covers around 3 million North Carolinians, roughly one in four residents, and takes up nearly a fifth of the state's total budget. The Heartland Report marked North Carolina down for expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act and not acting. On work requirements, restricting new hospitals and clinics through certificate of need laws, and winning few fraud convictions across the state. From the report, it reads: the most important finding is that there is no single trick to governing Medicaid well.
States can keep enrollment relatively targeted and still lose control of spending. They can manage costs well and still tolerate high improper payment rates. They can open the provider networks while struggling with basic program administration. North Carolina scored worse; it's worse on program design, earning just seven out of thirty-six possible points. Beyond expansion and work requirements, the state ranked in the bottom fifth.
Of states for dropping enrollees over paperwork during eligibility reviews after the pandemic, the state earned a whopping eight out of twenty-six points on financial stability, eight out of twenty-four on program integrity, and five out of fourteen points on what it calls its provider market. Medicaid took up 18.7 percent of the state's funding in 2023, according to the report. While the state's Medicaid fraud control unit won just 0.22 percent of convictions per 100,000 enrollees in 2024, another metric putting North Carolina in the bottom fifth of states. The report also, unfortunately, docks North Carolina for requiring nurse practitioners to work under physician supervision. This has been a major topic of discussion in North Carolina since Medicaid expansion back just a couple of years ago.
It is set to be a major budget buster in the years to come. We will continue to track Medicaid and work as it relates to the North Carolina General Assembly over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. That's going to do it for a Wednesday edition. WBT News is next, followed by Good Morning BT. We are back with you tomorrow morning, five to six, right here on Charlotte's FM News Talk, one hundred seven point nine FM WBT.
