Congress in Crisis

Congress is in Crisis as McCarthy fails to win Speaker after 6th Vote.  

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/04/politics/republican-speaker-chaos-analysis/index.html

My Morrisville Substation Message:

https://www.facebook.com/steve.s.rao/videos/697203828563611

ROKU TV HINDU HERITAGE INTERVIEW:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIkw4q3VJMQ

Critical Conversations Podcast

Made by Debut on the Podcast Critical Conversations with Kenia Thompson.

https://www.facebook.com/kenia.c.thompson/videos/2135504183293818

88.1 FM Geet Bazaar

Wonderful interview with Secretary of State Elaine Marshall on 88.1 FM Geet Bazaar!  

https://www.facebook.com/steve.s.rao/videos/454623026620604

Now Hiring: Join the Public Works Team

The Town of Morrisville Public Works Department has three exciting career opportunities open now. Join one of only three North Carolina municipalities with an American Public Works Association (APWA) accredited Public Works Department. We are looking for individuals to serve in our Streets Maintenance, Athletics Maintenance, and Grounds Maintenance divisions. For more information click on the following links:

• Streets Maintenance Tech I
• Athletics Tech I
• Streets Maintenance Supervisor

Great Outdoors Trail Day

Great Time at the Jan 1 Great Outdoors Trail Day Walk at Crabtree Hatcher Creek Greenway at Cedar Fork District Park!

Disc Golf

Disc Golf at Cedar Fork District Park with Mayor TJ and friends!  

Yeet Street Disc Golf

Visit with Yeet Street Disc Golf at Cedar Fork District Park! 

CW Dressings

Visit with CW Dressings at Farmers Market on New Years Eve!

Visit with CW Dressings

https://www.facebook.com/steve.s.rao/videos/560396405942913

Swagat

My last small business drop in of the year at Swagat!: 

Small business drop in at Swagat

https://www.facebook.com/steve.s.rao/videos/682338516771303

Pizza Twist

Visit with Pizza Twist!  Dec 15th is their open house anniversary! 

Visit with Pizza Twist

https://www.facebook.com/steve.s.rao/videos/1551144005328275

DA seeks removal of Columbus County Sheriff from office 

Columbus County Sheriff Jody Greene faces allegations of racism, politically motivated arrests and other misdeeds. He’s under criminal investigation for obstruction of justice. He recently resigned. Yet Greene was sworn in Thursday to his second term as the top law enforcement officer in his rural county in southeastern North Carolina, after voters reelected him this November. Almost immediately after he was sworn in Thursday morning for what is supposed to be a four-year term, the local district attorney filed a petition in court seeking — for the second time — to have Greene permanently removed from office. 

Almost immediately after he was sworn in Thursday morning for what is supposed to be a four-year term, the local district attorney filed a petition in court seeking — for the second time — to have Greene permanently removed from office.

NC Supreme Court Rejects Independent State Legislature Theory 

In a lawsuit that mirrors a nationally watched case on legislatures’ power, the N.C. Supreme Court on Friday delivered a ruling that rejects the “independent state legislature” theory Republican lawmakers have been promoting. The case drawing national attention, Moore v. Harper, is at the U.S. Supreme Court. It’s an appeal of the N.C. Supreme Court’s decision in February to throw out the new congressional districts that GOP leaders had wanted, due to unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering. The argument from Republican leaders is that no state courts — in North Carolina or anywhere else in the country — should be allowed to overturn laws on federal elections that the legislature passes. 

Critics say a win for the legislature could spell the end of American democracy, The News & Observer has reported, by allowing for unchecked gerrymandering of U.S. congressional districts. Some contend that it even has the potential to allow for the overturning of future presidential elections.

But the theory isn’t only at the U.S. Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments in the case this month and is currently mulling a ruling on whether to apply the theory to federal elections. State lawmakers had used Friday’s case to try making similar arguments at the local level for state elections — that state courts shouldn’t be allowed to rule state legislative districts unconstitutionally gerrymandered, either.

Otherwise, this court is barreling into the political wilderness, where the legislative authority to redistrict will be transferred from the legislature to the courts,” a GOP attorney told the court in October during oral arguments, The N&O reported at the time. On Friday the Supreme Court rejected that theory, in a 4-3 opinion down party lines that affirmed the right of state courts to rule on gerrymandering cases. The ruling saw all the Democrats in the majority, and all the Republicans dissenting.

BEDROCK OF OUR SACRED SYSTEM’

At face value, the case was over the state legislative maps that were just used in the 2022 elections. The court ruled that the state House maps can continue to be used in future elections, but the state Senate maps are unconstitutional and must be redrawn. But the court’s most senior Democratic justice, Robin Hudson, wrote in the majority opinion that her ruling goes beyond just ordering new state Senate districts. “In so doing, we expressly and emphatically reaffirm the fundamental right of citizens to vote on equal terms enshrined within our Constitution’s Declaration of Rights, and this Court’s constitutional responsibility and authority to assess legislative compliance therewith,” she wrote.

These principles are — and must remain — the enduring bedrock of our sacred system of democratic governance, and may be neither subordinated nor subverted for the sake of passing political expediency.” 

The court’s Republicans were unconvinced. 

Chief Justice Paul Newby, in the dissent, wrote that courts should not have a say in redistricting. The state constitution gives that power to the legislature, he said, and when judges try to decide whether the legislature’s actions violate other parts of the state constitution, they end up improperly taking redistricting power for themselves. The ruling in February overturning the maps, due to the massive advantage the lines would have given Republicans even in elections in which they lost the statewide vote, was wrong, Newby wrote.

WHAT’S NEXT?

The legislature was already planning on redrawing the congressional maps this summer, for the 2024 elections and beyond. Republican lawmakers originally wanted a map that would’ve allowed Democrats to win only three or four of the state’s 14 seats in Congress, even if the statewide vote was split evenly for Republicans and Democrats. Instead, the court-ordered maps used in 2022 led to an even 7-7 split for the two parties. With Republicans about to take control of the court, and with Newby’s dissents in February and again on Friday stating he doesn’t think courts should be involved in redistricting, the legislature has been expected to draw an aggressively pro-Republican congressional map. 

What would happen with the state legislative maps had been more of an open question. If the legislature follows Friday’s court order, it would now redraw the state Senate districts, and leave the state House districts as-is.

Read more at: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article270115877.html#storylink=cpy

NC Supreme Court Stands Firm Against Voter ID

The North Carolina Supreme Court on Friday upheld a lower court ruling that struck down the state’s 2018 voter ID law, agreeing with the lower court that it had been passed with the intent of targeting Black voters who were unlikely to vote for Republicans.

“We hold that the three-judge panel’s findings of fact are supported by competent evidence showing that the statute was motivated by a racially discriminatory purpose,” the Democratic-majority court said, adding that the lower court also correctly applied the relevant precedent.

The state Supreme Court’s three Republican members dissented from the ruling Friday.

The law, known as SB 824, was passed in 2018 after Republicans lost their supermajority in the legislature but before the new legislature took over. The law was put on hold under a preliminary injunction, after North Carolina’s Court of Appeals said in 2020 that voter ID provisions could negatively impact Black voters. A three-judge state court panel then permanently blocked the law in September 2021.

Republicans will regain control of the North Carolina Supreme Court in the coming weeks, after the party flipped two seats on the court in last month’s midterm election, which could lead to overturning the Democratic Majority Court Decision. 

WHY IS MOORE V. HARPER SO IMPORTANT? 

Last week, the Supreme Court heard Oral Argmuments for Moore v. Harper. 

The Moore case hinges on a legal proposition known as the “independent state legislature theory.” The theory asserts that, when it comes to making state laws that apply to federal elections — from drawing congressional district lines, to determining the who-what-when-where of casting a ballot — only the state legislature itself has the power to set the rules. The theory claims that the state legislatures’ power is so exclusive that they can ignore the requirements of their own state constitution, including the fair districting requirements that the North Carolina Supreme Court has enforced under its own state constitutional power of judicial review.

If the Supreme Court adopts the North Carolina legislators’ proposed rule in Moore, it will make it even easier for state legislatures to suppress the vote and subvert election results, and it will give both political parties the green light to draw gerrymandered election districts. Adopting the legislators’ rule would also require the court to turn its back on principles ostensibly favored by its current majority, like original meaning and federalism, which stand against the legislators’ radical and disruptive legal theory.

Moore is an opportunity for the court to reject that radicalism, and to reaffirm the common-sense rule that has been in place since the Constitution was ratified: State legislatures always act subject to the state constitutions that charter them and define their powers. 

Nothing less than that basic principle of American constitutional government is at stake.

We will be watching this case closely, and I predict that the Court may rule in favor of NC which will have a significant impact on North Carolina elections.  

Jan 6th NC Bankers Economic Forecast from 10:30 am to 1:30 pm

at Sheraton Imperial!  https://ncchamber.com/event/economic-forecast-forum/