- [Kelly] Governor Roy Cooper removes himself from Vice Presidential consideration and a possible deal to use federal money to pay off personal medical debts.

This is "State Lines."

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[uplifting music] ♪ - Hello, welcome back to "State Lines."

I'm Kelly McCullen.

I have four all stars with me today.

Don Vaughn with the news and observer.

Political analyst and our top five most influential person in the rally, some sort.

You've got a nice award, Joe Stewart.

- Thank you.

[crew laughing] Colin Campbell's on the rise in radio with WUNC Radio and Rick Glazer has been to the top of the political mountain, the Democratic politics, and now- - And to the bottom.

- And now his second career is as a Campbell Law School professor, bringing up the next generation.

Thank you all for being here.

Lots to talk about.

Let's talk about Roy Cooper.

He removed himself from Vice presidential consideration this week.

He notified the Harris campaign.

The timing was not right for North Carolina or for him to be on a national ticket in 2024.

The Associated Press and others reported that Governor Cooper never actually submitted the paperwork for vetting.

This means he'll stay in state as the governor.

The Lieutenant Governor will always fill the gubernatorial office.

When a governor travels outta state and in this case, Colin Cooper would've been on the campaign trail.

He never submitted the paperwork.

Honestly, that's not what we were led to believe.

- Yeah, I mean he was mentioned in a bunch of different national media articles over the last couple weeks.

The Harris campaign hasn't announced who they're considering.

So a lot of this, you know, all these national news outlets are saying, "According to people familiar with the matter, this is the list of people they're considering."

Cooper was on that for a while, and he had multiple public appearances, including some in support of Harris, where he would be asked by reporters like me and Dawn, you know, what is your thought on this?

Are you being considered?

Do you want the job?

And he just sort of refused to answer the question.

He always punted by saying, you know, "She's gonna make her decision later.

We don't wanna talk about it right now."

And then finally this past week, he's come out and said, "Actually, I withdrew within a day or so of her becoming the candidate.

I didn't really want this for a variety of reasons."

But it was kind of a weird situation of him playing coy about it and then being like, "No, I actually didn't want this to be good with."

- He could have just said, I'm not interested.

- And some other governors did, I think.

- Publicly.

- Yeah.

- I mean that you could have just done that and saved a lot of time.

- Yeah.

But do you feel betrayed in the public discourse?

I mean that, you know, there seems to be some beef and static here.

- Maybe irritated.

- Yeah.

[Dawn laughs] - Was the media misled?

We'll get over to Rick next, but was the media misled on the Cooper being vetted for vice president or did you jump the gun or all of us jumped the gun?

- Well, there's all these things that where he's definitely a consideration because he is known here.

We all wrote the stories like known Harris for a long time.

They're both AGs at the same time.

It's a swing state.

You need North Carolina, maybe not as much as other states or don't have as a chance, you know, to get North Carolina as much.

There were all these different factors.

But then there were the, well, you know, he's definitely younger than Biden, but not as young as Harris and some other potential VP picks for her.

And just kind of different factors that, you know, Mark Kelly is an astronaut.

You know, Shapiro is a bit more lively in the public sphere.

So I thought he was on the list but further down than other people did.

And I think he could have just still, he said he'd wanted to keep the attention on Kamala Harris.

You could still do that by, and take it off yourself if you wanted to, but maybe he was happy getting that attention for a week or two.

I think there's a factor there, especially since everybody knows he wants to run for US Senate.

- What was that?

Rick, politicians making the media frustrated.

Did Roy Cooper play this one well?

Did he owe anybody anything by not answering the question?

- I don't, and I think, I think he was a legitimate top six candidate for all kinds of reasons that Dawn really articulated well.

But I think there's also some background, I mean, when you've said it, when you open the segment, which is if he goes in campaigns, Mark Robinson is in charge here, I think that the Democrats feared that and for a number of reasons, I think it could have interrupted him having to play back and forth on a campaign schedule.

And I think that was a concern.

I also think he's made a strong commitment to Josh Stein to campaign and keep the governors in the race, and the seat in the democratic hands.

So I think that there were lots of legitimate reasons for them to say no.

But I think he thought about it as you would normally do and then chose to withdraw.

I agree with Dawn.

I don't think he was sort of in the top two, but I think he certainly would've been a legitimate choice had it been made.

- Are you asked to sacrifice if a candidate comes to you?

Okay, so he's not gonna be the vice president.

Don't you owe it to your country if you're asked to serve?

I've heard other Vice presidential contenders say this, and will we hear that maybe later this weekend?

- Yeah, I think this particular selection for Kamala Harris is a little bit more complicated than the traditional selection of a vice presidential candidate.

Because of the way that she's become the probable nominee for the Democratic party, I think there's a lot of assessment being made by the Harris campaign about what Vice Presidential Pick helps her the most, given all of the dynamics of this election.

Typically Vice President's a 24 hour news story and then you just hope they don't make too many mistakes to embarrass the campaign up until election day.

I think this has to be a lot more strategic.

I think Cooper still has a robust political career ahead of him, whatever direction he takes.

He's gotten the national limelight as a result of the way that he's handled this decision for himself, and so in all likelihood, he did the assessment and said, "I'm probably not the best choice in this situation, given the dynamics of this particular election.

There are seemingly a lot of other good choices.

So I'll just take myself outta consideration and let the focus be on that."

- Yeah, and I assume that we're gonna hear very soon who that choice is.

- Yeah.

- And I think it'd be interesting to hear thoughts, but I mean, the betting odds, I think, are on Josh Shapiro out of Pennsylvania.

- Who the cycle of this show, I mean we recorded over the weekend air it several times.

So some of this show may be old news by the time the announcement is made.

Colin.

- Yeah, so I think Cooper is probably still a potential candidate for a cabinet position.

That was always kind of what we thought would be the most likely position for him.

He's got a lot of issues like transportation and clean energy, climate change, where he could make a difference at the federal level, but maybe not be the sort of person out front as a vice president.

He's still gonna campaign for Harris.

He said he'll be going to different swing states.

So there will be times when Mark Robinson will be acting governor, but in the past he hasn't really done much with that.

Legislature's done for the year, so for the mostly part for the year.

So we're not gonna see a lot of like surprise bills while Cooper is traveling, campaigning.

- So Roy Cooper would rather be the Department of Transportation secretary than a vice president?

- Well, I mean, or don't count out Attorney General.

- [Host] Right.

- [Analyst] Right.

- Ah, I thought about that.

- And he wants to be appointed.

He doesn't like to lose, right?

- Right.

- Yeah.

- So maybe you take yourself out of the running 'cause you don't wanna be told that we don't- - Yeah, he's got a winning record dating back to what, 1986, of never losing an election.

It'd be hard to risk that.

- Look at Floyd Mayweather, in boxing, retired 49-0, however you did say Senate.

If he were to become Vice President, had that happen, he would've been locked outta that.

- Would you ever be a senator after you've been a vice president?

Come to think of it.

- Sure.

- It would be odd, not impossible, and I think the most important footnote of all of this is Roy Cooper as a member of the State House led an insurrection against a longtime speaker, Liston Ramsey.

- [Analyst] Oh yeah?

- And at the time, the conclusion was Roy Cooper's political career was over.

Well, that's proven not to be the case.

- Everybody comes back in politics that stumbles.

That's just how it goes, you know?

[all laughing] - And you had to use the word insurrection.

- Well, plus Cooper, Cooper wants, Cooper wants, he's gonna campaign for whatever, or his pitch to be an appointment on his legacy as governor, and Robinson can't like legally make a lot of changes to North Carolina, you know, as acting governor, but it's what it would look like and that it would be Cooper's fault that he left and then this happened, or this, you know, embarrassed him.

Something like that.

- Oh, I see.

Well, there's a potential deal on the table where North Carolina would direct federal Medicaid funding towards medical debt relief.

The deal will require hospitals to sign off.

It would allow hospitals to receive extra federal funding should they agree to retire outstanding medical debt, I guess pay off medical debt, up to 2 million people could benefit.

North Carolina debt relief could top $4 billion, Joe, however, hospitals would be required to limit how they collect future debts and would have to charge patients on a sliding scale based on income.

So, nice story, well condensed, but it seems like there's some details here that would give the hospitals a chance to take a breath and review the terms of the buyout.

- Right.

You know, healthcare is an enormous part of the US economy.

Nearly 18% of the gross domestic product of this country is in the healthcare realm.

In North Carolina, hospital debt is a significant factor.

There are some assessments that 13 1/2% of North Carolina adults carry some medical debt, nationally, $220 billion in debt.

14 million Americans have hospital debt of at least a thousand dollars.

Another 3 million within that have at least $10,000 in debt.

The problem is, and part of what Governor Cooper's proposal is, the significant issue is when someone incurs this debt, the prospects of it diminishing their credit rating and impacting their whole financial life is pretty significant, and one of the proposals contained in this is that hospital systems and other medical care providers could not report this debt to a credit union or to a credit reporting services to avoid that implication.

This is a significant problem in large part because the cost of healthcare continues to increase in large part because of consolidation in the healthcare system.

It's making competition less robust, but the cost of medical procedures, as medical technology becomes more robust, more things are possible to be done, but it's more expensive, not the least of which is pharmaceuticals.

- Rick.

- Yeah, I mean, you know, to quote the President of the United States in a different context, minus the expletive, "This is a big deal," and North Carolina has the third highest share of adults with medical debt of any state in the country, and that was based on 2019, 2021 statistics.

Add 600,000 people with Medicaid expansion, and this is gonna affect a number of North Carolinians.

I mean, it really will make a, it's a game changer if it goes through for a whole lot of folks, and as Joe articulately and eloquently said, economically for the state and for these citizens.

- Colin, part of these terms, I haven't looked through it that closely, but you know, clear pricing's been a really big deal for Dale Folwell's treasure with the state health plan to try to figure out what are hospitals charging?

The Feds could buy out this debt that hospitals will probably never collect most of it, but I didn't see a term for fair pricing.

So how do... - Yeah, this is sort of, I guess, a softer approach to dealing with the hospitals than what Dale Folwell as state treasurer's wanted.

He's basically gone to war with the state hospital system, calling them a cartel, advocating for things like transparent pricing so you actually know what you're gonna get a bill for when you walk in the door 'cause it's very, very complicated.

This seems to thread the needle of trying to address the medical debt issue, but not necessarily having the hospitals come after you because the hospitals are a very powerful lobbying force in this state.

And healthcare being a complicated topic, people kinda wanna defer to them so that we don't lose access to healthcare.

Hospitals can close and that's always a big worry whenever you change policy around how their business model operates.

- This also should be noted, and Joe sort of talked about this a minute, but it's also gamed at trying to limit future debt- - Right.

- In that.

The fact that if this goes through there for at least people with 300% of poverty, above poverty level will be when they come into the hospital on a sliding scale that the hospital has to provide so as to create not only getting at their back debt, but to stop accumulating more and future debt.

So I think it's a two-pronged approach.

- Well, and part of the challenge too, we think about with all of the states now that have expanded Medicaid, over 90% of Americans are covered by some sort of health insurance.

- Right.

- And this still is a significant issue.

And as Rick pointed out, a lot of times it's cumulative 'cause people are having to pay out of pocket for chronic illnesses that they need treatments for.

- Joe, you represent these parts of the insurance, independent insurance agents, how about this?

The insurance companies have been paying high rates back to the hospitals.

What's to say they shouldn't reach their handout and expect to be paid back under the guise they were overbuild?

- Well, some part of the challenge in the entire healthcare spectrum is that it's an irrational market.

I mean, people don't come to healthcare thinking that this will be discretionary expenditures.

These are things people need for their health and wellbeing.

Trying to find that appropriate balance between what the insurance companies need to charge for premium to be able to provide the coverage and what healthcare providers need in terms of the appropriate economic incentive to offer the services.

It's incredibly complicated.

A significant portion of Americans get their healthcare through their employer.

So you have that additional complication of companies trying to figure out how to afford the healthcare for their employees that attract and retain the very people they need for those jobs.

- Healthcare is incredibly expensive.

Even when you have the best insurance you can buy, you know, through your employer plan and like debt.

Once you're in debt, it's hard to crawl out of it.

- That's right.

- It's a state issue, Rick, but I didn't see anything immediately coming out where it was attacked as being a bailout, like the college tuition deal with students wanting their loan- - [Rick] Yeah.

- And educational debts retired.

- Yeah, it's not, and it's also something that's been really worked through, it's a pretty thorough thought process.

It's a middle ground plan.

I think it's brought the stakeholders together.

I think the hospitals will certainly be accepting, I think, you know, devil's in all the details of it.

But it makes sense economically for all the stakeholders involved.

And then if you have a plan that does that and you get approval from the federal government, I don't think you're gonna see resistance, serious resistance in the state.

- One of the interesting things at North Carolina Healthcare Association, the group that represents hospitals, their CEO is retiring and they've yet to name the replacement.

This will become the number one, first thing, the new CEO of the association that represents hospitals is gonna have to deal with.

- All right, Dawn, I was browsing your news and observer and I saw a report about Hispanic voter sentiment.

Hispanic voters are telling pollsters they are very likely to support parties and candidates they haven't supported in the past.

20% of Hispanic voters told "Univision" they're very likely to support a new party or at least cross-party lines.

26% say they're quote somewhat likely.

And if you're non-Hispanic voter, we see more locked into our support.

Only 18% say they may cross-party lines in 2024.

So... What do you make of this?

Is there's a whole group- - Yeah.

- Of voters out there saying they might be open to Republicans and Democrats.

- And it's my understanding the poll was before Biden got out of the race.

- Yeah.

- So that switches up things a little bit.

So really it's, you know, the candidates, you know, if you're already on the ballot, like are expecting to be, you need to pay attention to this and look at what you can do to get these voters.

And that poll also showed that the top issue is inflation and how much things cost.

And I feel like that's everybody's issue, every major election.

And that's what people are gonna be thinking about, a couple months from now.

- Rick, how about that?

- We're all the same at the end of the day, you know?

- Yeah.

- Two points to make.

First Hispanic voters are not monolithic.

There are differences within the Hispanic, Latino, Hispanic community.

I mean, you know, if you're breaking it down into Cuban voters, if you're breaking it down into Puerto Rican voters or Venezuelan voters.

So that's the first thing.

Second, the poll shows great uncertainty about sort of where they are, and there are opportunities here for both parties to present.

I think the third and last point I'll make is they need to present on the issues that matter, which is education, economics, healthcare.

Immigration, you know, you tend to see both parties talking about that.

That's not what's gonna drive- - Yeah.

- These voters to vote.

And so, the parties need to talk with, not at these voters as well.

- I think one of the challenges for the parties is gonna be representation.

There's been an effort, I think, in both the state Democratic Party and state Republican Party and sort of activate a Hispanic caucus to really sort of do more outreach to these voters.

But if you look at the slate of candidates running statewide this year, running for legislature, serving in the legislature, there's extreme minimal amount of Hispanic candidates, and that's something where I think recruitment, they've not done a good job in either party of trying to make sure that this population is represented in their slate of candidates.

- And a remarkable thing in North Carolina in particular, about 3.5% of our registered voters currently are Hispanic.

10% of our state's population is.

We have a whole cohort of kids born in North Carolina.

Mom and dad came here.

They may not have been here lawfully, but the children were born here, will have voting rights when they turn 18.

We will see a significant increase in the portional amount of North Carolina voters that are Hispanic.

Now they're first-generation Americans, and we know a lot, typically, about how first-generation Americans think in terms of their politics.

We don't have any history of that here in North Carolina, so it may be very different for us.

- Yeah, some of our colleagues at the Miami Herald had written about how there's not that history generations of, "Oh, my family and grandparents always voted this party."

So they're paying attention to what everybody says and what's the most important issue.

And it's kind of an open field for politicians to make their pitch to candidates.

- Colin, you brought up the idea of primaries not representing Hispanic and Latino voters with primary candidates.

However, that's an open process for parties to nominate.

And there's a whole discussion about the quality of primaries, particularly with the way the presidential race has gone.

How do you see locked-in parties with establishment leadership opening the door in a meaningful way to bring in Hispanic voters in a policy-driven way, not in a way that panders?

- Yeah, I mean I think that's the challenge.

I talked to a gentleman who had run for office as a Hispanic candidate with the Democrats several times and just felt like he didn't have the support.

I mean, a lot of this sort of is candidate recruitment and for the sort of the power players to try to identify up and coming leaders and try to convince them to get on the ballot, get them the support and the sort of infrastructure so that it really feels like a genuine outreach and not just a, "Well, it's two weeks before the election.

Let's send our candidate into a Hispanic community."

- All right, well let's move to the next topic where State House Republicans have voted this week to override three gubernatorial vetoes.

So while they haven't shut down business, they sure act in a slow, nice, methodical way.

The first bill allows DMV to issue titles to all terrain and utility vehicles.

And these vehicles could then be driven on the roads with less than 55-mile-per-hour speed limits.

A second override took steps to ban local governments from forcing private landlords to accept Section 8 rent vouchers or other rent subsidies.

The third override looks to enforce a ban on state agencies' ability to accept central bank digital currencies, which, that's not Bitcoin, that's the Fed.

Colin, these are small bills.

First, they come back to Raleigh just to override these vetoes.

A lot of work for all terrain vehicles, and digital currency.

- Yeah, somebody really wants to go 55 miles an hour apparently.

[panel laughs] - On a Gator.

- Yeah.

- Or a golf cart, yes.

- Yeah.

- But the tone, I mean, the Cooper campaigns tried to say he wouldn't be Vice President 'cause the lieutenant governor would be governor.

When the legislature runs the state right now and super majority, so, and here they are, they're back this week when I know 80% of them would rather be on summer vacation.

- [Colin] Yeah.

- And I would poll them on that, by the way.

- Oh, I think that's absolutely right.

And so it's less about the substance of these policies being super important, have to do it right now, and more about the sign of strength of the governor's gonna veto some things, but don't worry we're gonna come right back within the next month and override it so that the veto is meaningless.

And ever since this session started last year, when you had a Republican super majority, there's not been a single veto that's been upheld.

It always goes back for an override, and the override's always successful.

Even with a few Democrats in this case, I think two or three of them voted with the Republicans on each of these overrides.

So they almost didn't need the perfect super majority to be in town to do it.

- It's almost routine at this point.

It actually was like, okay, it's override time.

The Olympics are on.

July was a wild month in news.

So it was almost like back to the norm of how things are in the general assembly right now.

- Right.

Yeah, I mean, a couple of things.

First, a couple of silly overrides, and in a pragmatic way.

I think nothing good is gonna happen with ATVs on the highway going 40 miles and 50 miles an hour.

And we'll see what happens there.

On the central bank digital currency, it doesn't exist.

Fed is looking at it and weighing it.

So the governor said this is premature, it's vague, and it's ideologically based.

And I think he's right.

'Cause there wasn't any reason to really act on that.

I think the one that does matter a little bit is the local ordinance ban, which sort of aims to stop landlords from denying tenancy to renters when the money comes from federal housing assistance programs.

That's gonna have an effect.

What happened to local control?

Republicans used to actually be a party that favored local control.

This bans it.

And I think it also leads to increased segregated housing and diminished affordable housing options.

And I think it's a, I think, not a good economic or public policy for the state.

- Joe, they're staying and they're lingering around.

It did give a couple of lawmakers a chance to give some speeches to resign from office and to maybe, then they feel Jim Perry's seat, I think, with an appointment with the gentleman who's going to be the GOP nominee in that safe district.

So what's the tone in Raleigh off session, versus that mad dash to get them out of here in July?

- Well, I think there's two things.

All of these veto override sessions are about the logistics of getting enough Republicans to Raleigh to have the numbers to override the veto.

I think the sessions started in April with full expectation that they would get a budget document done and they'd all be able to go home and - I think the leadership told the Republican members, go ahead and plan your vacations 'cause we're gonna be able to finish the budget by the end of the month of June, and that's not proven to be the case.

And I think they have a hard time finding people that aren't on vacation.

- It's amazing people believe in that optimism every year.

[all laughing] - We fall for it too.

- That's true.

- Yeah.

- Rick, aren't you thankful you're not drawing a check based on the actions of the general assembly, like these three and me partially.

- Oh extraordinary.

- Alright.

The state division of non-public education is reporting that nearly 20% of our K through 12 students are no longer attending traditional public schools.

Their in school is just homeschool private school and charter school attendance that's on the rise, at least as of last year.

Traditional public school enrollment did drop, private school attendance up 26% since 2020, and the AP has says North Carolina is now a top five state in private school enrollment.

So Rick, you can't count out the traditional schools yet.

Still over 1.3 million kids in class, but if you give parents a chance to make a choice, they apparently are doing it.

- Well and you give 'em the money to make the choice with, I mean, let's start with talking about there is a constitutional mandate in this state to fund public schools, not to fund private schools that hasn't been met, hasn't been met for three decades now.

It might be nice for the legislature to continue the track of trying to fund that first.

But scholarships began, or these voucher programs began under two theories.

One for special ed students where the legitimately in a lot of districts not sufficient special ed resources.

And I was actually on board as a legislator for that proposition.

The second was expanding it to low income families throughout the state to give them choices that didn't exist, particularly in poverty driven school districts.

Well that was camel's nose under the tent.

Now we got the whole camel under the tent because anybody's eligible effectively.

So someone who has a couple hundred thousand dollars income and sends them to Ravens Cross in here in Raleigh gets their check.

And I think that that is not where this all started, and so we'll have to sort of see where it ends.

But right now it's a pretty big drain on the budget for funds that should be going to public schools.

- Down the last two minutes, Dawn, it's just a statistic, it's just a study from 2020.

Covid took a lot out of the public schools.

So I maybe we should repoll this maybe next year, but what do you think?

- Yeah, I think so, I think, you know, a lot of that changed because people would send their kids to private school because public schools were closed and they wanted their kid to go to school.

So that was a lot of it.

So I think they need to repoll that.

But I think, you know, even rich people like it when the government hands them a check.

So I think that's what things seem to be going with any sort of time that the government wants to give someone money, whether it's a need or a want.

- Joe, Dawn's on fire.

How do you top that sound bite, rich people love a check too.

- Well, you know, it's been my experience that that's absolutely a hundred percent.

I think we have to think about this.

We need to educate our young people to make sure that they're ready for the jobs of the 21st century economy.

That they can be self-sufficient as adults.

It may be time to assess what's the right mechanism for that, but we don't need to leave anybody behind.

We need to make sure everybody's living up to the constitutional mandate to provide a sound basic education.

- And that the money's being spent account with some accountability, which it, which doesn't seem to be the case with these scholarships.

I think the other thing is to remember that there's choice everywhere.

Public schools have choice as well.

Governed choice programs across the state as well as parents always having had homeschool options and private options if they could pay for it.

- Well it's all taxpayer money that's funding all of this.

Right?

- Last word, Colin Campbell.

- Yeah, I think it'll be interesting to see if the private school voucher funding comes through.

What does that do to these numbers?

Does it tend to increase private schools enrollment even more- - And Speaker Moore even kind of promised the parents who came to see him and rally to he pro, oh, we got enough votes later in the year he'll be gone.

- No.

- Yeah.

- It's not gonna happen.

[both laughing] - So thank you Dawn, Joe, Colin, and Rick, always good, great lively discussion, covers some great topics and got through them all.

Thank you folks for watching us this week on state lines.

Of course.

Thank the panelists.

Email your thoughts and opinions to the email address, statelines@pbsnc.org.

I'll read every email, if you want me to send an email to them.

I'm always happy to, 'cause you know you have complaints to me too about them.

I'll let 'em know.

Have a great weekend.

I'm Kelly McCullen.

Thanks for watching.

We'll see you next time.

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