This Right Here Needs To Be a Federal Lawsuit

 

Study the map below. It's state senate districts 8 (darker color on left) and 7 (light color next to the ocean) in and around the city of Wilmington, North Carolina. The meandering blue line pretty much down the middle is the Cape Fear River, not only a wide and deep natural barrier to travel but also the county line between New Hanover and Brunswick. So you're called on to note the bulge to the east of the river, that allows the new Senate Dist. 8 to hijack a mainly Black population of Wilmington to cripple a Democrat's shot at beating the Republican incumbent for the NC Senate in District 7. 

Sen. Mike Lee is the incumbent and stands to benefit most from this piece of out-and-out racial gerrymandering for political advantage. Could you get any more obvious? Plus the willingness to greatly inconvenience and discourage a whole class of voters for purely petty and partisan reasons is truly despicable. 

News From Trump-Era School Boards: The Wilmington Censorship Case

 

So this is happening in Wilmington. Friday morning the New Hanover School Board convened for a hearing on whether Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, written by Jason Reynolds, adapted from the work of Ibram X. Kendi, should be permanently banned from any school reading list.

WHQR, public media in Wilmington, reported:

Since January, a parent, Katie Gates, has been pushing to ban the book and now, after her request was denied in two different appeals, the school board is deciding its fate. When Gates first complained, her daughter had been assigned Stamped as part of an Advanced Placement course. Since then, her daughter accepted an alternative assignment and has since completed the course, but Gates has continued to pursue getting the book removed....

...the board will determine whether the challenge to the book has “merit” and whether that book should be “retained, removed from the New Hanover County Schools entirely, whether it should be removed to another school level, or whether its availability should be restricted.”

I haven't read Stamped. I rely on an honest broker like Wiley Cash to school me: 

The book is a “remix” of Ibram X. Kendi’s National Book Award-winning Stamped from the Beginning created for readers ages 12 and up.

While the book reveals the genesis of racist ideology in America and suggests ways to combat it, Gates characterized it as “embracing dangerous ideologies.” In her complaint, Gates challenged the book through a number of inaccurate “facts,” contending that Thomas Jefferson freed his enslaved people and that the Bible was not used to justify slavery.

In the piece that Cash wrote for The Assembly, he concludes that "the fix" may already be in since two of the board members, including the chair, colluded with Katie Gates: "Much of the board’s public wrestling with this decision appears to be theatrical. Gates and two conservative members of the school board seemingly laid the groundwork for the decision—to be made sometime this fall—months ago. Emails WHQR obtained reveal close coordination between Gates and school board member Josie Barnhart and Chair Pat Bradford."

Cash's interest comes from a personal place:

"I’m a parent of two young children who attend New Hanover County schools, and I’m deeply invested in ensuring that they learn the true complexity of American history. As a North Carolina native who was educated in the state’s public schools, I did not."

For example, Cash writes, he didn't know about the Wilmington Massacre of 1898, a brutal white supremacist coup, until he was in graduate school taking a class on North Carolina literature at UNC-Greensboro. (Many of the rest of us didn't learn about Wilmington until 2020, when Wilmington's Lie came out and won the Pulitzer.) It would be well worth paying the measly subscription price to get Wiley Cash's full essay, for his discussion of Charles W. Chestnutt is well worth the effort.

UPDATE

The board voted Friday 4-3 to temporarily ban the book from the high school curriculum but retain it in high school libraries until the board can update its policy to allow a “balanced” book to be added to the AP course.

All Eyes on These Democrats in NC's "Bellwether County," New Hanover

 

In 2016 Watauga County was designated a "bellwether county" -- one of ten across the nation in that year's battleground states -- because Watauga's political history suggested we more often than not voted for the eventual winner of the presidential race. D'oh. We lost our status in 2016 because Watauga went roguishly for Hillary instead of for the winner, Twitterman. 

So much for an alpha sheep decked with a bell who leads the other sheep.

But we're delighted to see New Hanover County listed again as a bellwether county. Not its first time. The Associated Press named it a bellwether in 2016, along with Watauga: "New Hanover County was chosen because Republicans and Democrats are split almost evenly in Wilmington and the surrounding area, and the number of independents registered here has risen so much since the last presidential election that they now outnumber both parties."

Now for 2020, New Hanover gets the honor again in a list compiled by Dave Wasserman, House editor at the Cook Political Report. The New York Times published it as "opinion," and it's pretty damn interesting. Haven't investigated all the other counties on the new list -- I'll get around to them -- but New Hanover rises in the east today like the sun, and I can't take any more light at the moment. Several men and women from New Hanover, either already in the General Assembly (some flipped their seats in 2018), or are trying to get there, fill my eyeballs today -- the potential and the odds for Democrats' taking back the General Assembly in 2020. 

Here's a primer:

NC House Districts

Dist. 18 -- Deb Butler (incumbent Democrat), one of the most famous progressive warriors in the General Assembly, challenged by Republican Warren Kennedy. Bitzer rates the district "Safe Democratic."

 

Dist. 19 (only part of New Hanover, with a larger slice of New Brunswick to the south-- problematic for a Democratic win minus a Blue Wave) -- Open seat. Democrat Marcia Morgan is being challenged by Republican Charlie Miller. Quoting myself from January of this year:

Morgan is a 74-year-old Baby Boomer born in 1946. She was an educator, became a career Army officer who retired as a colonel. She taught ROTC and did two tours at the Pentagon including a staff position with the Army Chief of Staff. She says, "I have thoroughly enjoyed retirement and the freedom to do as I please, but the current political environment has challenged me to step forward once again. I do not have a background in politics, but I DO have a strong sense of service to this community and a demonstrated ability to accomplish difficult tasks. I believe we have a commitment to improve our economy, provide equal opportunities for all and protect our environment – and one of the fundamental ways to accomplish those things is through quality education." She details her career, which took her all over the world for the Army, on her website.

Morgan has been endorsed by Lillian's List. She came within 883 votes of beating Ted Davis in 2018 in the old District 19. The last fundraising report I've seen suggested a good effort on her part for 2020.

 

 

Dist. 20 -- Ted Davis, incumbent Republican, formerly in the 19th but drawn out of that district and into Holly Grange's district. The double-bunking of incumbent Republicans was certainly part of Holly Grange's decision to opt out of reelection and run for governor against Dan Forest instead (a remarkably empty gesture in today's NCGOP). Democrat Adam Ericson, a public high school teacher, is challenging Davis. FlipNC.org analysis of the prospect: "Gov. Cooper lost the newly constituted NC-H20 by just 5 points in 2016, and the NC House race was just as close in 2018. The pool of left-leaning voters who stayed home in NC-H20 in 2018 was about 14 points more left-leaning than the folks who came out to the polls, and the great news is that 2020 primary turnout was up 30% over 2016!"

 

NC Senate

Dist. 9 -- Harper Peterson (incumbent Democrat: elected 2018), challenged by Republican attorney Mike Lee. Rated a "Toss Up" by Bitzer. Peterson beat Lee in 2018, so this is a rematch. Fundraising on both sides has been eye-popping, though Lee was edging Peterson slightly in the $$ race the last time I looked. Peterson is a former mayor of Wilmington and has been very visible in the controversy surrounding the pollution of the Cape Fear River.

 

U.S. House

Dist. 7 -- David Rouzer, incumbent Republican, challenged by Democrat Christopher Ward. Considered a safe Republican district because of all that rural real estate north of Wilmington, Republican counties stretching all the way to Johnston County just south of Wake.

https://www.chriswardforcongress.com

Plaintiffs Sue to Expand Early Voting in Five NC Counties

SBOE Member Josh Malcolm

Sure enough, and as we predicted, the day-long meeting early in September of the NC State Board of Elections (SBOE) has produced a new lawsuit, though the new legal action doesn't arise from individual counties where voter suppression was rubber-stamped by the SBOE. The new petition comes from plaintiffs -- principally the League of Women Voters -- who successfully sued to overturn the entirety of the 2013 monster elections law in North Carolina.

Yesterday, lawyers for the League of Women Voters filed in the NC Middle District of Federal Court for immediate expansion of Early Voting in five mainly urban NC counties: Nash, Forsyth, Guilford, Mecklenburg, and New Hanover.

The specific requests (thanks to WRAL for the details):

Nash County to open "early voting at the Braswell Memorial Library in Rocky Mount during the first seven days of the early voting period." That early voting site is closed during the first week of early voting under the current plan. It is in a heavily minority area, according to court documents, and closing it puts early voting "out of reach for many (and a disproportionately large share) of Nash’s African-American voters."

New Hanover County to open early voting on Sunday hours. Sunday voting is often used by African American churches to move "souls to the polls."

Mecklenburg County to expand early voting on the last Saturday until 5 p.m. Mecklenburg's early voting plan was one of the most hotly debated during the state boards meeting. "I think this is going to be the poster child for what not to do," Democratic board member Joshua Malcolm said during the meeting.

Guilford County to open more than one polling site during the first week of early voting and to ensure "a sufficient number of locations to adequately serve Guilford County voters, but in any case no less than the number of locations available for voters in 2012, and including those locations that were heavily used by African-American voters."

Forsyth County to expand early voting to Sundays, open multiple locations during the first week of early voting and open an early voting site on the Winston-Salem State University Campus.

The Federal court for the Middle District of NC has the burden of overseeing the implementation of the Fourth Circuit Court's original ruling which threw out the Republican election "reforms." Will they see what all the rest of us in that room in Raleigh on September 8 could see -- that boards of elections all over the state were doing what they could to circumvent the Fourth Circuit's ruling, and the SBOE was abetting them.

It's a Clear Pattern: The NC GOP Hates Young Voters

If the New Hanover County Board of Elections doesn't get slapped down hard for this, it'll be another strike against the NC State Board of Elections.

In the home city of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, the local Republican-controlled Board of Elections has decided that if a student voter can't name the street address of the dormitory he/she lives in, then he/she jolly well won't be allowed to vote.

Who knows the street address of any dormitory on the ASU campus? They probably have technical street addresses, under 911 regs, but as mail doesn't typically go to a dormitory street address, nobody but nobody knows that address (except maybe 911 dispatchers).

Betcha the Vice Chancellor of Bricks and Mortar wouldn't know the street address for Justice Hall, let alone a student living there.

The attempts at disenfranchising college student voters goes on apace in North Carolina, and eventually those young citizens are going to get mighty peeved about it, as they should, and then they're going to vote with a vengeance.

ADDITIONAL, DAMNING DETAIL
From WECT.

"We Have a Different Standard for Women"

At approximately the same time that Congresswoman Virginia Foxx was bucking up the local Republicans at their county convention last Saturday, telling them that the Rush Limbaugh-led war on women “is not about contraceptives, folks. It is about the First Amendment. Do not let people distract you into thinking that,” the New Hanover County Commissioners down in Wilmington were distracting us all into thinking that there's an all-out war on women and their personal choices.

In a vote to turn down a $8,899 grant in family planning funds that would “provide medical services related to family planning, including physician’s consultation, examination, prescription, continuing supervision, laboratory examination and contraceptive supplies,” the New Hanover County Commission scolded young women for having sex and agreed with Rush Limbaugh that they'll be damned and go to hell before they encourage any sluttish behavior, and clearly, giving "contraceptive supplies" to young women would just encourage sluttish behavior.

The grant money required no matching funds from the county.

"If these young women are being responsible and didn't have the sex to begin with, we wouldn't have this problem to begin with," commission board chair Ted Davis Jr. opined.

It's an all-male commission. But not all-Republican. The Vice-Chair Jonathan Barfield is a Democrat and said, in agreeing with Davis, that he was "one of those abstinence guys." But except for Barfield, all the rest are Republicans.

Begging Ms. Foxx's pardon, but men this obsessed with "the sex" that women are having need a little contraceptive therapy of their own.