- [Kelly] House Republicans prepare to write their budget bill, North Carolina Schools promise the Trump administration they are not pushing DEI, and Superior Court judges rule that governors should appoint members to the Board of Elections.

This is "State Lines."

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[upbeat music] ♪ - Welcome back to "State Lines."

I'm Kelly McCullen.

We have a great show today.

Joining me, an all-star cast of talent, beginning with public relations consultant Pat Ryan to my right.

Maggie Barlow's a political consultant with Maven Strategies, partner too.

Representative Matthew Winslow of Franklin and Vance Counties joins us in on seat four.

Senate Democratic leader, Wake County's own Senator Sydney Batch.

Thank you so much.

- Thank you.

- Thank you for replying.

- You're welcome.

- Glad to be here.

- You guys are on the hot seat.

- That's why I'm next to you.

- Get geared up for some good topics.

Well, spring break, Representative Winslow, so I hope you had a nice rest.

- [Matthew] It's been fantastic.

- We were off camera talking about Hell Week is next week and beyond, right- - [laughing] For sure.

- for the House Republicans who will begin their budget work next week.

Now that their Senate colleagues have approved their spending planned and sent it over, House and the Senate leaders agreed earlier this year on a total spending limit for 2025-'26.

It's how to divide all that cash and spending is what's gonna face some serious negotiation.

The Senate proposes 32.6, $32.6 billion in state spending, a faster rate of state income tax reductions.

If you're a teacher, in law enforcement, you'll get a pay raise that might beat the inflation rate, and if you're a state employee, your raise will be somewhere around 1.25%, unless the House changes all that, Representative Winslow.

And all expectations are, and I've read this in the media, you're gonna push back on some of these provisions.

- Well, we agree on two things in the Senate budget, right?

The spending limit and they get rid of NC Innovation.

Those two things are the things that the House and the Senate agree on right now.

- [Kelly] What about the other 499 pages?

[panelists laughing] - Well, the good news is, you just hit the delete button and they just fix it and we start over again.

- Ah, what are your expectations for the budget?

And you're in leadership now, the Senate just put out this negotiating card, what do you expect to come back with?

- Well, jokingly, you know, House and Senate always argue over the budget, but it actually is a lot closer than we have been in the past.

We've been building relationships between the House and Senate leadership.

We are hoping that the House releases our budget in the next three or four weeks, which will be miraculous that we could get a budget between both chambers and then out before the end of July or end of June.

And so that's our target.

And then we're looking at things like being efficient with the people's dollars, we're gonna look at things like investing in infrastructure, and also making sure we're taking care of our state employees and teachers.

- Senator Batch, we'll turn it over to you.

You gave a speech there at the end of the Senate Budget Bill Debate, but that bill's now gone, and what you will, I guess, what you'll see when it comes back from the House could be quite different.

What do you expect?

- Yeah.

I'm hoping it's quite different because my closing remarks at the end of the budget debate was that I'm really happy we're actually not a unicameral chamber because I think that the Senate budget, it falls short of many different aspects for North Carolinians.

And as I said that I really hope that the House, and of course, my caucus is more than happy and willing to work with anyone in the House to deliver a budget that's actually deserving of North Carolinians.

I mean, one of the things that I think, and I've been saying this for a while, is if we're not at a fiscal cliff, and Senator Berger and I disagree on this, he says we're not, well, then why are we actually legislating like we are?

Because there is a lot of cuts in this budget that I don't know are necessary and we're not funding certain programs that we should.

I mean, heck, PBS itself got cut, right?

Almost 40% of your budget was almost taken away in that Senate budget.

Hopefully Representative Winslow will save that because it's just an I just think that it's extremely cruel and disrespectful to a lot of North Carolinians who are putting their sweat equity into North Carolina and it's not being returned in the state dollars.

- Yeah, Pat, if times are good, why is your old boss cutting so much of the state budget per the senator?

- Well, as the only Senate guy here, I think in that number three to one.

That's okay, good odds.

Look, for the last 14 years, I think that the legislature generally, and especially the Senate, has adopted the same philosophy consistently every single year, which is cut taxes, cut spending, and lower regulations, and the economy will do the rest.

And the story in North Carolina has been a really a boom decade and a half, I would assert because of that formula that's resulted in attracting employers and families who want lower tax rates and better ease of business to this state.

I think that sort of the proof is in the numbers of the North Carolina economy over the last 14 years, that what the Senate is doing again this year works.

- Maggie, are Republicans poisoned this state to have to govern during a recession?

It's been a bull market since Republicans took control of this state in 2011.

- Well, I think the big thing that we haven't taken into account is happening on the federal government.

I mean, all of this unrest with the federal government, the tariffs, everything that's going on, how is that going to impact the state budget and state funding?

You know, John Hood had that article about how much of a percentage of the federal government actually funds the state government.

So I do think that that is something that we're gonna have to be concerned about and that's gonna impact both the House and Senate budgets.

- Good point Representative Winsley, you're writing a budget in a time when there's a US president Mr. Trump who had a big vision and now all of a sudden he's backing off tariffs a little bit, federal issues are coming home to this state.

How much can the budget absorb the seesaw effect of economic turmoil?

And turmoil is a bad word, it sounds like it's a leaning thing.

Uncertainty is certainly a fair term.

- We face uncertainty all the time.

You know, we're budgeting not just one year, but two years in advance.

The Republicans, they took over in 2010 and we have paid off all the debt to the federal government, paid off all the debt back to the pension fund.

We actually have bounced a budget and put money away in our a day fund.

So if changes come from Washington, we're prepared to adjust.

- All right, next topic will be North Carolina education leaders who are in fact pushing back on this requirement.

Did they and every school district in North Carolina find a document promising that they and the school districts are not engaged in any diversity, equity, and inclusion practices?

State Superintendent Mo Green expressed some public doubts that the Trump administration could even add new languish to civil rights laws, which now would state DEI programs are discriminatory.

$1.1 billion in federal funding comes to North Carolina schools each year.

Now, federal judges in New Hampshire and Maryland, they have halted the Trump policy under some rulings that came down Thursday.

Pat, well, once again, federal issues come down to the state and make a legitimate state issue out of what's going on in DC.

- Sure, so here's the contours of the issue, right?

DEI I think is a really big term, right.

I think people live in sort of different universes.

Some think it's just be nice, don't be cruel to people, but others sort of operate in a way that I think is fairly race-based in terms of hiring and other practices.

And so the Trump directive, I'll just read it, "The certification is the use of DEI programs to advantage one's race over another is impermissible."

I think most people would probably agree with that, right.

So that's really the contours of the debate here.

Others will take it to more extremes, but it's a fairly narrow argument the administration is making on this.

- Why the hesitancy, Maggie, do you think from state leaders and local school districts to sign any kind of document promising anything to federal, I guess overseers or regulators?

- Well, they're trying to roll back the Civil Rights Act and that is not something that can be done by an executive branch with no congressional authority.

And it's also very uncertain.

That's why those two judges have overturned those, have put a stay on them because it's not really clear what it is.

And I just, I really think that, you know, the inclusion of equity and inclusion and all of that stuff, like, that's something we want in everything.

We want that in our schools.

We want that in our work.

We want that on our news panels.

- Basic fairness.

- Yes.

- Representative Winslow, we've talked about this, like every week there's a DEI issue or a law or some federal issue.

And it's true, people wanna be fair.

How do we define DEI?

What is the bad part of DEI and then what parts would people say, "You can call it DEI, but it's good for society"?

- Well, you made a comment about civil rights and what civil rights law says.

Look, we want everyone to be treated fairly and not separated based on your race, your sex, or any part of that.

We actually have already a court decision that says you cannot do that based in here in North Carolina.

We actually had the lawsuit against UNC who was using race to determine if you should get into the school or not.

And so that went all the way to the Supreme Court.

So it's not that Trump is doing anything that's incorrect, it's just that the Democrats are pushing back on something they know is wrong.

- Senator Batch.

- I would say that the whole challenge with regards to DEI where we are is what Pat actually started his remarks with, which is, it's how it is defined.

And the fact of the matter is it's very difficult to define and people are putting a wide brush on, "It needs to be eliminated," and everyone says DEI because it's easier to actually say, "I'm against DEI," than to say, "I'm against diversity, I'm against inclusion."

And so there are certain things that frustrate me because there's DEI in every single aspect of what we do.

So for instance, to your point with regards to UNC, race can't be considered.

Do you know what we do consider?

Rural North Carolinians who have the right to come to a university in Chapel Hill and not have all of Wake and Mecklenburg County school kids go there, right?

We care about having diversity with regards to where people come from.

We care about the economic diversity.

We actually care about many aspects of making sure representation's there.

I think the way that it is implemented as dangerous, but when we talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion, it always goes to the lowest hanging fruit, which is one of the most divisive about race.

And we never talk about all of the other aspects that are actually included in what we're talking about, especially with regards to school admissions and what we do in our university system.

- I think Senator Batch and I would probably agree on a lot of things in that universe.

It's really, I think you're absolutely right, it's the manifestation of how DEI is applied in particular context.

And so I think we would probably all agree that at places like the University of Washington where they were actually making hiring decisions on the basis of race, that's been illegal for 60, 65 years now and it's not okay.

They did so under the guise of DEI, right?

So that sort of thread of DEI is, I think, fairly extreme and radical and I think that's what the Trump administration is targeting.

Senator Batch, I totally agree and I think we probably all do that general principles, like, it's good to have people from different backgrounds or it's good for your kids to be exposed to people from different classes and races.

Like, all that is probably something a lot of people hold dear.

But that's not the manifestation of DEI that I think is at issue in the political realm here.

- I'd also just add that, you know, when we had the opportunity, when we talk about a meritocracy, I actually went ahead, in our caucus, filed an amendment to get rid of legacy admissions at UNC and it failed because no Republican actually voted for it.

So if we're gonna talk about meritocracy, we should actually get rid of one of the biggest issues, which is the ability for a student to get in and have an advantage into our university system because they had parents that were already in the university system and that's coming from a triple Tar Heel, right?

That would affect my children and I want them to go to Carolina.

But these are some of the issues where you just pick the most divisive politically red meat things that you throw at bases and you don't talk about it inclusively, about obviously all of the issues that form DEI in general.

- I think you win the prize on get that base flamed up, it gets votes and gets money for both parties.

I mean, you can't, you know, that's the way the game's played it appears for now.

- We could change those rules.

- You could, how about state Superior court judges who ruled this week that Republicans cannot remove the governor's power to appoint members to the State Board of elections?

Republicans approved a law in December that would give elections board appointment powers over to the state auditor who's now Dave Bullock.

It was a two one court ruling and generally says, this is my take on it.

Council of state positions like the auditor can assist our governor in administering state laws, but it is the North Carolina governor who has the ultimate responsibility to see that our state laws are faithfully carried out.

Republican leaders will tell you, hey, not so fast, with this Executive branch Powers are in fact spread among the many council of state offices.

I need a lawyer on this one, Senator Batch, take this away.

I can see both sides of this and it, this is a good, to me, it's a good court case.

I can learn something from either side.

- Yeah, absolutely.

And I think that there's value in a lot of that.

I think it's unfortunate that the bill was actually passed after the election and the powers were given conveniently to Republican Council of State member with regards to where the Board of Elections was going to be housed.

And we've seen this year after year for the last 15 of the Republican legislature taking powers away from the governor and other council of state members, the only council of state member that was actually democratic in one that did not have powers removed in this last bill under the guise of Hurricane Helene relief, so that if any of our members of course voted against it, then we look like we don't care about Western North Carolinians who have gone through the worst time in their entire lives.

But what ends up happening is all of those powers, with the exception of Secretary Marshall were removed, including with regards to the Attorney General.

And so I think when you're looking at this, we have to say the constitution matters.

And there are certain aspects of that bill that removed constitutional powers from the governor and that all executive branch powers are not shared amongst the council of state.

That is not how our constitution has been.

And it is not currently the way in which at least this court interprets it.

- Representative Winslow.

Well, there you're two clearly distinct sides on who should be A making appointments, but b, the constitutional argument.

- So it was okay when the Democrats said it to the Republican Lieutenant governor when they had a Democrat governor.

- No, ask her that.

- Yeah, exactly.

- And, and no, and, and, and let me be very clear, this is what I have said time and time again is that we used to do things and we say, well, historically speaking we've done this.

You know what we used to do in history?

We had slavery, we had child labor, we smoked inside buildings.

We don't do any of those things anymore.

We need to be better in this moment to come together and to say, just because someone else did, it doesn't make it right.

We can actually govern in a much more open and collaborative manner.

And so I completely agree with you.

I don't actually go back to the part of Democrats did it.

- And what we should do is make sure that the party is not controlling the election process.

And that's what happens when you have the governor appointing mostly Democrats to a Board of elections and you see it time and time again based on the decisions that they've been making.

Like for example, the reason we have this huge issue between Riggs and Griffin right now is because the Board of elections did not do their job.

They were supposed to clean the voter rolls, but 'cause of politics, they didn't.

- Yeah I think having one political party in charge of administering elections is a, a deeply unhealthy reality.

So for the past eight years, the Republican-led legislature has been trying to create an evenly split board of elections.

At every turn the governor has sued and or vetoed those bills.

And so my read of it is finally last year, the legislature said, okay, if you're not gonna have an even split here, that's fine.

We're just gonna call this game over and move that authority over the state auditor.

On the court case, I actually thought it was, it was a little bit wild.

I don't see how we can have a governmental model in which there's a council of state with independently elected executive branch officials and also have a court that says that all decisions are ultimately made by the governor.

I mean, here's the operative order of the Constitution is right here.

The General Assembly shall prescribe the functions, powers, and duties of the administrative departments and agencies of the state and may alter them from time to time.

So the legislature altered the duties of the auditor by giving the auditor the authority to administer elections.

Just like the auditor has authority to conduct audits, I don't see how that's not well within the purview of the legislative branch.

- Maggie, the governor's gonna say he's not an administrative department, that he should be, that's an executive.

He's the executive of this state.

How do you interpret this from your perspective?

Pat made this point, weeks and weeks now.

[people laugh] - Well, I would say first of all, having an equal number of Democrats and Republicans is what the FEC has.

And we see that nothing happens there.

So it gives it, with the power that gets elected the governor has been the one that has the majority on that board.

And, you know, this was on the ballot.

Voters even made this decision that over 60% of the time, well, with over 60% of the votes, said that they do not believe that it should go this direction.

And I just really think that, you know, Bullock will be the only auditor in the country to have this power.

And had auditor Holmes won reelection, what were they gonna do?

Give it to the insurance commissioner?

Commissioner Bag?

- Because they wouldn't have given it to her.

- Yeah, but the difference is it's the state auditor.

That's their job.

They're supposed to be non-biased in making decisions.

They're gonna look into where the details, and Dave's done a great job.

He's coming outta the gate and said, "Listen, nothing's off the table.

If it's not right and if it's not right by the people's dollars, we're gonna go after it."

So I think putting it in the honor's office is actually a great idea.

- But if it was nonpartisan, if it's supposed to be nonpartisan, then it shouldn't be a partisan position at the council of state level, run by Democrats or Republicans that are identified.

- Totally agree.

Should be a completely bipartisan, evenly-split board.

I wish that the governor had exceeded to that.

- We said that.

- I actually was talking about the auditor position.

[overlapping chatter] - To be clear, do you see Dave Bullock as a yes, he's elected as Republican.

Do you see him as a partisan auditor?

- I think that if you actually look at some of his most recent statements, then yes, I have met with him.

We had a great conversation.

I came out of that conversation saying that he wants to actually work for the state for all North Carolinians.

Some of his statements recently actually lean much more partisan.

- Alright.

We're gonna set you up, Representative Winslow.

This is your bill, you and a small group of house Republicans are taking aim at artificial food dyes and ingredients in foods that would be sold in North Carolina.

The US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has already said he wants to phase out petroleum-based food dyes.

That happened earlier this week.

But the Winslow bill, I'll call it, covers nine food additive, including something called brominated vegetable oil, red dye number 40, yellow five, and yellow six.

Also, some artificial blue dyes are thrown in, if this bill becomes law.

Stores and people selling, possessing, and smuggling food with these ingredients, $5,000, first time fines, $10,000 repeat offenders.

You're treating this like hardcore drugs, but tell me about the bill.

The food dyes have been there my entire life.

It's too late for me.

Why now?

[people laugh] - It's never too late.

It's never too late.

Well, you know, we are a capital society and we have said we want foods a certain time, a certain way, and we want it to look a certain way.

We want it to be bright and beautiful and colorful.

And the industry has provided exactly what American people want.

Now, American people are saying, "We want healthy foods.

We wanna be able to go to the store and not have to use three apps to try to figure out, can I have it or not have it?"

And my family, we went through a little health scare a few years ago.

And we had to quickly find out that it was the food we were eating.

And so going to the grocery store today and trying to figure out, can I have it or not have it, is a chore.

And so the artificial dyes is just one of the low hanging fruit.

One of the things we've been working on to make food better for our people.

- Maggie, I have noticed very muted.

There's really not a partisan debate over these food dyes and these other ingredients in our foods.

I don't know what to think of it.

It was not on the radar of most families.

There were select families that had to pay attention to it.

What's happened in the last six months?

- Well, I think it's a great legislation and I'm glad that you did it because, you know, as the mother of three boys, I'm concerned about their health.

Just like I'm Concerned about everybody else's.

I do, you know, we need to make sure though, that there is funding in place to make sure that all of this stuff happens the way that it should.

You know, looking at the federal government, which a lot of this I think came from Robert Kennedy Jr., the new Secretary of Health and Human Services.

But there, you know, they're cutting everything now, so I just hope that there's gonna be some funding to make sure that all of this stuff gets taken care of as well.

- Before we go around the table, is your bill getting taken seriously in the legislature?

'Cause I know for a fact you were thinking about this prior to Robert F. Kennedy ever being- - Oh, yeah, long before.

- Hired by Donald Trump.

So you predate, you're not riding a wave.

You were ahead of this.

But to her point, are your colleagues taking this bill seriously in terms of there is gonna be a police mechanism, and what do you do with the food and how do you get food in here that would meet your criteria?

- It's a challenge.

It's bipartisan in nature.

Everyone comes to you under the secret underground.

They say, "Yes, we really like this, but we're concerned about our manufacturers."

I mean, Sun Drop is made here, Cheerwine is made here.

You know, they're all using artificial colors.

You know what?

I wanna support them.

I wanna make sure they continue to serve here in North Carolina and provide Sundrop and Cheerwine.

Everybody loves it, right?

It's a staple here in North Carolina, But we wanna give 'em time to adjust to what the people are asking for.

And I agree that the hopscotch method of, you know, one state adopts one thing and then, you know, West Virginia's another, South Carolina's another.

Right now there's 26 other states that have a similar bill.

And so we can't ask our manufacturers to do it one way in North Carolina and another at the, you know, in a different state.

So I'm glad the feds have stepped up and said, look, "Here's what we're gonna say across the board is what we're looking for."

- Is there some national group that's pushing this bill down on the states and you're jumping on that, or did you write this bill with your colleagues just based on your own interpretation of what our state needs?

- There are some groups out there that this is one of the main things we're working on is healthy food as a whole, and this is just one of the things we're working on.

- Senator Batch, what do you think about this bill?

Like I said, it's out, it's filed.

It hasn't moved yet.

- Yeah.

- But watch the feds.

They're just wiping out regulations left and right.

- Yeah, I think the harder part is actually what Maggie said is that the bill, very much in support of trying to make sure, to your point, that you don't have to have chemistry degree when you look at the ingredients.

And if anyone takes the time, many people don't have, but if you look at what's in our food, it is really challenging, problematic about what we're putting in there.

We've seen the rates of obviously, health conditions, cancers, we have nanoplastics in our waters and all through our body.

There are a lot of things that we have done in consumerism and capitalism that we've talked about before that has actually made it so that we are less healthy.

What I would say is we need to make sure that, to Representative Winslow's point, we give manufacturers who are obviously big employers here in North Carolina, the ability to go ahead, make sure that they can do it in a timely manner, to remove them, and ensure that we are, of course, doing it from a statewide perspective.

A manufacturer that has multiple branches in different, or multiple stores in different states that have different rules, it makes it a real nightmare to try and figure out what can be brought in one state and in the other.

But we just need to make sure that we have funding for it, so.

- Pat, put your PR hat on.

I mean, everyone loves the candies, and the sugars, and the sweets, and the sodas, and they're colored, and it's a lot of fun to eat the cereal.

[Pat laughing] [sighing] How can I enjoy eating all that food and then reading reports and seeing legislation and not be scared to death?

What's the balance here around my kitchen table?

- Well, I think you talk to any of us and say, you know, describe to me, 25 years ago, describe to me the person who goes to the food co-op, and shops organic, and like, reads the label, everything, it'd be, ah, you know, somebody with long hair, and you know, weird sandals on, and whatever.

- [Kelly] Not anymore.

- Yeah, now it's, I mean, there are probably equal numbers of Republicans as there are Democrat, especially like, really health conscious, this sort of Robert F. Kennedy, you know, his folks didn't really have a home for a while and now they're sort of finding themselves in this really broad Trump coalition, which, I mean, to me as from the PR and political perspective, that's the most interesting thing about all this stuff.

- You trying to say only liberals have long hair with weird sandals?

[panel laughing] - Well, I couldn't quite form my thought.

- I'm just saying.

[laughing] - Got about two and a half minutes.

I do wanna touch on Helene Recovery, and we'll go to you, Maggie, on this first.

We're about six months into our history books when that storm went through the mountains.

Recovery, well, the book's still being written on it.

The Trump administration has sought some advice from our Western North Carolina delegation on possibly dissolving FEMA, but then directly funding state management programs.

But Congressman Chuck Edwards offered the White House some Helene-focused recommendations for disaster recovery.

He'd like to see federal funding of private road and bridge repairs, 100% federal funding of I-40 repairs.

"For FEMA?

Reform it," he says.

Simpler processes, more transparent communication, and the empowerment of local and state officials to approve housing for storm victims.

All right, well, the Trump administration considering moving that back down to the states, but this is a whole robust package coming out of our Western North Carolina delegation, and Congressman Edwards has power out there.

- Right, and I think it's great that Congressman Edwards has not said to get rid of FEMA.

We're gonna need- - I didn't read that he said that.

- I have not read that he said it either.

The most important thing is that this $60 billion disaster is gonna take cooperation from everyone, and that we need to make sure that the federal government is gonna be there.

Governor Stein has done a great job of advocating for continued funding.

I know there was a meeting held in DC where a lot of folks were asked like, have you got your funding yet?

And not a single one of them had gotten it.

So this is an issue that we need to continue to have to keep a watchful eye on.

I'm glad you're continuing to talk about it, Kelly.

- Got about one minute left.

We'll finish with the elected leaders, Representative Winslow, you know, the money is sort of coming, it's not coming fast, but what do you think of Edwards' recommendations?

- I think they're solid.

He's asking what the people in Western North Carolina are asking for.

We've put about a billion and a half dollars.

Another funding budget amendment right now that we can send out to the west.

But for the little bit we can put in to help stopgap until the FEMA dollars start rolling is very important because it's a 50 or $60 billion budget that we need for here in Western North Carolina.

- It's a huge bill, Senator Batch, last word to you, unless you're really short and I'll squeeze Pat in there.

We got less than 60 seconds.

- What I would say is that this is a bipartisan effort.

It's one of the things that we are all very passionate about at the legislature, making sure that we're delivering for Western North Carolinians who have gone through the worst in their lives.

And so we'll do all that we can in order to do that.

But we're gonna need the federal government's help because we don't have enough in the rainy day fund to save them.

- Five seconds.

- I actually think like sort of block granting disaster recovery funding to the states and not funneling it through FEMA is a pretty good idea.

- All right, thank you, panel.

Thank you most of all, folks, for watching this show.

What a fast half hour.

Email me your opinion, statelines@pbsnc.org.

I'm Kelly McCullen.

Thanks for watching.

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