- The Lieutenant Governor joins the State Treasurer and Attorney General in the 2024 Race for Governor.

And could low income public school students receive more public money for private school tuition?

This is State Lines.

- [Narrator] Quality public television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you who invite you to join them in supporting PBS NC.

[dramatic music] ♪ - Welcome back to State Lines.

I'm Kelly McCullen.

Joining me today on the VIP panel, Billy Ball of Cardinal & Pine, Representative Ashton Clemmons of Guilford County, Wake County Representative Erin Pare', and Matt Mercer in seat four with the North State Journal.

Thank you all for being on and welcome to State Lines for two of you.

- [Group] Thank you, happy to be here.

It's been a good week for politics, not necessarily legislative, 'cause Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson officially announced his 2024 gubernatorial campaign earlier this week.

Mr. Robinson is joining State Treasurer Del Falwell in seeking the Republican nomination for governor in a couple of years.

Many top Democrats are already lining up behind Josh Stein, the current attorney general, for the Democratic Party's 2024 nomination, and businessman, Mike Ross, out of Gaston County I believe is running as a libertarian.

You gotta have the libertarian in there, Matt, but this race is shaping up.

Are we ready for this?

- Yeah, it's definitely gonna be the gubernatorial race of 2024 when you look everywhere else.

I think that Josh Stein and Mark Robinson are the favorites.

I mean, they're respective fields, you know, we'll see if anyone files against Attorney General Stein, you know, we also have Dale Falwell running against Mark Robinson.

I think every poll, every indication of money and everything else says that Mark Robinson is a prohibitive favorite in the race.

I think it would take, you know, something we saw in the Senate race in 2022 where Club for Growth spent a lot of money on behalf of Ted Budd to go over Pat McCrory.

You know, we'll see if that happens.

I'm sort of doubting that that is, but just from a money perspective as well, Attorney General Stein, you know, he's got $3 million on hand.

Mark Robinson, 2.2 million on hand.

They definitely have been planning this for a long time and it's shaping up to be, you know, one of the, probably the most expensive race the state's seen for governor - Representative Pare from inside the Republican party I would perceive one would be establishment Republican, one would be the populist Republican.

Is that a, if a vague way, is that a good way of describing how this primary is shaping up?

And Mark Walker's out there too.

He hasn't announced yet.

- That's true, yes, I hear he will be announcing, don't know, can't confirm that or I guess I'll deny that I even, I'm think thinking about that.

But I think that, I think you described that primary race as it's shaping it pretty accurately.

I think that there's a lot of support for Robinson.

There has been for many years.

And I think there's a lot of people that are looking at Dale going, wow, he's probably the best state treasurer that we've had here in North Carolina.

We hate to lose him.

But making that choice among party loyalists and the base is gonna be interesting to see how it plays out.

But according to polling, it looks like Mark Robinson has a lot of strong support.

So we'll see.

- Representative Clemmons, a lot of Democrats do like Dale Falwell, not because he's one of their types of Republicans but he is a treasurer, he's very policy focused.

What do you see the differences between Lieutenant Governor Robinson and Dale Falwell the treasurer in terms of leadership style and what they would bring to the office potentially?

- Well, I think in the way that primaries are set up that will be a decision for Republicans to make not Democrats.

And so certainly Dale Falwell's been involved in North Carolina for a long time so has a lot of relationships and trajectory, but obviously it seems pretty clear that the Republican base seems to be lining up be behind Mark Robinson.

I, of course, believe that North Carolina deserves a governor that will really protect the people in North Carolina.

And I'm supportive of Josh Stein being the person to do that.

But I think we can all agree, as was said this will be the governor's race of 2024 and it will be more money and attention than ever here in North Carolina on a governor's race.

- Billy, you know, there's gonna be a lot of primary talk going on.

The Wild West is on the GOP side.

What about this Republican discipline?

I mean, there seems to feel like the Democratic people that call the shots or Josh Stein's a very, very very powerful candidate coming out of there.

Is that a foregone conclusion?

I shouldn't say that, but is it?

- I think it's hard to imagine that Josh Stein is not the candidate, but politics in the last four or five years, if you try to predict it, oftentimes you end up looking like a fool sometimes, you know, and in some of these races.

So I do think discipline is an interesting word to describe the Republican primary in this case.

I think that the Lieutenant Governor is a very different candidate from the treasurer in terms of their style, in terms of their, what policies the Lieutenant Governor has put out there.

You know, one thing that I don't usually pull any punches when I refer to the Lieutenant Governor and I think it's important to say that, you know, I've covered North Carolina for 20 years and I think that the Lieutenant Governor is maybe the most charismatic politician I've seen in 20 years.

There are a few names who I could think of who kind of rival that.

I also think he's one of the most unapologetically offensive between the statements that he's made about LGBTQ folks, about trans folks, about Jewish folks, about liberals, about even about black folks.

He's a black man.

But I think that the you know, I think that there are a lot of euphemisms we use to describe the words he used.

But, you know, I don't pull any punches cuz I think they're very clear.

- They're gonna be millions of voters who jump on the Robinson wagon, Matt, and millions will jump on his back for the reasons Billy Ball has alleged.

Both of both campaigns, the Stein campaign and the Robinson campaign came out with videos and on the respective side, everyone's loved the launches of both of these campaigns so far, how does that compare?

What does Treasurer Falwell need to do to put his name more and elevate it more, at least in public discourse because he's a serious candidate as a two-term treasurer?

- Yeah, I think if you waived a magic wand for a lot of Republicans, certainly probably in the legislature and on the more business side, if they could wave a magic wand, they would say, we want Dale Falwell to be our nominee.

Unfortunately, you have to raise money and you have to campaign.

And it's hard to see someone toppling what Mark Robinson can do in that regard.

But I would say no matter who the Republican nominee is, Attorney General Josh Stein is not a well-liked person when his name is on the ballot.

He's barely won both of his races.

Despite raising vastly more amounts of money than his opponents in 2016 and 2020.

So, I'd be very worried regardless of who the Republican nominee is, if I'm a Democrat, because Josh Stein chronically underperforms on a statewide ballot.

- Well, another issue on debate, active right now, Republicans are backing an expansion of the scholarship program that would allow public school students, or should I say more public school students, to pay private school tuition.

It's a proposal to increase what's called opportunity scholarships.

Under the new proposal, at least 50% of the new scholarships that would be funded would be awarded the students who qualify for free or reduced lunch in public schools by federal standards.

And these lower-income students could receive scholarship dollars equal to 100% of their state per pupil allocation.

The bill would invest $366 million in 2025 and could become a half billion dollar annual enterprise just for opportunity scholarships by 2031.

We'll turn to you, representative Pare, lot of co-sponsors of this bill.

Did I get the gist of opportunity scholarships and the new proposal?

- Yes, I think you explained that really well.

I'm a co-sponsor of this bill in the House.

Of course, this is a joint effort from the House and the Senate backed by Republicans to essentially remove the income eligibility cap on opportunity scholarships effectively allowing any student in any family to be eligible to receive an opportunity scholarship to the school of their choice.

So, this week we saw movement on that legislation and this was a really good week for school choice in North Carolina and for students and families and for education here in North Carolina.

And I'm telling you that as a parent of two kids in the public school system here in Wake County, they've been in public school all throughout.

But I do think as well as the majority of voters here in North Carolina and perhaps nationwide, you may have stats on that, but I don't.

But the school choice is very popular among families and we wanna be in a position to strengthen choice here in North Carolina instead of taking opportunity away from families.

When you provide choices, then that improves education of outcomes from a general standpoint.

And I think most families and most kids are seeing the benefits of those choices here in North Carolina.

And this just expands that opportunity here in the state.

- Representative Governor Cooper does not like this bill.

Most Democrats do not like, practically all don't like this bill.

Why?

- Well, I think this bill is actually not about school choice in the same way that is being described.

I have three kids, they're all at magnet schools.

So, I think that school choice is a broad approach to how we do education and that families should have choices.

But this bill is asking us as a state to spend half a billion dollars, as you said on private schools that are unaccountable.

There's a new provision in the budget that takes away opportunity scholar students actually taking state tests.

There's no measure of whether those schools, there will be no measure of whether those schools are actually achieving what our kids need.

They don't have to take any students so they can select which students participate.

And as a mom, but even more as an educator who's worked with vulnerable children and families for most of my career, for schools that don't offer lunch, don't offer transportation can decide.

If you don't agree with their perspective, you can't come to the school.

For them to get half a billion dollars of state tax dollars is really concerning for me.

- But I remember a day when there were some democrats that really liked school choice and opportunity scholarships and they were from Greensboro as you.

- Well, and you know, I think when this bill comes to the floor, which it will, I believe most Democrats will be opposed to it.

There will be some that are supportive.

You know and I think they're not on this bill, but there's lots of options of other bills that are going to come through, next week where you will see more bipartisan support.

I think giving families choice and options is something we agree on.

I think in this case, this amount of money to unaccountable private schools is a place where most of us will differ.

- Well, I think, you know, I want to respond to the accountability piece.

I think it's important to understand that the people that hold the decision of what school is good or not good for their children as the parents.

And I think that that's where the accountability comes in.

I mean, the parents can choose what school's working for them and for the needs of their child.

And really it's the parents and the families that are able to decide what is best for that child based on the individual needs of that child.

And listen, we can, sometimes we can look at if a public school's meeting the needs of the child or not from an academic standpoint, but sometimes families choose different options in education based on different things.

It could be a social issue, it could be transportation related, it could be faith-based.

It could be a lot of things.

And I know when I'm talking to people in my district and in North Carolinas, I travel around that they want to make sure that those options are available to them.

And the parents are the ones that really understand what pathway is best for their children when in terms of those essential factors that go into an education for their kids.

And I think we have to understand that the accountability piece really comes in with the family and we're seeing them make those decisions based on where they decide to send their kids.

And that's where the accountability comes in.

- If I may, one of the things that that I think gets me when it comes to school choice and you know, I think it's been representative Pare alluded to it being a good week.

It's been a good 13 years or so for a school choice if you're a fan of that in North Carolina.

But I think one thing that we can't lose sight of is that most of the children in this state go to public schools.

And there are good many of them particularly out in eastern North Carolina which is where I'm from, who went, have gone to schools for generations now that have been underfunded.

Public schools that have been underfunded Democrats underfunded in the nineties.

In the two thousands, Republicans made it worse.

And so, there are schools out there that are just, they have been very poorly treated by the state legislature for years at the same time that we are expanding these things.

So, I think when people get fired up, they say, I see that you're expanding school choice.

It's not so much about seeing school choice expand.

It's about seeing the lack of investment in schools that republican judges, democratic judges have said these schools are not funded right.

- Well, you have to understand that there is nothing in this bill that takes money away from public schools.

Absolutely nothing in this bill that does that.

And I can tell you, as a parent of public school kids, there is nothing I wanna see more than a very strong public school system that is very well funded.

And I think that we can continue as legislators in shoring that up, putting more money into public education which I think is absolutely important.

But what this does, you have to remember these funds.

In this opportunity scholarship proposal that's going through the general assembly right now, the first 50% at least goes to kids who are qualifying for that free and reduced lunch.

This is on a sliding scale when it comes to household income.

So this bill aims to meet the needs of those kids that need it the most.

And so the model of this legislation needs to be clarified.

I think we talk about this, but just as a reminder though there's nothing in this bill that takes money away from public schools, but it does expand school choice in a way that we really need the largest expansion of school choice that we've seen in a decade since the Opportunity scholarship was first created.

- I think if you're spending a lot of money on private schools at the same time as the public schools are being underfunded, while it might not be the same pot there's a choice that's being made about who's being funded.

So I disagree on whether it's coming.

- I would disagree with that too.

And from the standpoint of the way we talk about education in North Carolina, there's, well only the public school as well then school choice.

Well, I think the right policy is to tackle all of it which is why you're seeing phonetic education being so emphasized because kids need to learn how to read in third grade when you talk about how do we teach our teachers the right way to do that in the higher education, you know how are we training the teachers for the next generation?

You know, nothing is static.

And I think you have to look at every aspect of it and say, how can we do better?

And school choice is a big part of that and it's not the only thing, but a lot of reforms have come in the last several years, I think, to make it better.

- Ashton, the votes on this bill potentially are gonna be super majority votes.

This will likely go through barring something big happening.

So when you go back and advise your allies to go, this is going to happen.

How do traditional public schools, in your opinion, navigate the notion of a half billion dollars coming in direct competition to the public school system?

Parents can take the students funding and go where they want.

- Yeah, and you know, I think one of the misnomers is like there is most of the private schools in Gilford County this opportunity scholarship doesn't come close to covering the tuition.

So I do think that that's a challenge with the whole way we talk about it which, this topic is not something we can break down easily in five minutes here because it's complex.

And I do think there's well-intentioned people on all sides of this discussion.

With that said, you know, one of my challenges with the way we've approached school choice is if we are going to say these schools get half a billion dollars of tax funding and they don't have to do the school assessments because parents are the accountability measure there, then why aren't parents the accountability measure for additional public schools?

Why are we keeping those measures at any of our schools?

Or if we want charter schools to be able to have more say directly over their budgets, why aren't school systems allowed to have some of that say?

So I actually think there's space and I've had conversations with Republican education leaders for what would it look like for more flexibility, more fair if we're gonna have a competition driven system, more fair rules across this space.

But I think Billy's point is right, you know, this is about a half a billion dollars for opportunity scholarships in a context where our traditional public schools feel very stretched.

And that doesn't take that takes 10 seconds in a public school to see.

- Billy, there's clearly a fear that taking public money, moving it to private school is a deregulated educational environment that parents are going to prefer that.

We have a democrat on this show preaching deregulation traditional public schools, let them do what a private school does.

- I think Democrats have been all over the map about school choice since the 1990s.

I mean, bill Clinton was one of the biggest school choice presidents you'll see in sometime.

But, you know, I think there's been an evolution of thought about this issue and it it's more complicated than for a lot of people than just saying we want to put money into private schools and we want to put money into charter schools.

And when you're seeing so many schools that have been underfunded for like we're talking about the...

I grew up in the 1990s going to school when we were talking about the Leandro schools in Eastern North Carolina that are still underfunded, that are waiting on millions and millions of dollars.

So I think this is about priorities and right now the Republicans have made their choice about where their priorities are.

And I think for those schools out there those Leandro schools, it's clearly not them.

- Last comment to you, Representative Parri on this issue.

If you give parents this much power to decide and they've never had this power 'cause the public school's right there and used to sign the chart, what do you say to those parents?

Buckle up or do you see an outreach out there where parents can sit down and make that kind of business-like decision for the future of their child?

- Oh, I absolutely trust parents to make the decision themselves for what's best for their child.

I don't think that we, as legislators or policymakers or politicians or the media should be thinking that we know better than a parent does about where best to send their kids.

I mean, and a lot of those parents are gonna choose public school.

I mean, so public school is going to be there.

And we at the general assembly, I mean 60% of our budget goes to education.

So we are always trying to shore up more money and spend more money supporting public schools.

And I'm right there supporting that all the way.

But I don't think any of us should be in a position to tell someone else's, the parent of another child that I know better for them than they do.

That is just completely wrong.

And this gives those parents and those families the freedom to choose for themselves.

- Good discussion.

The Medicaid expansion effort in North Carolina will trigger a bonus payment from the federal government.

Seems the governor and many Republican legislators are eyeing 1$ billion of that $1.8 billion reward for an investment in mental health services across North Carolina.

This is a one-time payment if we get Medicaid expansion but it could expand mental health beds and facilities, give our law enforcement some help to link incarcerated people with some mental health options they may need.

It's a complex bill but Representative Clemens, supporters hope some of these one time dollars can persuade budget writers to make 'em permanent parts of the budget.

Once again, complex topic that people understand mental health is a need and too many people are in jail.

Even Republican chairs will say there's people in jail that really should be hospitalized or receiving medical service.

- So we get to move from a controversial topic to one that I think most people agree on, which is that we are in a mental health crisis in North Carolina.

We both have teenage girls and I'm sure not to put words in your mouth, but I see from my own daughter and most of us who have girls that age, there's a significant need for behavioral and mental health help.

So based to the American rescue plan we have, and finally expanding Medicaid in North Carolina.

We do get an additional $1.8 billion, and there was a bill filed this week, a bipartisan bill in both chambers, that would take $1 billion of that and focus on mental health.

And 225 million would go for especially for behavioral health support, and then another 200 million for people that are in behavioral health crisis.

$50 million for a central registry, which is huge.

Right now there may be an open bed in one county and a need in another county.

There's no centralized way to know where those opportunities are.

- Let me jump in there.

You said registry, and people watching or half listening on TV, will think, "Oh, are you registering people?"

What are you registering in a registry?

- No, so it's just a compilation of where there are openings for people who need behavioral health help, which right now we don't have anything across the state to know where there are opportunities for help.

- So Raleigh's full, but Greenville may have somewhere to help you.

And you will know to drive over there, and get- - Yeah.

- I got it.

- So then also $100 million for pay for psychiatric help across our state.

And the last point was yours, $150 million for criminal justice treatment so that people can avoid being reincarcerated, which is one of, as you said, our biggest needs.

So I think there is a broad acknowledgement that we are in a crisis and that we have to do something, and this one-time funding from finally expanding Medicaid gives us the opportunity to think bold and see what happens, and then learn from it what's working and what do we build on.

- Matt, what's your take on this issue?

Republicans will be growing government, if you will.

They'll be accepting the federal dollars.

We know how that plays on the internet and blogs and such and such.

But bipartisan support, $1 billion, and conservatives are eyeing it for mental health as well.

- Yeah, I think it's definitely something to take a look at anytime.

I think for most conservatives and Republicans, if you can make government work more efficiently, that's something you would like to do.

But I think we also need to look at not just the money aspect, but why is this needed?

I think you're looking at, you know, something that's been neglected for a long time, whether it's social media pressures from Snapchat, TikTok, how does that affect mental health?

But then also you're still learning, we're still learning about aftershocks of what happened when folks were locked down for over a year with COVID.

I think there were people warning that this is going to be a problem, and they weren't really heard at that time, but we're seeing it now play out in this way where mental health absolutely needs to be taken very seriously by the legislature.

- Erin, how do legislators need to address mental health and keep spending in mind, because there was a time when Republicans cited Medicaid overspending, state health dollars were just flying out the door?

What happens with mental health, one-time, 1 billion, and someone's gonna want that billion year after year after year?

- That's right.

Yes.

Well, I think that we as responsible legislators need to understand that this is absolutely a problem in North Carolina.

It's a growing problem.

It was made much worse with COVID, but we have to be looking at the root cause, as Matt mentioned, of some of these gigantic problems that we're experiencing here in the state, nationwide, especially with our young people, as Ashton touched on.

So I think money and funding to support additional beds.

The staffing problem is also a major deal.

You can have the bed, but if you don't have the staff to help the patient along, that's another problem that we have to deal with here in North Carolina.

So I think funding is part of it, but you want funding to be put toward effective programs, and not just a layer upon layer of government program that isn't really working.

So we need to take a careful eye about cost benefit analysis and using public dollars to solve these problems, that actually those dollars are going toward solving the problem or making headway on the problem.

But we can't sit by any longer and let this continue.

I mean, I think I saw a statistic that with mental health issues with our young people have increased 49% since 2016.

And that, of course, we all looked to COVID and the shutdowns for that, and I have to express my frustration.

I mean, it was a lot of us that were out there encouraging the reopening of schools for so long when they could safely reopen, but they were kept closed for too long, and that made this problem even worse.

So that is very frustrating to me now that we are looking at the aftermath of some of those decisions that were made when we fought so hard to get those schools open and those kids back in schools when they needed it the most.

Now that we're dealing with the long-term repercussions of some of those decisions back then, we're gonna have to deal with it.

Funding's a piece of that but I think we need to get to the root cause of why we're seeing such a dramatic increase in these mental health problems with our young people.

- Billy, I'm gonna give you the last word on this.

Well, $1 billion bipartisan support for that.

Now cost benefit analysis going forward, it may be one-time dollars.

Sum this up in about a half minute.

- I sure hope that it's recurring, and I hope that this is something that Republicans and Democrats can get together on, because if there's one thing we should be able to see, it's that more families are affected by mental illness then there are families that aren't affected by it.

People are across the board.

This is not a Republican problem in families or a Democrat or a libertarian.

This is a problem for families.

And so an investment in this- - Wrap it up in about 10 seconds.

- Investment in this, I think we should be treating seeing a psychiatrist or a therapist the same way we treat seeing a doctor right now.

- Thank you so much, panel.

Thank you for watching "State Lines."

We've exhausted all our time.

Have a great weekend.

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