North Carolina
North Carolina Legislature Reconvenes To Address Budget, Vouchers as Big Elections Approach – Chapelboro.com
Written by GARY D. ROBERTSON
The North Carolina General Assembly begins its annual work session Wednesday with a little extra money to spend and limited pressing issues to address before key elections this fall and longtime state government leaders depart.
Following their landmark 2023 session that expanded Medicaid, restricted abortion, broadened gun rights, swelled private-school vouchers and weakened the governor, Republicans leading the House and Senate are talking about the traditionally “short” session to be just that — with a goal to finish by early summer.
“We dealt with a lot of weighty issues,” House Speaker Tim Moore, a Cleveland County Republican, told reporters recently. “Are there still some things left to be done? Yes, we’re going to deal with those.”
With all 170 legislative seats up for reelection in November and Republicans who approved last year’s agenda holding the narrowest of veto-proof majorities, party leaders will be careful to advance measures that won’t sway public opinion against their candidates in key districts. Legislation forcing local sheriffs to assist with federal immigration enforcement and locating more funds for the private-school scholarships could qualify.
The legislature’s chief duty in even-numbered years is to adjust the second year of the two-year government operating budget that’s already enacted.
A consensus forecast by the legislature and Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration says the state will collect an additional $1.4 billion through mid-2025 than previously anticipated. This compares to the $30.9 billion currently set to be spent in the fiscal year starting July 1.
As much as $400 million could be needed to make Medicaid spending adjustments because of a lower federal government match and the higher use of services by enrollees, Rep. Donny Lambeth of Forsyth County, a House budget writer, said this week.
And Moore and Senate Majority Leader Paul Newton said separately that GOP colleagues are prepared to set aside more money for the Opportunity Scholarship Program so that more families in higher-income brackets can receive grants this fall for their K-12 children to attend private or religious schools.
The current budget law did away with the program’s income caps to qualify, leading to a six-fold increase in applications this year.
But the state authority running the program said there isn’t enough to assist all qualifying applicants, and no aid would go to groups of applicants with the highest incomes. It wasn’t clear whether Republicans would seek to fully fund the scholarships for the coming year, which Moore said could require $300 million more.
Still, “I think there’s a high probability that we’re going to make sure the parents who want choice get choice for their children,” said Newton, a Cabarrus County Republican.
Cooper, who is term-limited from running for reelection, also will present his last budget proposal Wednesday. Cooper is hoping GOP legislators will listen to his calls to stop spending on the Opportunity Scholarship program that he’s opposed for years until public schools are “fully funded,” and for teachers to receive sizeable pay raises.
“We need to invest in public schools,” Cooper told reporters recently. “We know that to sustain the workforce of the future for all these jobs we’re attracting, we’ve got to make sure that our public schools are strong.”
On immigration, Newton said he suspects the Senate would take up a bill approved by the House last year that would force sheriffs to help federal agents interested in picking up jail inmates they believe are in the country illegally. Cooper successfully vetoed similar measures in 2019 and 2022, but that’s when GOP legislators lacked supermajorities.
State budget approval was nearly derailed last year when Senate Republicans sought to insert language that would have permitted construction of four more casinos in the state and the sanctioning and regulating video gambling machines statewide. But Republicans from both chambers have suggested discussions about sanctioning the gambling machines could resurface.
General Assembly staff estimated last year that revenue from the machines could generate over $400 million annually by later this decade. That could help make up for revenue losses now projected as approved individual and corporate income tax rates further decline. Republicans have downplayed talk of long-term shortfalls as hasty.
Democratic legislators seeking to halt what they consider bad GOP bills will face the same challenges that began last April when Rep. Tricia Cotham changed her registration to the Republican Party. Her switch secured the veto-proof majority in both chambers. All of Cooper’s vetoes last year were overridden.
“The numbers are what they are,” said House Minority Leader Robert Reives, a Chatham County Democrat. “I can still count and I know that the Republican caucus is going to vote 100% together.”
This short session also marks the last one for Moore, who is likely on his way to Congress in 2025 after a record five two-year terms leading the chamber. He comfortably won his primary election for the Republican-leaning 14th Congressional District.
Featured photo via Associated Press/Chris Seward.
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North Carolina
Take a lesson in pomp and circumstance from these NC commencement addresses | Tom Campbell
It’s graduation season and in school after school you hear “Pomp and Circumstance” being played. Most of us can’t remember who delivered our commencement address, much less anything said, but you and I might benefit from some current commencement messages.
Comedian Jerry Seinfeld spoke at the Duke Commencement. He shared his “three real keys to life.” They are: “Bust your ass. Pay attention. And fall in love.”
Astronaut Zena Cardman spoke at UNC, saying “It can be tricky to stay present while also looking forward to an imminent future, but I’d encourage graduating seniors to think about what’s right in front of them, here and now. Who will you carry with you into this next stage? What do you value? What do you want to improve for others? The answers to these questions can be found in the present and will carry through a lifetime.”
Nobel prize winner, chemist David MacMillan, gave NC State grads three admonitions. “Learn from others, but always follow your own path. Failure is just another word for experience. Laugh every day; you don’t always have to take yourself too seriously.”
Mandy Cohen, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, admonished Wake Forest Grads to embrace the school’s motto, “Pro Humanitate,” (For Humanity).” “In this increasingly complex world that makes it too easy to believe the illusion that we live in a binary world of us and them, I hope you will see people, all people. Listen. Seek understanding, and not just with those who think like you.”
Ronnie Barnes, ECU alumni and head athletic trainer of the New York Football Giants, spoke at the Greenville commencement. “Resilience is not is not reserved solely for the gridiron or the playing field,” Barnes said. “It’s what enables us to pick ourselves up when we stumble, to push through the pain when it seems insurmountable and emerge stronger and more resilient on the other side.”
Graduates of North Carolina’s Institute of Political Leadership heard former Senator Richard Burr and former Congressman David Price.
Price told the group to think of themselves as part of something greater than the sum of its parts. “It’s one thing to win an election,” Price said. “It’s quite another to another thing to make institutions work. That’s the real test of democracy.”
“Politics has always been a contact sport,” Burr said. “When elections were over David and I put the gloves in a drawer. We didn’t bring them out until the next election time came. Today, the gloves stay out. It’s hard to find consensus when it’s a perpetual fight.”
Burr continued, “Imagine you go to class. A professor every day has to say to the class, and ask by unanimous consent, that we actually do something today. And one student says, ‘Nahh, I don’t think so.’ That’s the United States Senate. We’re taught the rules are 60 votes to get something done. No, the rule is nobody objects.”
But the address attracting the most attention came from filmmaker Ken Burns, who spoke at the Brandeis University graduation.
Burns told the audience that we have inherited a nation that is great and good, but in recent years we have incubated, “habits and patterns less beneficial to us: our devotion to money and guns and conspiracies, our certainty about everything, our stubborn insistence on our own exceptionalism blinding us to that which needs repair, especially with regard to race and ethnicity. Our preoccupation with always making the other wrong at an individual as well as a global level.
“Everything is either right or wrong, red state or blue state, young or old, gay or straight, rich or poor, Palestinian or Israeli, my way or the highway. Everywhere we are trapped by these old, tired, binary reactions, assumptions, and certainties.
“I have had the privilege for nearly half a century of making films about the US, but I have also made films about us. That is to say the two letter, lowercase, plural pronoun. All of the intimacy of “us” and also “we” and “our” and all of the majesty, complexity, contradiction, and even controversy of the US. And if I have learned anything over those years, it’s that there’s only us. There is no them.”
Burns violated the tradition that commencement addresses should be apolitical, saying, “There is no real choice this November. There is only the perpetuation, however flawed and feeble you might perceive it, of our fragile 249-year-old experiment or the entropy that will engulf and destroy us if we take the other route.
“The presumptive Republican nominee is the opioid of all opioids, an easy cure for what some believe is the solution to our myriad pains and problems…. Do not be seduced by easy equalization. There is nothing equal about this equation. We are at an existential crossroads in our political and civic lives. This is a choice that could not be clearer.”
Let those who have ears listen.
Tom Campbell is a Hall of Fame North Carolina broadcaster and columnist who has covered North Carolina public policy issues since 1965. Contact him at tomcamp@carolinabroadcasting.com.
North Carolina
Host N.C. State gets past South Carolina 6-4 and into the Raleigh Regional championship
RALEIGH, N.C. — Eli Serrano III and Garrett Pennington combined for five runs, five hits, and three home runs to lead host North Carolina State past South Carolina 6-4 on Saturday night to advance to the championship game of the Raleigh Regional.
N.C. State (35-20), the No. 10 national seed in the NCAA Tournament, will play the James Madison-South Carolina winner in the regional championship on Sunday.
Serrano finished 3 for 5. Pennington hit two early home runs and later walked twice.
Serrano’s solo homer gave the Wolfpack a 4-2 lead in the bottom of the fifth. Dylan Brewer, who hit a solo home run in the fifth, answered for the Gamecocks with a two-run home run in the seventh that tied it 4-4.
Serrano singled and eventually scored in the seventh. Matt Heavner led off the eighth for the Wolfpack with a bunt single and advanced to second on Serrano’s ground out. Pennington was intentionally walked, and Heavner scored on a throwing error by catcher Dalton Reeves to end the scoring.
The Wolfpack’s Derrick Smith gave up one hit while striking out four in 1 2/3 innings for his sixth save.
Connor McCreery pitched just 1/3 inning in the seventh for South Carolina (37-24), but gave up one run for the loss.
The reigning National Champion LSU Tigers rallied back on Friday afternoon to come out victorious in their NCAA Tournament opener against Wofford.
With their backs against the wall, the Tigers launched three homers late with Steve Milam coming up as the hero once again.
Milam smacked a walk-off homer in the bottom of the ninth inning to lift the Tigers to a 4-3 victory over the Terriers to get things started in the Chapel Hill Regional.
Now, all attention shifts to the winner’s bracket matchup between LSU and North Carolina.
Here’s a look into the game information for Saturday, how to watch and a scouting report on the Tar Heels:
DATE/TIME
• Saturday, June 1 at 4 p.m. CT (ESPN2)
STADIUM
• Boshamer Stadium – Chapel Hill, N.C. (5,000)
RADIO
• LSU Sports Radio Network affiliates
• Live audio at www.LSUsports.net/live; Live stats at www.LSUstats.com
TV/ONLINE
• Saturday’s game will be televised by ESPN2; the game will also be streamed on ESPN+
LSU IN THE NCAA TOURNAMENT
• LSU is in the NCAA Tournament for the 12th straight season and for the 36th time overall …. LSU has seven national championships (1991, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2009, 2023), the second-most in NCAA history … the Tigers were an NCAA Tournament Top 8 National Seed for an NCAA-record six straight seasons (2012-17) … LSU was the No. 5 National Seed in 2023 and claimed the school’s seventh CWS title … LSU has the second-highest all-time NCAA Tournament winning percentage (.707, 174-72).
• LSU has played host to 27 NCAA Regionals at Alex Box Stadium, and the Chapel Hill Regional marks the Tigers’ ninth regional on the road: LSU has a 108-27 (.800) all-time record in NCAA Regional games, including an 89-17 (.840) mark in home regional games and a 19-10 (.655) record in regional games on the road … LSU has won its home regional on 23 occasions: 1986, ’90, ’91, ’93, ’94, ’96, ’97, ’98, ’99, 2000, ’01, ’02, ’03, ’04, ’08, ’09, ’12, ’13, ’15, ’16, ’17, ’19, ’23 … the Tigers have won road regionals three times – in 1987 (at New Orleans), 1989 (at Texas A&M) and 2021 (at Oregon).
ABOUT THE TIGERS
• The Tigers won four of their last five SEC regular-season series in 2024, posting a 10-5 mark over the final five weeks of the league schedule … LSU is 18-6 in its last 24 games overall and 14-6 in its last 20 games versus SEC teams … the Tigers have seven of their past eight games; their seven-game win streak was broken with a 4-3 loss to top-ranked Tennessee on Sunday in the SEC Tournament championship game … LSU enters the NCAA Chapel Hill Regional No. 23 in the official NCAA RPI rankings.
• Third baseman Tommy White has 75 career homers – 27 in 2022 at NC State, 24 last season at LSU and 24 this season for the Tigers. He is No. 8 all-time in NCAA history in career home runs. White is just the fourth player in NCAA history to reach the 75-homer mark in three seasons.The others are Pete Incaviglia of Oklahoma State, Frank Fazzini of Florida State and George Canale of Virginia Tech. White is also only the fourth player in NCAA history to hit 20+ homers in three seasons. The others are Incaviglia, Canale and Todd Greene of Georgia Southern.
• Second baseman Steven Milam launched a two-run homer in the bottom of the 10th inning Saturday to lift LSU to a 12-11 win over South Carolina in an SEC Tournament semifinal game at Hoover Metropolitan Stadium last Saturday. LSU, which trailed the Gamecocks, 8-0, heading into the bottom of the fourth inning, recorded its biggest comeback win since May 7, 2016, when the Tigers overcame a 9-1 deficit to defeat Arkansas, 10-9 (10 innings), in Alex Box Stadium … Milam hit .476 (10-for-21) in the SEC Tournament with two doubles, two homers, seven RBI and six runs, and he was voted to the all-tournament team.
• LSU shortstop Michael Braswell III lined a two-out RBI single in the top of the ninth inning Thursday night to break a 10-10 and lift the Tigers to an 11-10 SEC Tournament win over South Carolina. Braswell, who at played South Carolina for two seasons before transferring to LSU last summer, delivered the game-winning hit against his former team as he slapped a single down the left-field line that helped propel LSU into the tournament semifinal round … Braswell hit .381 (8-for-21) for the entire SEC Tournament with two homers, six RBI and eight runs, and he was voted to the all-tournament team.
• LSU right-hander Luke Holman fired six hitless innings last Wednesday, and the Tigers blasted two grand slams in an 11-0 SEC Tournament win over Kentucky … Holman (9-3) blanked the Wildcats through his six-inning outing, allowing no hits with two walks and seven strikeouts … he threw 100 pitches in the outing, 63 for strikes … Holman was voted to the SEC All-Tournament team.
• LSU left-hander Gage Jump limited Georgia to one run on four hits in 7.0 innings last Tuesday, as the Tigers posted a 9-1 win over the Bulldogs in the opening round of the 2024 SEC Tournament at Hoover Metropolitan Stadium … Jump (6-1) tied his season high on Tuesday by firing 105 pitches, 75 for strikes … he allowed just one run on four hits in seven innings with one walk and seven strikeouts, and he was voted to the all-tournament team.
The North Carolina Scouting Report:
The ACC regular season champions earned the No. 4 overall seed in this year’s NCAA Tournament with the chance to carry its success into postseason ball.
A program that provides a balanced attack in all facets of the game, their pitching is a piece that gives them that extra boost led by aces Jason DeCaro and Shea Sprague.
Get to Know the Aces: DeCaro and Sprague
The Tar Heels rank No. 14 in ERA, No. 35 in WHIP, No. 52 in hits allowed per nine innings and have two shutouts on the season, but their one-two punch on the mound has helped in a big way this season.
DeCaro… The true freshman righty comes into the NCAA Tournament with a 3.80 ERA in 14 starts with 64 strikeouts and 34 walks in Year 1 with the Tar Heels.
Sprague… The veteran in the North Carolina pitching rotation came in from Elon during the offseason and burst on the scene fast. A right-handed pitcher, Sprague started 12 games during the 2024 season with a 4.02 ERA. The walk to strikeout ratio is impressive for Sprague with just 14 walks on the year to 55 strikeouts.
Sprague will be the starter on Saturday evening for the Tar Heels with LSU’s Luke Holman set to get the nod for the Tigers.
The Sluggers: Casey Cooks and Vance Honeycutt
The Tar Heels are a program that doesn’t provide flare at the plate, but their patience is what has allowed them to be successful. After ranking Top 25 in home runs and batting average, they’re impressive at getting on base at an efficient rate while utilizing a touch of power at times.
Their two power hitters come in Casey Cooks and Vance Honeycutt. The tandem was named to the All-ACC first team with slugging percentages of .688 and .699, respectively.
Other LSU News:
NCAA Tournament Bound: LSU Baseball’s Regional Site Revealed on Monday
The Betting Odds: What are LSU’s Chances of Winning the College World Series?
Join the Community:
Follow Zack Nagy on Twitter: @znagy20 and LSU Country: @LSUCountry_FN for all coverage surrounding the LSU program.
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