The follies

by Chris Fitzsimon, NC Policy Watch and NC SPIN panelist, June 19, 2015.

Unexpected victory for voting rights

The Senate budget might not have been the most important story of the week, as absurd and regressive as it was. We sort of knew that was coming.

What was unexpected was the House and Senate both passing legislation just before heading home for the weekend that modifies the voter ID law that was part of the sweeping voter suppression legislation approved by the General Assembly in 2013.

The changes came out of nowhere and were part of a conference report brought to the House and Senate floor Thursday afternoon.  The new provisions would allow voters who show up at the polls without a photo ID to sign an affidavit and provide other forms of identification to cast a ballot.

The original photo ID provisions in the bill that passed last session were among the strictest in the country and were part of the reason civil rights groups filed lawsuits challenging the law that are pending in state and federal courts.

The new provisions adopted Thursday are similar to ones in the South Carolina voter ID law and it’s hard not think that legislative leaders were advised by their lawyers to make the changes which make the law less onerous to eligible voters.

Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger tried to put a positive spin on the weakening of the ID requirement that he so ardently defended two years ago, saying the changes were based on the feedback lawmakers received since the law was passed in 2013, including recent public hearings across the state.

Right-wing groups are furious at the changes, preferring the hardline ID requirement that was likely unconstitutional.

Some of the rank and file Republicans in the House no doubt agree—but the votes in the House and Senate for the new provisions were almost unanimous—so they must have been told they had little choice with the lawsuits pending.

It doesn’t mean the lawsuits will go away.  The 2013 law includes many other provisions to suppress the vote, including ending same-day registration, pre-registration for teens, and out-of-precinct ballots.

But this week’s change is a major victory for voting rights in North Carolina, and let’s hope it is the first of many.

The understatement of the week 

The most amusing headline of the week might have been in the News & Observer in Raleigh Friday, “Moore and Berger indicate a new state budget by July 1 is unlikely.”

Unlikely?  It would be nothing short of a miracle if House and Senate budget negotiators reached a final budget agreement by June 30^th, the end of the fiscal year, now just 11 days away.

The huge differences between the House and Senate plans are too numerous to list. They spend significantly different amounts of money and they spend it dramatically differently.

The Senate budget includes major policy shifts in Medicaid, repeals health care regulations, and changes the way local sales revenue is distributed. None of that is in the House budget.

Not to mention the tax cuts in the Senate plan, which the House and Governor Pat McCrory are not too happy about.

A budget by July 1 is impossible. A budget by Labor Day might be a possibility.

Another indication that legislative leaders are settled in for the long term is the decision to take off the week after the 4^th of July.

That used to be the goal for adjournment, now it’s a week to take vacation.

Another ominous warning about virtual charter schools

While many lawmakers are still working their way through the provisions in the 504-page budget bill the Senate passed this week, there’s more troubling news about a provision snuck into last year’s final spending plan.

It ordered the State Board of Education to approve two virtual charter schools as pilot programs.

Only two companies applied to run the online schools, all but guaranteeing they would both be selected, and they both were.

One of them is K12, Inc., a company with a shoddy record that has prompted scandals in other states, including California.

Just this week a group of teachers filed complaints about the California Virtual Academies operated by K12, alleging that the schools count truants as presenting for accounting purposes, thus guaranteeing K12 payments from the state.

The teachers also say that confidential student records are accessible by people without authorization to see them. The complaints come on the heels of a report from a public interest group in Washington earlier this year that found a host of problems at the K12 California virtual school, including dramatically lower test scores than traditional public schools, startling high dropout rates, and highly questionable attendance figures.

Now that company, with that stellar record, is setting up shop in North Carolina to get millions of dollars in taxpayer money.

And all this thanks to politicians who keep demanding more accountability from public schools.

It’s outrageous and it’s also a reason to keep sifting through those provisions in the budget the Senate passed this week. You never know what is in there.

- See more at: http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/2015/06/19/the-follies-229/#sthash.qyIsWm92.dpuf