It's five oh five, and welcome into a Tuesday edition of the Carolina Journal News Hour on Charlotte's FM News Talk one hundred seven point nine FM WBT. I'm Nick Craig. Good morning to you. Ahead of the start of early voting this week across North Carolina, we are going to do one final check-in on mail-in voting before we get into those very large totals and tallies as it relates to early voting. To walk us through the latest this morning, Dr.
Andy Jackson from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Andy, every week we've chatted over the last few weeks since the beginning of September, we've seen this gradual increase in absentee by mail. We're just shy of about thirty. Thousand votes thus far here in the mail-in voting period. Where does that compare and shake out in comparison to a couple of the previous elections?
Well, it's certainly lighter than what we had in previous elections. We're down by. Close to thirty percent compared to last year, and it's not evenly distributed. Even though Democrats are the largest share of votes, they've actually dropped the the most. They're down by about thirty percent, and Republicans are down twenty one percent.
Unaffiliated is only down about twelve percent.
So everything's dropped from compared to four years ago. It's disproportionately been Democrats, though, that. Been dropping, which kind of makes sense because they're the ones that disproportionately went up during that COVID election in 2020, and then that first one in 2022, which is what we are comparing with. Yeah, and looking at those numbers, forty-four point six percent of ballots returned. It's important to note we don't know who these individuals voted for.
We just know what their party registration is. Probably fair to assume those registered as Democrats are likely to vote for a vast majority of Democrat candidates. Also fair to assume that the vast majority of Republicans voting for Republican candidates. Forty-four point six percent Democrat, thirty-eight point three percent unaffiliated, and then Republicans trailing way behind, which is pretty typical with mail. Invaliding Andy at sixteen point seven percent as as we head into this week, where early voting begins on Thursday.
Yeah, and and the interesting thing is that unaffiliates we think okay that's a total black box. We can suspect that most of the unaffiliateds are probably voting Democratic because unaffiliateds tend to behave like weak partisans, and so the unaffiliated voters who are voting by mail are more likely to behave like Democrats because Democrats disproportionately vote by mail absentee in North Carolina.
So the actual difference in vote at this point is probably large. Larger than the, even larger than the party share would suggest. Andy, let me pull on that thread a little bit. You and I have talked about this a lot over the last couple of years. There's this thought that oh, unaffiliateds, these people just kind of go down the ballot.
They go for some Republicans, some Democrats. You've consistently talked about how the vast majority, not all, but the vast majority of unaffiliateds are are heavy partisans. But in many cases, they're just registered as unaffiliated, maybe for work purposes, maybe they don't want to get into it with their their colleagues or their neighbors or their friends. But most of them do act as pretty Strict partisans—is that still the case? Yeah, most of them are what we call weak partisans, which means nine times out of ten they're going to vote for one party.
The acid test for that is to go and look at what primaries they vote in.
Now, a true unaffiliated might split on a regular basis between Republican and Democrat, whichever one looks more interesting. But if you see a group of unaffiliateds and you know these this unaffiliated person only votes in Republican primaries, that Person is probably a Republican in all but name. Only same thing with Democrats, and you're really looking at you know well over two thirds of unaffiliates are not really independent. It's a bit of a misnomer to think that they're all independent. They're really just don't want that party label on them for whatever reason.
Yeah, or they just choose not to partake in any sort of the party politics, being a member of of a Republican or Democrat party, going to their yearly conventions, precinct chairs, and all the other things associated with having that party label.
So we'll keep an eye on those mail-in totals and tallies over the next couple of weeks. Andy, let's transition on over to something that you first brought to our attention a few weeks ago: this idea that Democrats would overtake Republicans in. Terms of the largest party here in North Carolina, as always, a reminder: unaffiliated does remain the largest share, but that's not an actual party itself. That has now come to fruition. What are the numbers that you're following there?
Yeah, and so this has happened again. We've kind of had this kind of complete reversal—not complete reversal. I mean, it's been this uptick. We're now looking at about two point three million Democrats, two point three million Republicans, but Democrats are up by about twelve hundred, which is not a huge amount when you're looking at well over seven million registered voters in the state. But it certainly would be is a.
A boost for Democrats because certainly for the last decade or so, with a couple of of important exceptions, well. You've had pretty much continuous Republican rise compared to Democrats.
So compared to Democrats, and so this seemed like it was almost inevitable that Republicans would pull out ahead, which they did in January. But then you've got this run up to this election, and this is fairly typical. Democrats tend to do better in elections, not the last couple of ones where Republicans actually outregistered Democrats, but The pattern had been previously that Republicans would kind of grind it out, and then at election time you'd see this surge of Democrats. Certainly in two thousand eight, two thousand twelve, as late as twenty sixteen and twenty eighteen, Democrats outregistered Republicans during elections. These last two cycles in twenty and twenty two, Republicans actually maintained their advantage or expanded on their their usual gains.
So. This is a kind of a return to an older form where Republicans kind of do well compared to Democrats most of the year, but when the election comes up, Democrats see that surge with a lot of new registrations. And part of this is you've you've got this Trump midterm going on, and it seems to have energized the Democratic supporters. Yeah, and we've seen that historically with midterms, with presidents of both parties in the Oval Office. And you did reference there.
This is a relatively small number, at least at this point, just a 1,200 vote registration advantage for Democrats. But from a messaging and a morale standpoint, Republicans have been beating their chests pretty much the entirety of this year, talking about overcoming what was a very deep advantage that the Democrats had at one point in terms of party registration. I guess.
Now they can look back and say, "Well, we we held it for about nine and a half months, but now that's gone." So I would imagine that's going to probably play into something as well. Yeah, I I think that is certainly encouraging for Democrats and and maybe demoralizing for Republicans. I mean, if Republicans want to take some solace, they can take it in the fact that they still have more active registrations. They're up by a little over a hundred thousand on active registrations. You know, the numbers we're looking at are total, which includes active and inactive, and what that means is inactive are people that haven't voted for a while and they may have moved out.
Of the state, they may have died, and for some reason they weren't caught previously. And so, some of those inactive registrations, those people come back and vote. Most of the time, not.
So it's not a complete reflection of reality. And when we do what we call list maintenance next January, Republicans are almost certainly going to be back on top. That doesn't really help them now, but you know, if if they want bragging rights, they'll get them back in January. Yeah, well, it's gonna should be a very interesting start to twenty twenty seven. That'll be one of the things that we'll be keeping an eye on, Andy.
We're going to catch up a little bit later on this week and talk about the start of early voting. Walk our audience through the process. We'll talk about same day registration, all of that fun jazz. But as we round out this discussion here with mail in voting and everything else, any any right off the top of things that folks need to know as we get ready to head into that early voting period on Thursday.
Well, I mean, it's just like regular voting. If you want to vote, make sure you bring your ID. If you have moved, this is a good time to change your registration. Bring bring information, your HAVA documents that show your new address. If you've got your updated driver's license, that'll work.
That's even better.
So you know, this is a chance to fix your registrations if you need to. You can register if you haven't registered yet. There, so it's a good chance for people. People who want to participate that aren't ready yet to go ahead and get ready. Yes, and we'll be keeping a very close eye on that.
We'll chat with Andy coming up a little bit later on this week ahead of the start of early voting here across the state of North Carolina. As always, we encourage our audience if they want to dive into some of these absentee by mail numbers and then, of course, those early voting numbers as well. They can visit carolinaelections dot com and click on the vote tracker product. Andy's also got an article up over on our website johnlock dot org. As always, we appreciate the update this morning.
Doctor Andy Jackson from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. This is Rick Burgess from the Rick Burgess Show. I want to talk to you for a second about something most of us put on autopilot: car insurance. If you're just letting your policy auto renew year after year without shopping around, I'm telling you, you are probably throwing money away. Rates change all the time, and staying loyal to one company can end up costing you big time.
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dot com. That's insurefy. dot com. 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.
We've got a couple of interesting stories out of the North Carolina Local Government Commission that is known as the LGC. They have officially voted to take financial control of two towns in North Carolina: the town of Ronda in Wilkes County and the town of Roland in Robeson County. At a meeting that took place last. A week, the local government commission issued a warning to officials from both towns at its September the first meeting, citing a financial and compliance concerns. And ahead of the meeting, the Ronda commissioners voted three to one on September the eighth to begin the process of actually dissolving the town's charter.
Local government chair and state treasurer Brad Briner applauded the town's leadership for making what he said was a difficult. Decision that was ultimately the responsible path forward. This is not new for the town of Ronda; they have been on the local government commission's unit assistance list, known as the UAL, going all the way back to 2015.
So it's been more than a decade for them. As the town's concerns included repeated late audits, budget violations, problem involving a federal payroll tax payments, persistent deficits in the town's water and sewer fund, and other financial. Financial management issues. State auditor Dave Bolick released a 62-page investigative report last Monday, confirming the local government commission's concerns. He said that his office reviewed the town's bank and investment account activity to address concerns that the concerns.
About the town in terms of its current financial position, those concerns included its ability to continue operating at its current spending rate and its reliance on grant proceeds and investment account transfers to meet general operating needs and cover water system infrastructure expansion. The report found that the town's financial position was deteriorating and has been doing so significantly for quite some time. With reoccurring expenditures consistently exceeding the reoccurring revenues for the town, for example, from April 1st of 2024 through July the 31st of this year, the town's monthly expenditures averaged approximately eighty nine thousand one hundred and thirty two dollars, while recurring monthly deposits. And all of its revenue generation only averaged approximately sixty-seven thousand nine hundred and eighty-six. As a result, recurring revenues and grants were insufficient to cover the town's average operating expenditures, resulting in an estimated recurring monthly shortfall.
This is every month of twenty-one thousand one hundred and forty-six dollars. The town also has significant outstanding financial obligations, including past due. Invoices and lack of sufficient cash resources to meet ongoing operational needs without financial assistance or a significant reduction in expenditures. It has relied on transfers from its investment accounts and the potential temporary availability of grant proceeds to continue paying what would be described as routine expenses. Ronda, which has a population of under 450 residents at this.
Point has seen its share of hard times with businesses like textiles and furniture manufacturers leaving to go to other countries, according to Mayor Pro Tem McKeven Reese. Reese said at the meeting that residents can't afford any further increases in taxes, noting that there was nothing left to cut and the town doesn't have any money to pay its attorney to do any of its work. One of the issues plaguing the town is the need to raise water rates, which. He said, "Would have to go up by an additional twenty dollars a month to keep the system afloat." The mayor Protem told the local government commission, "I understand we have to make money to sustain the water system, but I never thought that I that it would come to a day that I had to make people decide whether they were going to buy a meal or pay for water. And I will not vote to raise those water rates." He said that he would he would have liked residents to vote on the dissolution.
Of the town, essentially getting rid of the town. But frankly, there wasn't enough time, given all the debts and the time that needed to be paid. Ronda Commissioner Bobby Muncie, who voted against the resolution dissolving the town's charter, told the local government commission that more people had shown up at their September the eighth meeting than had attended any meeting during the last year and a half, and that many were frustrated with the process. State Treasurer Brad Briner referenced some of the comments there from. One of the commissioners saying, "Local governments have a real cost to each of the citizens, and so on one hand you're saying I can't raise rates because it will harm my members, but on the other hand you're saying I want to keep local government, which is very expensive for my citizens.
So I don't understand how both can be true at the same time." State Auditor Dave Bolick told Ronda officials that he didn't see a path forward without the tough decisions that are currently being made. After further discussion, the board unanimously voted to assume control of the town's finances. And coming up in the next few weeks, the Ronda Board of Commissioners will vote on passing a resolution of intent to dissolve at their next meeting.
So that process looks like it is wrapping up. We then transition over to a. Similar discussion as it relates to the town of Roland. Roland is in Robeson County, has a population of about 885 people, and similarly has been on that UAL list since 2020, having also appeared on the list in 2015 and 2016. The town has repeated late audits and budget violations, used restricted grant funds for current operational expenses, experienced persistent water and sewer fund operating.
Losses and demonstrated other financial management deficiencies. Denise Canada, the director of the State and Local Government Finance Division and the Secretary of the LGC, told town officials she was concerned about the town future, saying very bluntly, "It's hard for me to think that the math can balance out for a town for this town to be solvent, and I'm just not sure that the work that you're doing is addressing it." Town officials say that they've made. Cuts to service, including to their police force, and were willing to end that service. They also said that residents were willing to accept cuts to service and pay higher prices to keep the town going. With Denise Canada saying, "I don't think you have a handle on the finances, even if we gave you another thirty to sixty days." Teresa Williams, who recently took over as the town's finance officer, said she only started working on the town's finances in mid-September, so just literally weeks ago, and still needed a little bit more time.
However, Canada argued again that there were too many bills to pay, giving the town's revenue, and argued that point. State Treasurer Brad Bryner said, "What is what is clear to me is that you all need more help, and I think our team is in the position to do that." The board voted unanimously as well here to take control of Roland's finances. Breiner told the Carolina Journal exclusively after Tuesday's Council of State meeting that there are many reasons why small towns like Ronda and Roland end up needing a financial lifeline. Saying, "Quote, many of them lost a big time employer thirty or forty years ago. At this point." And they've been struggling with that ever since.
We finally had a town, Speed, North Carolina, in Edgecombe County, who decided it was best for their citizens to no longer be a town. That's a courageous thing to do, and I don't think anybody wants to be the commissioner or the mayor who has that happen under their watch. But it might be the right thing for them to do for their town, and I think it certainly was for speed. The treasurer told Carolina Journal that about 42 percent of North Carolinians live in unincorporated areas of various counties, saying in part, "It's a pretty big share of our state, and they're no worse off. They have great services.
They just Happen to be provided by the county. Local government is expensive, especially if you don't have a lot of people. He also added that the COVID COVID Era American Rescue Plan Act or ARPA funds, which were signed into law back in March of 2021, are in the process of expiring at the end of this calendar year, and that that might be exacerbating some of the issues that many of these towns are presently facing as some of those monies are no longer available. You can read more from both of these municipalities. We've got the details over on our website this morning, Caroline.
Journal dot com. Look for the headline: NC takes over finances of troubled towns, Ronda and Roland. This is Rick Burgess from the Rick Burgess Show. I want to talk to you for a second about something most of us put on autopilot: car insurance. If you're just letting your policy auto renew year after year without shopping around, I'm telling you, you are probably throwing money away.
Rates change all the time, and staying loyal to one company can end up costing you big time. That's why you need to go check out Insurify. I went to Insurify.com to test it out myself, and I was blown away by how easy it is. In about two minutes, totally free, you can compare actual Actual real-time quotes from over a hundred top insurance companies, all side by side in one place. No endless phone calls, no pushy sales pitches.
Here's what I really love: Insurify doesn't just help you once and walk away. They actually keep monitoring your rates in the background and alert you whenever prices drop, so you never miss out on a better deal down the road. Millions of drivers have already used Insurify to stop overpaying, and there's no reason you shouldn't too. Do yourself and your wallet a favor. Go see what you could save right now at insureifi.
dot com. That's insureifi. dot com. It's five thirty seven. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk, one and seven point nine FM, WBT.
I'm Nick Craig. Good Tuesday morning to you. Over the last couple of months, we've been keeping an eye on what are set to be very interesting oral arguments in front of the North Carolina Supreme Court. There are a lot of parties involved here: the governor and Josh Stein, other Council of State members, the North Carolina General Assembly. All of this dealing with appointment powers here in North Carolina.
To walk us through the latest in what was a deadline on Friday for all sides to submit a variety of information to the courts. Mitch Koke, I from the John Locke. Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour, Mitch. Before we preview exactly what we can expect coming up on November the tenth, can you briefly walk us through what this whole what what all these different legal challenges kind of revolve around? Sure.
Basically, Nick, what we have is the culmination of a couple of different suits that result from changes that the General Assembly made to the governor's powers, and this took place after the 2024 election, before Roy Cooper left and before Josh Stein came in. These various changes were made. Cooper, and then Stein, once he became governor, launched lawsuits and have been pursuing these lawsuits, basically saying that the General Assembly has overstepped its bounds in the types of changes it's made to the governor's powers.
Now there are two different lawsuits: one's called Stein v. Berger, one's called Stein v. Hall, and sometimes the names are interchanged. But basically, the two suits amount to debate about two different issues. One is the filling of statewide judicial vacancies.
So, if a court of appeals judge or a supreme court justice leaves, the governor gets to appoint that replacement. How is that going to play out in the future? And then the second issue is appointments to various boards and commissions. And what generally happened in the case of the challenged boards is that the legislature took some appointments. Appointments away from Josh Stein, and then gave them to someone else.
Often in in many of the cases, what happened was they took the appointments away from Stein and gave them to another member of the Council of State. And shocker, it was a Republican member of the Council of State. Stein, of course, is a Democrat. Legislative leaders are Republicans.
So all of these issues have been lumped together in these two cases that are going to be argued together at the state Supreme Court, as you mentioned in November on November tenth. About two and a half hours have been set aside for these oral arguments, and the latest development in the case was the second round of briefing. Both sides have had a chance to issue their initial written briefs, and then the deadline that that took place on Friday was the second round of briefs. They will all get a chance to do their last round of briefs before the oral arguments. But there were some interesting developments in the latest brief.
Would you walk us through some of those interesting developments and what you saw from all the different sides? Obviously, responding to what the other parties had said in the first round, this is a lot of very, very much back and forth between all the parties involved here. Yeah, I think the most interesting thing to me was the brief that was filed by the state treasurer Brad Briner. He's involved in this because one of the appointments changes was to take one of the governor's three appointments to the state utilities commission and give that appointment to Briner. Briner has already used the the appointment.
He it was upheld at lower courts, and so he appointed state environmental former state environmental secretary Don Vandervart. To that spot, Vanderbart has been serving for more than a year on the Utilities Commission, but basically, Brad Briner is taking the governor to task. For saying basically that the governor should be able to control the utilities commission and has all kinds of authority that that is not necessarily spelled out in the state constitution, Briner's lawyers have asserted that an earlier ruling from the state supreme court, as some of these cases were were moving forward, basically suggested that the governor has powers that are either expressly spelled out in the constitution. Or are given to him by law, or that the governor would have to have, or that the government. Could not be able to function, and his argument is the Utilities Commission doesn't fall under any of that.
Nothing within the the statute that created the Utilities Commission says the governor gets to control it or gets to control the appointments to the Utilities Commission Board, and so this is the type of thing that the General Assembly does have the authority to be able to to dictate in terms of who's going to be serving on the Utilities Commission.
Now, Governor Staben. Basically, his arguments are that the General Assembly is trying to. Convey to itself as much power as possible, and power beyond what the Constitution says that it should have. That's his argument. He was basically responding to the General Assembly in its arguments on the boards and commissions issue.
And then the General Assembly filed a couple of briefs. One responded to Stein on the boards and commissions issue, saying, "Look, you know, the the General Assembly sets up these commissions. It has the authority to decide who's going to be part of." These commissions, and that should be the the end of it. And then they also responded to the the governor's arguments on the judicial vacancies, saying, "Look, just because the state constitution doesn't." Spell out a role for the General Assembly on these judicial vacancies. That doesn't mean that you don't have one.
The governor has to has to point to a specific constitutional provision that prevents the General Assembly from acting, and he can't do it as long as he can't do it. The General Assembly can act.
Now, as I said, there's going to be another final round of briefs, and then we'll have the oral arguments, and then at some point after that, the General Assembly will have to decide. This probably the most interesting development so far in the briefings, and this wasn't really in the the latest round of briefings, but came out in the first round of briefings is that the General Assembly is asking. The Supreme Court to go back and basically say that it got a couple of its precedents wrong, a case in 2016 called McCrory v. Berger, and a case in 2018 called Cooper v. Berger, in which the state Supreme Court really sided with the governor against the General Assembly and basically said the governor has a lot more authority than previous courts had set had suggested, and what the General Assembly is saying.
Is that the the Supreme Court should go back now and say we basically got McCrory and Berger, McCrory and Cooper wrong, and that that the General Assembly has more authority than what those decisions suggested. Interestingly enough, as they're pushing for this. The chief justice of the Supreme Court, Paul Newman, was a dissenter in both of those cases in 2016 and in 2018.
So he has already written in a way that suggests that he goes along with what the General Assembly's arguments are here. And we should make sure we point out to our audience since those two cases in 2016 and 2018, Mitch, there has been a power change within the North Carolina Supreme Court. We saw a court in both of those years that had a Democrat majority in the years that followed, and as you just noted, now we've got Chief Justice Paul Nubian Republicans holding the majority on that court, and we have seen over the last couple of years them go back on previous decisions made by that court in previous years. Different leadership and different party and ideological breakdowns.
So that's not necessarily unprecedented or something that we haven't seen here recently in North Carolina. It's not now. This is a little bit different than some of the other cases where the Supreme Court, under its five-two Republican leadership, has shifted gears on what a four-three Democratic court said just a few months before. That the 2016 ruling was actually written by a Republican, and so this is not all Republican versus Democrat. It is, to some extent, also.
A decision about which branch, if any, is going to have the upper hand in these issues. At the time that the McRory decision came out, there were Republicans who basically thought the governor should have more authority, should have the the majority of appointments to to boards and commissions, and should be able to have have a little bit more say there. Chief Justice Newby at the time, the current Chief Justice Newby, who At that time, was an associate justice said no. The the people act through the general assembly, and the general assembly needs to get a lot of deference on on that front. And so, the the legislators now are really leaning into what Newby said in dissent in those 2016 and 2018 cases.
But but you're right that there has been a shift in the time that the the Democrats held control of the Supreme Court, and now Republican. But some of these rulings are going back to a time when Republicans had a majority. They just had a difference of opinion about whether the governor or the General Assembly was going to have the upper hand in some of these separation of powers disputes. And it is important that you you noted back just a couple of minutes ago shifting some of these appointments as the governor argues, essentially saying the general assembly is taking these appointments. We have seen in the past the the Republican led legislature try and give themselves some of these appointments.
Mitch, those have been struck down consistently by courts across North Carolina. They're trying this new angle now and giving them to some of these appointments to other members. Of the council of state, which are statewide elected offices here in North Carolina, so it seems like it's kind of this this give and take test that lawmakers have been trying to do over the last couple of years to figure out what they can do and what they can do legally. That's exactly right. Once courts have struck down some of these previous ideas, they've basically gone back and said, "Okay, well, what?" Do we think we can do based on what the courts have said?
And you are correct that so far, at lower court levels, the general assembly has been successful in taking an appointment from the governor and giving it to another member of the council of state because the appointment remains in the executive branch.
Now, Governor Stein's counterargument is: Look, what you're ending up with is that if you combine legislative appointments with the appointments they're giving to. Public and members of the Council of State, that basically is giving the General Assembly the majority. But the courts, so far, and has not been tested yet at the Supreme Court, but trial court panels, the Court of Appeals, have all basically said no. The appointments are staying in the executive branch. That's fine.
And you know, there's actually a practical argument that hasn't yet been made in court, but could be. And this goes back to the appointment that Brad Bryner has made to the Utilities Commission. With the the way that it's spelled out now, the governor gets two appointments, the treasurer gets one appointment, the legislature gets two appointments.
So under Josh Stein's theory, it should be the case practically that the two legislative appointees and Don VanderVart, Brad Briner's appointee, should be ganging up to outvote the gubernatorial appointees three to two. That's not what's been happening in most cases. Don VanderVart's Been a vote by himself, and the gubernatorial appointees and the legislative appointees have been out voting him four to one.
So this actually has not come out in the court documents or in any of the arguments yet. But I'm a bit surprised because you would think the general assembly would put forward that argument that look. We're not controlling anyone. We're appointing people, and then they make their decisions. And that's what's happening here.
We think that it's important to disperse this authority, so it's not just the governor having the upper hand here, but giving other members of the executive branch a chance to to give their input as well. Yeah, something that might sound or look good on paper, Mitch, but is not necessarily coming into fruition practically. With some of these votes, we will be awaiting these third round of court filings and documents. If anything is relevant, there, we'll bring you an update. If not, we'll be looking forward to that November the tenth date, two and a half hour argument in front of the North Carolina Supreme Court.
We have continuing coverage of this over on our website this morning, CarolinaJournal.com. As always, we appreciate the update. Mitch Kokei from the John Locke Foundation joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk, one hundred seven point nine FM, WBT. Quick update on a story brought you yesterday on the Carolina Journal News Hour: an injunction hearing is scheduled coming up this morning in the State Health Plan's lawsuit against Atrium.
Superior Court Judge Matthew Houston will hear arguments for and against that case at a Lee County courthouse in Sanford coming up today. The State Health Plan filed a lawsuit. Against Atrium Health on Friday to stop the launch of a new program that Atrium was set to roll out for state health plan members beginning January the first of twenty twenty seven. We'll be watching that play out through the Superior Court system and bring you the latest over on our website carolinajournal dot com and as always right here on the Carolina Journal News Hour. That's going to do it for a Tuesday edition.
WBT News is next, followed by Good Morning. WBT. We're back with you tomorrow morning, five to six, right here on Charlotte's FM News Talk, one of seven point nine FM, WBT.
