Opinion Roundup: Discussing changes to the court system

Thursday, Oct. 5, 2017 -- A roundup of opinion, commentary and analysis on the legislature's planned changes for North Carolina's judicial elections, a controversial oil & gas commission appointee, the latest on the status of federal CHIP funding and more.

LAURA LESLIE: NC lawmakers plan to cancel 2018 judicial primaries (WRAL-TV analysis) -- State House and Senate leaders have agreed on a provision that cancels the 2018 primary elections for all judicial races and district attorneys.

SCOTT SEXTON: The honorables in Raleigh at it again targeting judges (Winston-Salem Journal column) -- It really didn’t take a genius — in many ways, the N.C. General Assembly follows the lead of its do-nothing big brothers and sisters in Congress — but good government-type Bob Phillips called this one. “The legislature is like high school. Rumor mills prevail,” he said in June not long after the honorables rolled out a plan to hijack the state’s court system through yet another gerry-rigged, gerrymandering redistricting scheme.

EDWARD J. LOPEZ: Appointed judges would serve NC better (Asheville Citizen-Times column) -- The General Assembly soon will consider a proposal to redraw its districts for electing judges. Instead, North Carolinians would be better served if Raleigh were to just scrap judicial elections all together in favor of a merit plan. Proponents of judicial elections argue that they are needed to keep judges accountable to the will of the people. This is a noble and important objective. However, in practice it also confuses fact with fantasy.

DAVID LEONHARDT, IAN PRASAD PHILBRICK & STUART A. THOMPSON: Thoughts, prayers and NRA funding (New York Times analysis) -- The top 10 career recipients of N.R.A. funding (North Carolina’s Richard Burr is 2nd, Thom Tillis is 4th) – through donations or spending to benefit the candidate – among both current House and Senate members, along with their statements about the Las Vegas massacre

JIM MORRILL: NC senators got more money from the NRA than most lawmakers. Here’s why. (Charlotte Observer analysis) -- Only one of the 535 members of Congress has gotten more help from the NRA than Republican Sen. Richard Burr, according to The Center for Responsive Politics. Only three, including Burr, got more than GOP Sen. Thom Tillis.

STEPHANIE CARSON: NC Has Large Loophole in Gun Law After Vegas Shooting (Public News Service analysis) -- While the nation mourns the lives lost and injuries suffered from the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history, questions are emerging about how to prevent future incidents. A national report card from the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence indicates North Carolina isn't doing enough to prevent gun violence. The state was giving a grade of D- for its current laws. Laura Cutilletta, the Law Center’s legal director, says N.C. has a big loophole.

RICK HANSEN: Justice Kennedy’s Partisan Gerrymandering Hypothetical is North Carolina’s Reality (Election Law Blog) -- Not to put too fine a point on it, but if the Court does not rein in partisan gerrymandering, it will be North Carolina that will be the norm, and it surely will make things even worse in terms of the public’s views of our democratic process.

Supreme Court must weigh in on gerrymandering (Washington Post Letter) -- In North Carolina party affiliation is just about evenly split between Republican and Democratic, and yet 80 percent of the people elected to represent that population in Congress are Republicans. George Will ignored that gerrymandering in states such as North Carolina leaves a disproportionate percentage of the population severely underrepresented — and not just along racial lines. It was wrong in the past, and it is wrong now.

NICHOLAS FANDOS: Senate Intelligence Heads Warn That Russian Election Meddling Continues (New York Times analysis) -- The Senate Intelligence Committee chairman and vice chairman backed the intelligence community’s conclusions on Russian election interference, warning that it hasn’t ended.

GREG SARGENT: Furious Republicans working to make Trump’s Russia scandal disappear (Washington Post column) -- The committee’s Republican chairman, Richard Burr of North Carolina, said the presser is intended to brief the public on “the things we are either close to closing the book on or have closed the book on.” But I have learned new details about why this presser is actually happening, and they do not exactly inspire confidence in the future of this investigation, or at least in how Republicans are going to handle it going forward.

TRAVIS FAIN: Oil, gas and fracking ally lined up for "conservation" appointment (WRAL-TV analysis) -- Democrats, and environmental activists, cried foul over the move and were told that Jim Womack absolutely is a conservationist.

ADAM WAGNER: N.C. lawmakers override Cooper’s GenX bill veto (Wilmington Star-News analysis) -- The N.C. General Assembly voted to override Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of an environmental bill that included $435,000 in local funding to address GenX contamination. House Bill 56 included several controversial provisions, including the repeal of a plastic bag ban on the Outer Banks, a landfill bill that placed more power with private operators and the GenX funding. The Senate voted 30-9 to override the veto, making the bill law. Earlier in the day, the House voted 70-44 to override the veto.

Put health, safety ahead of politics in GenX probe (Fayetteville Observer) -- The General Assembly returned to Raleigh this week and quickly overrode Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of a measure that sends $435,000 to Wilmington area researchers to study GenX contamination in the Cape Fear River. And so the seemingly endless game of whack-a-mole continues, with Republican lawmakers reflexively slapping down anything the Democratic governor stands for. We’re waiting for our legislative leaders to protect the lives, health and safety of North Carolinians, and this is the best they can muster.

Brave Republicans save us from a real solution on GenX (Wilmington Star-News) -- State Sens. Mike Lee and Bill Rabon assured us that the override of the veto “helped make this local solution that will actually help clean our drinking water a reality.” We’re not sure how, exactly, but it’s a solution, nonetheless. Just ask Lee and Rabon. Meanwhile, with UNCW doing the work, that gives the folks at DEQ -- remember DEQ? They’re the one state agency whose mission is to monitor waterways and keep them safe -- more time to figure out how they are going to address the massive backlog of discharge permits they need to review. But since the Republican-controlled Generally Assembly has cut the DEQ water quality staff from 493 to 426 since 2015, we figure the Honorables must have another Plan to take care of that backlog.

ALAN FRAM: Parties fight over funding children's health insurance program that expired (AP analysis) -- Republicans pushed a bill extending financing for a popular health insurance program for children through a House committee, but partisan divisions over how to pay for it suggest that congressional approval will take time despite growing pressure on lawmakers to act. MACPAC, a nonpartisan agency that advises lawmakers, has projected that Arizona, Minnesota, North Carolina and the District of Columbia would run dry by December, the first states to do so.

TAYLOR KNOPF: Person County Foster Care Staggers Under Weight of Substance Abuse (N.C. Health News analysis) -- Foster care systems in rural counties are struggling to keep up with the need created by substance abuse.

ROB ROBINSON: Stemming the tide of a national epidemic (Fayetteville Observer column) -- We’ve lost 13,000 of our fellow North Carolinians to unnecessary deaths from unintentional opioid overdoses since 1999. One in 4 people receiving prescription opioids long-term from their primary care doctor struggles with addiction. Addiction to heroin and other illegal opioids as well as misuse of prescription pain medications is a national crisis, with devastating effects on the lives of the people it touches. Alliance Behavioral Healthcare applauds Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Mandy Cohen’s appeal to clinicians across North Carolina to join the fight against opioid addiction in our state.

Were UNC’s bogus classes merely easy, or completely illegitimate? (Charlotte Observer) -- UNC’s battle with the NCAA over athletes and academics boils down to one key question.

Systems may fail us, but schools shouldn’t (Asheville Citizen-Times) -- School grades may be an imperfect way of measuring educational achievement, but the recent results for Buncombe County nevertheless are a clear signal that improvement is needed.

KIP TABB: Colington Island – The other lost colony (Coastal Review column) -- The Lost Colony of Roanoke Island has gotten all the press, but it was not the only failed attempt to tame the Outer Banks by the English. Colington Island is perhaps one quarter the size of Roanoke Island. Bordered to the south by Kitty Hawk Bay and to the north by Albemarle and Roanoke Sounds, it lies due west of the Wright Brothers National Memorial.

ROGER CHESLEY: Couple guilty in road rage case should get an extra assignment besides prison (Norfolk Virginian-Pilot column) -- If I were sentencing a husband and wife guilty of a road rage incident in Virginia Beach, the punishment would go beyond prison. I’d order David and Jennifer Costa to also research crimes similar to the stupidity that led to their convictions last week. They would learn how lucky they are that their victim didn’t end up dead; the Costas could’ve then faced murder charges. The Hobbsville, N.C., couple could find plenty of road-rage stories in news outlets nationwide. Many involved mind-boggling, needless tragedy. Blowing horns or flipping someone off can escalate altercations.