Evidence That Parts of the NC DemsParty Are Comatose

Get this: Democratic members of county boards of election in some 32 counties have joined with their Republican majorities in requesting an exemption from the State BOE to have fewer Early Voting hours during the May primaries, hours that were mandated by the monster voting law (Voter I.D., etc.) enacted by the Republican majority.

The quirk in the law: As Pat McCrory so memorably said, Early Voting has been "compacted." Though the number of days of Early Voting has been reduced from 17 to 10, the total number of hours that polls were open during Early Voting in 2012 must be duplicated in the shortened Early Voting period of 2014, unless an individual county board of elections unanimously requests an exemption from the rule. Got that?

Apparently, when the law was originally passed and in order to get some Democratic support, Republican bosses had to add that particular provision (to maintain the same number of total hours while reducing the total number of days). The rationale used to sell the law to Democrats was that county election boards would henceforth be forced to extend Early Voting hours to 8 or 9 p.m., for example, and add more sites to help more people find time to vote.

Unless an individual county board of elections unanimously requests an exemption from the rule.

And that's exactly what 32 NC counties have done (complete list below). Which means that in 32 NC counties, the Democratic member of those boards of elections saw no problem whatsoever in reducing Early Voting even more than the cutting off of a full week of ballot access. Republican majorities on those boards proposed seeking the exemption, and Democratic members, in an excess of wanting to be nice or just plain stupid, went along with the further squeezing of North Carolina democracy into a box that will fit very neatly on Art Pope's desk.

We can understand the presence of some counties on this list, where no viable Democratic Party even exists, but ... Buncombe?!?

Alleghany

Bladen

Brunswick

Buncombe

Caldwell

Camden

Cherokee

Chowan

Clay

Craven

Currituck

Duplin

Graham

Granville

Greene

Henderson

Martin

McDowell

Mitchell

Onslow

Pamlico

Pasquotank

Perquimans

Sampson

Stokes

Surry

Tyrrell

Warren

Washington

Wilkes

Yadkin

Yancey

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/02/28/3661081/nc-counties-allowed-to-reduce.html#storylink=cpy

Josh Brannon Files for 5th District Congressional Seat

Press release:

Josh Brannon today filed with the North Carolina Board of Elections in Raleigh to enter the race to become the new Congressman from the 5th District of North Carolina. Brannon is a 36-year-old software developer from the Boone area. Brannon had earlier withdrawn from the race for the North Carolina Senate against incumbent Dan Soucek in support of the candidacy of Jim Sponenberg of Caldwell County.

Brannon said, "Mr. Sponenberg's candidacy gives me the opportunity to focus my energies on our current Congresswoman, Virginia Foxx, who has taken positions that are damaging to the 5th District and to our state. As is unfortunately common now, Ms. Foxx has taken up the mantle of big corporations and her 1% donors, at the expense of the people’s rights, success, and health. I intend to call her out on these harmful policies. I intend to be the voice of the people in our district. Ms. Foxx may do the bidding of multinational corporations and her millionaire contributors both in Washington and nationwide — I will answer to the people she has failed to serve. I grew up in North Carolina. I love this state. And I refuse to sit on the sidelines and watch while her policies continue to damage our people."

Mr. Brannon is a graduate of the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics and attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He moved to Watauga County 5 years ago to live near his parents, who have retired there.

There was already a Democratic primary triggered for this seat. Gardenia Henley of Forsyth, Michael W. Holleman of Wilkes, and Will Stinson of Yadkin had already filed as Democrats. Those three will face Josh Brannon in the primary on May 6.

Josh Brannon

Last Night, With the Watauga School Board

By a concerned citizen, guest blogging:

Last night at the climactic conclusion of the months-long furor over whether high school Honors English sophomores would be allowed to read Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits, the Watauga County Board of Education gave 30 minutes each to both the complaining parent, Chastity Lesesne, who started all of this, and the English teacher under attack, Mary Kent Whitaker.

As I listened to the book challenger speak, all I could hear was the implication that she believed her standards for decency should be imposed on everybody. She listed all of the school's regulations about decency -- what books, language, movies, etc. would be acceptable -- and reminded us repeatedly that this book doesn't meet any of those standards. She read a definition of pornography ("material that is intended to cause sexual excitement") but continued to describe parts of the book that create disgust rather than sexual excitement. Time after time, she said the book is pornographic despite the fact that nothing in the book is intended to cause sexual excitement. She read a passage that described a dirty old man's fantasies as he took advantage of a 6-year-old girl, but nothing in that passage could possibly create arousal -- only disgust.  Her biggest complaint -- other than "pornography" -- was that teens who selected the alternate were deprived of educational services in the form of classroom discussions. She called this discrimination.

In contrast, the teacher talked at length about how hard educators work to incorporate parental requests, always thinking of ways to improve their efforts to meet the needs of students. She listed several specific steps she has taken to improve her handling of issues brought to her attention by the challenger. The challenger had said that there were many books that could be used, and Ms. Whitaker had asked her to send a list. To date Ms. Whitaker has received no such list from Ms. Lesesne. 

Ms. Whitaker said she has tried repeatedly to find a book that would meet criteria set by the state (including Lexile score and focus on Latin American literature), but each book that she had found contained material that would have been found objectionable by some readers.  She mentioned the fact that the accrediting association will be visiting the school, and she is concerned about the possibility that a censorship issue could threaten accreditation. She read examples from some of the essays students have written praising the class and the important learning that had taken place. She talked about the positive messages that readers receive and the fact that the passage read by the challenger was only 1% of the book. The book needs to be studied as a whole, not just a few isolated and out-of-context passages. She gave statistics about how many times students have chosen the alternate book, pointing out that this semester -- despite all of the publicity about the book challenge -- only four students have requested the alternate book. Some 93% of the parents gave approval for their teens to read this book. She mentioned the fact that Watauga High School ranks third in NC in test scores, and the two schools that scored higher teach the book. How could our students compete if they are denied access to it?

Sadly, she mentioned the fact that teachers have experienced threats and are uneasy about their jobs. They need to know that the School Board supports them.

What they got from the school board was a split decision, with board member Ron Henries providing the swing vote. Mr. Henries expressed the difficulty he encountered in making his decision to support the use of the book, saying that he personally did not like the book, but he listened carefully to parents who approached him asking that he allow their teens to study the book under the guidance of Ms. Whitaker. Since only four students chose the alternate book this semester, he believed that the 93% should be given their preference, concluding with the idea that in the future, if most parents do not want their teens to study it, the use of the book will die like the dinosaurs.

BREAKING: Watauga Board of Education Just Voted 3-2 to Retain Allende Book in Curriculum

Delora Hodges and Lee Warren (neither of whom have filed for reelection) voted to remove the book from the curriculum (though Hodges made an earlier motion to keep the book in the library while taking it out of the 10th grade classroom).

Brenda Reese, Barbara Kinsey, and Ron Henries voted to retain the book in the curriculum.

Game over.

Conservatives Show Their Morally Repugnant Asses

Last night Jon Stewart was marveling that the conservatives in Arizona and elsewhere were distancing themselves from their own License to Discriminate Against Gays law. It's not about losing the Super Bowl, Stewart said. It's not about looking bad to the rest of the nation. It's that the law in question is morally repugnant.

They don't get that.

And today, after their governor vetoed the law, they're going nuts that somehow -- I'm not making this up -- Christians are being oppressed because they're not empowered by state law to discriminate against gay people. See this compilation of right-wing tweets that Billionaires for Wealthcare assembled.

Soucek Gets a Caldwell County Democratic Opponent

Jim Sponenberg, 70, a Caldwell County executive with Certus Bank, has filed to run as a Democrat against Senator Dan Soucek. Josh Brannon of Watauga County, who had also filed as a Democrat in the same race last week, has withdrawn in favor of Sponenberg.

Sponenberg said education is his main focus, having been closely involved with education throughout his life, both with personal involvement and with members of his family that are teachers: his wife, daughter, son-in-law and mother.

 “I think education is a very, very important part of what the state of North Carolina is involved in,” Sponenberg said, adding that he wants to make sure public education is supported and given a chance to improve and be innovative.

He also said that education influences economic development, especially in Caldwell County and the 45th District, which covers Allegheny, Ashe, Avery, Caldwell and Watauga counties.

 Sponenberg also said he is running to help build cooperation in Raleigh between Democrats and Republicans, saying he has friends in both major parties who think like he does.

 “I want to take that culture and cooperative attitude to Raleigh to get people to work together for the benefit of Caldwell County and Western North Carolina,” he said.

There's also a persistent rumor circulating in Caldwell County that Caldwell County Superintendent of Schools Steve Stone, a Republican, intends to challenge Soucek in the Republican primary. He has until Friday at noon to file if he's serious.

Appears that Mr. Soucek's votes on public education have not gone down well in his district.

Nothing Focuses the Mind Like a Federal Criminal Investigation

Looks like Governor Pat McCrory, a former Duke Energy executive and current Duke Energy cuddler, is trying to look as though he's getting right with Jesus. Yesterday, he publicly called on his former employer and current major political contributor to move its coal ash ponds away from water sources.

Those were words, of course, not action. Action would have involved McCrory's top guy at the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, John Skvarla, actually taking tough steps against Duke Energy to keep our water clean. So far that action has been sorely lacking.

But now the Feds have opened a criminal investigation, and McCrory needs to look like something other than a creature owned lock, stock, and leaking ash pond by Duke Energy.

Skepticism about McCrory now runs deep in North Carolina, since he's rarely risen above sock-puppet status during the past full year. Said Frank Holleman, senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center: “I think it’s good the governor is reacting finally and is communicating with the CEO of Duke Energy, but given everything that’s happened, actions speak louder than words. He says they’re not going to stand for it anymore, but if you’re not going to stand for it any more, clean up the mess.” (Emphasis added, natch!)

It's just sad that it took the tightening reach of federal subpoenas for McCrory to begin to sound like a governor thinking of the public interest, let alone acting in the public interest.

School Board Wrong To Exclude Citizens From Thursday's Vote

From North Carolina General Statutes covering Open Meetings of public bodies:

§ 143-318.9.  Public policy.
Whereas the public bodies that administer the legislative, policy-making, quasi-judicial, administrative, and advisory functions of North Carolina and its political subdivisions exist solely to conduct the people's business, it is the public policy of North Carolina that the hearings, deliberations, and actions of these bodies be conducted openly. (1979, c. 655, s. 1.)
§ 143-318.10.  All official meetings of public bodies open to the public.
(a)        Except as provided in G.S. 143-318.11, 143-318.14A, and 143-318.18, each official meeting of a public body shall be open to the public, and any person is entitled to attend such a meeting.

The Watauga County School Board decided that attendance at Thursday's meeting, when a final decision will be made regarding the banning of a novel from sophomore English honors classes, will be limited to those who'll be able to snag a "ticket" of admission to be given out at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday.

The School Board managed somehow to get access to the High School auditorium for a previous public hearing on the book in question. They should do that again. In fact, they must do that again to be in compliance with North Carolina law governing open meetings.

Watauga Board of Elections: The Fix Is In

Yesterday, Chair Luke Eggers and his fellow Republican on the Watauga County Board of Elections, Bill Aceto, held a ... meeting? gathering? get-together? where they purported to listen to citizens about an Early Voting plan for Watauga. The vast majority of those citizens in attendance were there to argue that there needs to be an Early Voting site in the Appalachian State University Student Union, but their opinions don't matter. There will never be an Early Voting site in the ASU Student Union as long as Eggers & Aceto are in control of Watauga County voting.

Whatever else it was, the confab yesterday was not a public hearing, as there were no speaker lists, no record kept, no notes taken, and everyone in that milling, chaotic crowd could not hear the comments of everyone else.

It was all fake anyway. Eggers and Aceto have no intention whatsoever of putting an Early Voting polling place on the ASU campus, because when young people are encouraged to vote in Watauga, Republicans lose, and Eggers and Aceto are, above all else, partisan Republicans. They are also under the thumbs of Republican County Attorney Stacy C. Eggers IV ("Four") and Republican Party Chair Anne Marie Yates.

Eggers and Aceto are also boxed in by new North Carolina voting laws which mandate that Early Voting hours have to equal the same number of hours offered in 2012 even though the Early Voting period has been reduced by a week. To achieve those numbers while singling out ASU students for discrimination will cause them Olympic-worthy gymnastic stretches and considerably more money in staff salaries.

I'm all for Early Voting in Deep Gap, Foscoe, Cove Creek, Blowing Rock, Meat Camp. Absolutely! Let a thousand polling places bloom! But all the rural precincts combined equal maybe 30% of registered voters in the county. Greater Boone, which includes the ASU campus, accounts for over 60% of registered voters. But the 60+ percent majority are about to be actively discouraged from voting by the strategic and partisan relocation of Early Voting sites away from the center of population.

Eggers and Aceto have to do it to satisfy their masters. After all: there'll be a hot sheriff's race in Watauga, and the Republican candidate is going to need every partisan advantage he can snag.