"No One Is Breaking Into the Voting Booth"

Gerry Cohen, former special counsel to the N.C. General Assembly and our walking encyclopedia on North Carolina election law:

The line to vote at ASU
Photo Lonnie Webster

There are important questions to be resolved before the legislature votes to put voter photo identification in the state Constitution via referendum.

The ballot question says, “Every person offering to vote in person shall present photo identification before voting in the manner prescribed by law.” This language appears to not allow exceptions for those without ID or those who have lost them, as the 2013 law did. Will it be a “hard ID” like that struck down in federal court, or a “soft ID” like the 2013 House version that allowed student ID, public assistance ID or employer ID? Will there be a tedious provisional ballot process?

The referendum voter won’t know the actual proposal. Senate staffer Brent Woodcox tweeted, “Very few would read the details of the bill to make their decision on the amendment. Unless it passes, there will be no need for implementing language.” How cynical. Is the amendment just a blank check, as well as a sound bite to trap candidates? Is the actual reason to amend the constitution to end review on state constitutional grounds? Republicans control the legislature; the N.C. Supreme Court is now 4-3 Democratic and will remain Democratic next year.

What justification have proponents offered, other than voter confidence would be improved? Gov. Pat McCrory in signing the 2013 bill said it was common sense because you “need a photo ID to fly.” This is untrue; the Transportation Security Administration has many published workarounds for fliers with no photo ID. Other misconceptions: "The law requires photo ID to buy beer, wine and cigarettes." Not true. There is no law requiring this, but if merchants gets photo ID they have a safe harbor if it’s phony.

“You have to have a photo ID to get a prescription.” Most prescriptions have no legal ID requirement. Controlled substances require a government ID, but it doesn’t have to be that of the patient; others can pick up those drugs by showing their ID.

A large segment of society, especially the poor, don't fly and don't have checking accounts. Research has shown that the poorer the voter, the younger the voter, or if the voter is black, the less likely there is an acceptable photo ID. Also, why are we writing into the constitution 2018 technology, disallowing other methods that may develop?

I’ve seen attacks that people without ID could easily get one. For many, this isn’t true. Those of us in politics are privileged to be in the top 95 percent of society. We often don’t see the struggle of citizens who are un-banked, poor, homeless, mentally ill, with no car, or living far away from DMV in rural areas. The lesser among us deserve respect and honor, not baseless fraud allegations or artificial and unnecessary barriers to voting. This bill will disenfranchise voters and is poorly thought through. No one is breaking into the voting booth....

Voter ID Requirement Coming to Your Ballot This Fall

Tim Moore

NC House Speaker Tim Moore is the lead sponsor of a bill to put the question to voters in November: Don't you really think the state should require photo identification from voters, given all those illegals being bussed into polling places everywhere?

It's a political move, obviously, meant to gin up some enthusiasm among Republican voters by raising the specter once again of The Wrong People voting.

Thomas Mills warns that Democrats better not make a campaign issue of a voter identification constitutional amendment, for it will pass, and opposing it will only stir up the other side. Thomas Mills is probably right, especially about the likelihood that the voters will fall for a sham based on fraudulent rumors about voter fraud. Dunno about the other part of his warning, but it makes sense.

And here's the thing: If the amendment did pass in November, the next General Assembly would be tasked with writing the rules, and if Democrats keep their eyes on the prize and break the Republican super-majority, then Democrats will be in a position to influence those rules.

AppState Hires Itself a Lawyer (With Bonus Intercepted Email)

ASU Chancellor Sheri Everts announced on Tuesday that she had hired Paul Meggett, "a former law professor and interim dean at UNC-Charlotte," as her general counsel (following the retirement of former counsel Dayton Cole). Everts also said that Meggett "spent more than a decade in a dual, in-house counsel role as associate general counsel for the UNC Health Care System and as Assistant University Counsel for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill."

What she didn't say about Meggett appeared in an email from an ASU distinguished faculty member that went to several fellow faculty members:  

"Did you hear that the newly hired General Counsel at ASU - Paul Meggett - is coming from the position of Interim Dean of the Charlotte Law School, a for-profit school that closed last August due, in part, to multiple suits by former students and a suit from a former faculty member claiming that the school defrauded the government out of $285 million by "admitting hundreds of unqualified students, then manipulating records to keep them enrolled so the school could collect their government-backed tuition." Why is ASU hiring administrators - Terry Rawls was another - who come from for-profit institutions that have been in legal trouble? Something we should be concerned about?"

As a matter of record, while other law schools have closed in recent years due to declining enrollment and other difficulties, the Charlotte School of Law is the only one that has closed following actions by its regulators such as the NC Attorney General's office, the US Department of Education, and the American Bar Association. "Its parent company also owns two other law schools that are in the same death spiral."

Chancellor Everts' announcement said that Meggett was a "law professor and interim dean at UNC-Charlotte," implying (logically) that he was a law professor and interim dean of the law school at UNC-C. But UNC-C doesn't have a school of law.

Faculty at ASU are asking, "Was that deliberate obfuscation of Meggett's background" or an honest mistake? Or did Meggett misrepresent his background?

Atta Boy!

Governor Roy Cooper vetoed the new Republican budget passed out of the General Assembly because of its inadequate funding of public education.

...Cooper wanted to stop the implementation of another corporate income tax cut next year and freeze planned tax cuts on income that people earn above $200,000, using the extra revenue to give teachers a larger raise and also spend money on other projects.

Continuing to Build

Kathleen Williams won the Democratic
primary in Montana on Tuesday to face off
against Republican incumbent Greg Gianforte
who was sentenced for assaulting a reporter the
night before his election in May 2017

I haven't the time to do deep research of my own right now on the Democratic challengers mentioned below, and the Republican incumbents, but soon ... soon ... I'll be free again to sit at a computer.

From the WashPost:

Voters have cast primary ballots in 32 of the 56 Republican-held House districts most vulnerable to a Democratic takeover, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. Of the 28 races that have been called, Democratic women have won in half the districts, with women leading the Democratic ticket Wednesday afternoon in one of the four remaining seats still being counted in California. The party’s nominees in these crucial districts also include six military veterans and seven nominees who are black, Latino or Asian.

The winners include new political stars such as Amy McGrath, a former Marine fighter pilot running in Lexington, Ky., and Mikie Sherrill, a Navy pilot and former prosecutor running in northern New Jersey....

Democrats need a net gain of 23 seats to retake the House and have benefited from a playing field that is largely located in the suburbs of major American cities, where polls show swing voters, especially educated white women, are more likely to reject Trump’s conduct in office. Strategists consider only five Democratic seats, including two in Minnesota, vulnerable to a Republican takeover.

Head of NC Pork Council: Trump's Trade War Will Hurt Farmers

Twitterman announced tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from our closest neighbors and allies -- Mexico, Canada, and the European Union -- and they promptly threatened back, saying they'll impose tariffs of their own on North Carolina pork and tobacco. Andy Curliss, CEO of the North Carolina Pork Council, pointed out -- if anyone's listening -- that 25% of NC pork gets exported, and Mexico and Canada account for half of those exports.

Larry Wooten, president of the North Carolina Farm Bureau, chimed in: "Those countries are important customers for us. If [threatened foreign tariffs] come to pass and if it really happens, it could be devastating for the North Carolina pork industry."

Same for tobacco: "The European Union produced a 10-page list of products it would retaliate against, if the U.S. imposes the tariffs. Among the products: tobacco in all forms — cigars, cigarettes, chewing tobacco, water-pipe tobacco and smoking tobacco. The state grows about 50 percent of the nation's tobacco and exports about 75 percent of what it grows, Wooten said."

Two Deaths From Landslide in Watauga County

Heavenly Mtn development, May 30, 2018
Photo Boone Police Dept.

Thing is, Watauga County was mapped for landslide hazards in 2007, and the area highlighted at that time as most landslide prone was in the Stony Fork precinct which takes in the Heavenly Mountain development. That area experienced devastating landslides in 1940 -- literally, hundreds of them -- and geologic science forecasts that a slope which experienced "debris flow" in the past will experience it again.

The Watauga County landslide hazard maps were presented to the Watauga County Planning Board in January of 2008. The mapping was prompted by the 2004 Hurricane Ivan event which killed five people in Macon County by landslide and devastated the White Laurel development in Boone's ETJ. Because of that, the state legislature said that all 19 mountain counties along the Blue Ridge escarpment needed to know the hazards, so it funded the research. Watauga County was the second county surveyed, and it was very nearly the last. As soon as the Republicans took control in 2011, they cut the funding.

Not that knowing the hazards necessarily saves lives. There's knowing, and then there's really knowing, and the land development community in vacationland never really wanted that information made public. It might have a negative impact on land values.

Those hazard maps are available, incidentally, via the Watauga County Planning and Inspections website.

The Rise of Leslie Cockburn in Virginia's 5th Congressional District

Republican Congressman Tom Garrett's surprise announcement on Monday that he would not seek a second term because he's an alcoholic has certainly boosted the candidacy of Democrat Leslie Cockburn, a first-time candidate for office who was already looking like a winner.

Leslie Cockburn

Cockburn had cleared the field of her Democratic rivals. The Democrats of the Virginia 5th District opted for a nominating caucus of counties rather than a primary (they can do that in Virginia), and Cockburn had most of those counties behind her. The sprawling 5th District takes in all or part of 21 counties, from the North Carolina border almost up to Maryland. Her leading Democratic opponent, Roger Dean Huffstetler, who'd raised over a million $$ himself, dropped out of the race a couple of days before the May 5th caucus and endorsed Cockburn:

“Democrats in the Fifth District have made it loud and clear through local caucuses that they want Leslie Cockburn to be our nominee to take on Tom Garrett this fall,” Huffstetler said in a statement. “Leslie worked extremely hard to earn that distinction, achieving viability in all 23 localities and winning an outright majority of delegates. She and her team are to be congratulated on executing on their strategy with precision and enthusiasm.”

Roger Dean Huffstetler is a class act, and he himself, an ex-Marine, looked like a winner back in January when he announced. Leslie Cockburn didn't get into the race until July, and she swept everyone away, including Huffstetler. Sic transit semper fi.

So what is it about Leslie Cockburn? She's something of a celebrity, married to Irish journalist and filmmaker Andrew Cockburn (who is also, incidentally, an old Russian expert; he wrote The Threat – Inside the Soviet Military Machine in 1982). Leslie and Andrew's daughter Olivia Wilde is a successful actress. Leslie has been a top investigative journalist, an award-winning producer for CBS's 60 Minutes. She has won two Emmys, two George Polk Awards, two Columbia Dupont journalism awards, and the Robert F. Kennedy Award. John Lewis, civil rights leader and dean of Georgia’s congressional delegation, has offered to come and campaign for her.

"In 2009, Leslie Cockburn directed and co-produced (with husband Andrew Cockburn) her first feature documentary for theatrical release. American Casino relates the story of the origins, progress and consequences of the subprime mortgage disaster that led to the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression. Beginning filming in January 2008, Cockburn laid bare both the financial machinations and miscalculations on Wall Street that produced the disaster as well as its effects on an array of Baltimore homeowners struggling to stay afloat. The film premiered at New York's Tribeca Film Festival in April 2009." (Thank you, Wikipedia)

So there's some talent there. And smarts. And connections.

She's gonna need all of that. Last I saw, the 5th District of Virginia (sorta like the 5th District of NC) was rated "safely Republican," and it could be a natural dam against any blue wave. But Cockburn is campaigning on kitchen table issues, like health care and education, and she's unapologetic about her environmentalism. She's come out in opposition to the Atlantic Coast pipeline, which would cut through productive farms and small businesses (like the Four Corners Farm in Franklin County) to transit fracked-gas to North Carolina.

Meanwhile, the Republican executives of the 5th District have to choose a replacement on the ballot for Tom Garrett, somebody who will probably be nowhere as prominent as Leslie Cockburn.

Virginia Foxx PROSPERs, But Would-Be College Students Don't

Virginia Foxx has preached for years that government shouldn't fund education, but she's bullish on the for-profit education industry funding her. Foxx was the top recipient in Congress of for-profit college industry money in 2017, raking in $45,450.

Naturally, you want to help your friends. So Foxx has authored the deceptively named PROSPER Act (for "Promoting Real Opportunity, Success, and Prosperity through Education Reform"). Ha! Foxx is now chair of the Education Committee in the House, and her current overhaul of the Higher Education Act would unleash for-profit colleges from accountability and allow them to continue to defraud students and saddle them with predatory loans to pay for an "education" that ain't one (except maybe an education in deceptive advertising). Worst of all? Foxx's law would grant for-profit corporations more access to federal aid.

(The scandals among for-profit education corporations are totally public. I believe DJT had to pay off a bunch of defrauded students in the dissolution of his for-profit Trump University. Foxx loves Trump. Likes his style.)

Foxx gained fame among young people for saying she had very little sympathy for college students with large debts. She's claimed for-profit colleges are “more efficient,” the way a slot machine is efficient. She once compared attempts to regulate the pro-profit industry to the Holocaust and said in an interview with the Chronicle of Higher Education in 2016 that the Obama administration cracked down on for-profit colleges “arbitrarily,” and that, “We don’t have evidence that [students in these institutions] were defrauded.”

That's our Ginny!

She's a black frost on the civic contract that says that America's youth should be educated. Her ballooning wealth as a US congresswoman has metastasized into self-righteousness and holier-than-thou pronouncements about how poor and underprivileged she was. She did everything herself, and if you're not as rich as she is (she's in the top 60 richest members of Congress), you just didn't try hard enough, and so shut the hell up.

I personally experienced Virginia Foxx as an educator in the early 1970s when I was a new assistant professor of English at Appalachian State University and Virginia Foxx was the assistant dean of general education. Her condescension and autocratic impulses earned her many not-admirers. Plus she shit in her hat at ASU and went forward to lay waste at Mayland Community College as its president. She has an Ed.D. and insisted in Congress that she be addressed as "Doctor Foxx."

She's the kind of doctor that won't get you well.