- [Kelly] The State Supreme Court is hearing arguments that could affect school funding in North Carolina.

Can courts order the state to transfer funds to our schools?

And political endorsements?

Begin rolling in in legislative and congressional races.

This is "State Lines."

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

Good to see you.

I'm Kelly McCullen.

Joining me today for this half-hour round table discussion, Lynn Bonner for the NC News line, to the right, Senator Benton Sawrey of Johnston County, Senator Mary Wills Bode joins us representing Granville and Wake Counties, and our good friend, editor-in-Chief of the Carolina Journal, check that out, Donna King.

Hello, everyone.

Hope you stayed dry.

- Tried to.

- Got wet coming into the studio, got the bright lights, and thank you so much.

Well, there's a lot of issues in this state.

There's always something going on, but I think one issue dwarfs everything, I would say, would be the Leandro case, where the state Supreme Court is reviewing a previous North Carolina State Supreme Court ruling on school funding.

The formerly Democratic majority Supreme Court had ruled that courts do have the power to force the transfer of state dollars from the treasury towards education funding, which bypasses legislative budgeting.

Superior Court Judge, the late David Lee ordered in 2021 the state treasurer to transfer $1.75 billion to fund the Leandro plan.

That was when low income school districts sued the state 30 years ago to increase funding, saying education funds are too low to guarantee every child in North Carolina a constitutionally protected, I guess a sound and basic education, Senator Bode.

30 years later and yesterday, we're still hearing this lawsuit, and it's complicated, and make it simple for us.

- Sure.

Happy to do that.

So over the last 30 years, as you've mentioned, we've been dealing with the Leandro case and I think the important thing to remember is that I think we have really lost sight about what this case is about.

This case is about children in North Carolina.

In 1994, as you mentioned, families from five low wealth counties sued the state, saying that it was not meeting its constitutional obligation to provide adequate public education for students in those counties.

Three years later, a unanimous Supreme Court said that it is a fundamental right of children in our state to receive that sound, basic education.

And what that means is that these children have a right to a qualified teacher, a competent principle, and sufficient funding to learn.

And the question before us now is the question of separation of power.

So we've recognized there is this fundamental right and the legislature has the primary responsibility for funding education, and so the judiciary, as a remedy, said you have to pay this much amount to meet that obligation.

And the way that I like to think about this issue, the separation of powers issue is how meaningful is a right if you do not have the ability to exercise it.

So the right to vote, for example.

If we decided not to fund our election system in North Carolina, how meaningful would that right to vote be if we could not exercise that vote.

If we went to a polling place, there were no ballots, there was no one counting that vote.

And so I think of that in a very similar fashion for Leandro, for this fundamental right, this fundamental right, how valuable, how meaningful is it if there is no way to exercise it, there's no funding to exercise it?

- Yeah, well, from the Democratic attorney, Lynn, to the Republican attorney, Ben Sawrey, - Of course he agrees with me!

- 100% agreement.

Benton, what do we do here?

Tell us your position on Leandro, at least as we're arguing in 2024.

- So Leandro, it's not as simple, I think, as Senator Bode listed out.

Yes, there is a constitutional issue at play here with respect to appropriation and also education policy so what the court is attempting to do is to step in and to usurp the role of appropriations and policy as well.

It's not necessarily just a rehearing as well with this current case there, there are some fundamental questions that have been left unresolved, such as standing.

One of the big questions I think that we need to talk about is that this case was brought in 1994.

It was brought during a period of time when there was unified Democrat control across state government.

Current minority leader Dan Blue was Speaker of the House at the time.

Republicans had nothing to do with this and this case did not come up really and truly with the ordering of the funding being made until such time as Republicans were in power in the General Assembly.

So I'd question the partisan motives of this.

If the people that are involved want to implement this plan, then they should run for the General Assembly, they should put themselves in policy positions to be appropriators to make the decisions on behalf of education for our students, and they should actually make the decisions under the North Carolina constitution.

I think that that what this is going to do is gonna create a dangerous precedent, because we can extrapolate this to all sorts of different places in state government.

- Lynn Bonner, we've been around this block a few times.

- A few times, many times.

I guess the question is who decides whether the legislature is meeting its constitutional obligation?

I mean, that's the bottom line, isn't it?

And isn't that the role of the court?

- The role of the court can certainly be to opine about that, but let's talk about some of the procedural aspects of this case too.

It was about five counties initially.

It was not about a statewide remedy, which is what this is attempting to imply.

It's not just about funding that the court has ordered.

The court has made a decision based on policy as well.

That is not the role of the court.

I mean, it was never contemplated to be the role of the court.

It's never been contemplated to be the role of the court in this particular regard.

There's a reason that we have a General Assembly, that we have a Senate, that we have a House of Representatives.

We go up for elections every two years, and we have the authority under the Constitution to make these decisions.

- You could step down from the stand now.

Donna.

- Yeah.

- To the senator's point, lawsuit came in under unified Democratic control.

The money didn't need to flow until Republicans were in charge, according to the Senator.

What make of that?

- Well, so I think one of the interesting points that we're talking about, the high level philosophy behind it, in reality, what this really is about is the 677 odd million dollars is to fund a very specific plan.

It's not like they want the Treasurer to write a big check and it gets split 115 ways so every school district gets a big chunk of money.

That's not what this is.

What this actually is, to fund the first two years of a very specific eight-year program called a Remedial Plan that was designed by an educational consultant outta California named West Ed.

So it actually funds programs all the way from establishing policy to the classroom.

And that is only the first two years, the whole thing would be closer to 5 billion.

So it's not like every school district, every student, every parent is gonna get a check, it's a very specific plan drawn years ago, and if you read the plan, it doesn't even have the word internet in it.

So we've got a very specific set of a price tag on a specific plan, not just money for schools to say, "Okay, now we've got more to work with.

- Could budget writers fully fund and give education everything it wants in the next budget, and still be out of compliance with the Leandro Plan?

- Sure, because this is about funding this one plan.

- It's catered.

- The issue is really what we're saying, and we were talking a little bit about this before we started.

The fundamental flawed system of how we're funding schools really needs to bring everybody to the table.

Policymakers, Republicans, Democrats, we need to update how we fund schools, because in this case, we've got these kids, it was 30 years ago, these kids aren't kids anymore, they're not students anymore, and previous decisions have said this is about the children having a right to a sound basic education, it's not about funding the school systems.

Well, they're adults now.

So we really need to rethink how we fund schools in general and make sure it really goes after the students' needs rather than a school system's needs.

- Well, and I think an important distinction that was made when it was establishing this fundamental right 30 years ago, when this case was brought 30 years ago, was that it wasn't that a school district has a right, it was that the child in North Carolina has a right to a sound basic education, and I think that politics and procedure, and a lot of other things have entered into the conversation when we really need to be talking about these children, and making sure that every child in North Carolina has the opportunity to meet their God-given potential, and the children are the ones who are suffering, because we can't figure this out, and that's on us.

- And that's true, and really what we're talking about, and I completely agree, is we need to talk about how to, how this money follows the child rather than the system, and that's well beyond Leandro.

- So, and and I appreciate Senator Budd making that point about the importance of funding the child.

I mean, and some of the things that we've done this past session is we've expanded the Opportunity Scholarship program.

Since the Leandro case came about, we've expanded charter school opportunities.

We have implemented low wealth supplements, excuse me, supplements for low wealth counties in rural North Carolina since the Republicans took over, which again is after, is 20 years after this case was decided.

We have increased education funding by $4 billion over the past decade.

Republicans have made investments in public education.

They've made investments in students, they have instituted policy programs to improve student achievement.

So we're doing these things.

It's not like Republicans are sitting here on their hands, just not letting the education needs of the students and the school systems go by the wayside, we're attempting to make these programs.

It's a fundamental difference to philosophy as to whether the court system is the right person to make this decision or whether the General Assembly is the right person to make this decision, and then it falls as to whether the policy decisions by the Republicans or a court are the right direction for our state.

- So I wanna be clear, I said the right vest with the child, and and how we fund is something that we can talk about in a broader conversation, but, you know, I think at the end of the day is that we are not doing the job in North Carolina of making sure that every child has an opportunity to receive that sound, basic education.

And it's not about Democrats or Republicans.

At the end of the day, it is about our obligation as adults to make sure that these children are getting what they need so that they can thrive.

But also that our state and our country has a very well-educated and informed electorate in the future.

So I really, you know, I push back on this notion, I know that politics enters every conversation, but I don't think this is about Democrat or Republican, I think this is about children.

And at the end of the day, we all have an obligation to stay very narrowly focused on children and how we're gonna help them.

- I agree, it's become very tribal.

You know, this particular issue has become very tribal.

- How do we get to good policy if it becomes such a partisan issue that Republicans can run one way and Democrats can attack Republicans and keep them defensive, because if you don't fund Leandro, you're not funding schools would be the rhetoric, and I think that's pretty much how this argument goes.

I'll go to you and then- - Sure, sure.

I mean, I do think that's exactly the argument that we've seen, and we've also seen Republicans say, "Okay, if the court can overrule and allocate money, and just bypass the legislature completely, what happens in other issues when we get way beyond Leandro if this happens?"

So then it matters less who people elect to represent them in the legislature, matters more who they elect to the North Carolina Supreme Court, 'cause then the court system is in the position of telling the treasurer to cut a check, and that the treasurer right now, Dale Folwell, has said, "Look, I'm not doing this."

And that is one of the things that I think was an interesting position.

The state treasurer and the controller who really don't get a lot of attention, public attention are gonna be the last line in this case.

- Lynn, how fast is the state changing?

I mean '94 is a long time ago, doesn't feel like A long time ago, but it was.

- Well, I think that a lot of the conditions, classroom conditions that Leandro was meant to address still exist.

There are still hundreds of classrooms that do not have qualified teachers, who have classrooms who have permanent subs.

There are classrooms where there are not qualified math teachers essential in this day and age.

So I think that, you know, this has gone on a long time, but some of the central questions still and problems still exist.

- Can we look at the makeup of the Supreme Court and predict the answer and the ruling in this case?

- I think we can.

I mean, I think there's a pretty good chance that the legislature, legislative Republicans will prevail here.

- All right, former US president, and current Republican presidential front runner, Donald Trump, throws his weight behind speaker, Tim Moore, this week.

Speaker Moore is the current North Carolina house speaker who wants to join the US House in 2025.

Over on the Democratic side, the Young Democrats of North Carolina, which is an arm of the North Carolina Democratic Party is weighing in on candidates in it's own Democratic primary, including legislative races.

Senator Sawrey keep it in your family.

The Trump endorsement of Tim Moore, he spent a million dollars in that race.

What does the Trump endorsement do among Republican politics that ordinary people, they can see the effect, but is there anything that they may not see?

- I don't think so.

In the Speaker Moore's congressional race, that's a logical following of that particular candidacy, Speaker Moore has a conservative track record.

He's been an outstanding leader in the North Carolina house, he's the presumptive leader in that particular race.

He stood up for President Trump with respect to his position on the ballot.

In this upcoming November.

I think the only question was when that endorsement was gonna come down.

What's more interesting, I think, is what the young Democrats have done with respect to their incumbents in North Carolina with Representative Brockman and Representative Ray.

In that case, you have an arm of the Democrat Party in North Carolina taking a position that they're going to endorse or they're going to support a challenger and a primary to not just any member, but longstanding, well-respected incumbents in the North Carolina House because they're not meeting an ideological purity test.

- The strength of the Trump endorsement great in the primary, but these districts are drawn in away that I think Tim Moore's race is gonna lean Republican.

So if he wins the primary, is it safe to assume he'll be the US representative for that year?

- He's gonna be the US representative.

I think the power of the Trump endorsement is going to be seen more in the Addison McDowell, Mark Walker, Castelli race.

You have candidates that Mark Walker presumably probably had name ID and some more fundraising advantage here.

And as McDowell, a young guy who didn't have the fundraising advantage that Walker did initially, he got the Trump endorsement.

So the question is, how did the Republican primary voters respond to that in that particular district?

- To the Democrat point, you have the Democratic party weighing in against Democrats in a primary.

I didn't think parties did that.

- I always say don't be surprised when surprising things happen.

And election season is a target rich environment for surprising things to happen.

Endorsements, contributions, primary challengers, these are all part of our democratic process.

And really the only people that matter are the voters of these districts.

And how that endorsement or money contributions, et cetera, affect their decision on when they go to vote.

And so we'll know on March 5th how powerful any of these endorsements are or any of these contributions from outside funders or inside North Carolina.

And then we'll turn to November.

And see what happens with endorsements and contributions going forward.

- Just a great follow up 'cause you're not seeking reelection.

How powerful is it to see a tweet go out with a nice graphic to say, so and so endorses me or so and so endorses my opponent?

Did it matter for you or?

- I think, I like to say that, I think everything matters for me.

I think when I ran and just to be clear, I'm only an expert in Senate District 18 in the 2022 election.

I don't pretend to be an expert in any other election, but I like to say that momentum builds in a campaign through a lot of different processes.

It's contributions, it's people who volunteer, it's endorsements.

And so in that cauldron of all those different data points, it helps build momentum for a campaign.

And when you have momentum in a campaign, then you can you can really rev that engine up and keep moving forward.

And so I think that some endorsements matter more than others.

A Trump endorsement, I would imagine carries more weight in a Republican primary than perhaps the Young Republicans endorsing a candidate.

He just has a lot more name recognition and so it would necessarily be more powerful.

- Don, I'll let you go either way with the Democrats or with the Republicans.

Not only, Tim Moore was clearly endorsed by Donald Trump and then it was something in the Mark Walker race where did he try to claim a Trump endorsement?

And the son steps up and says, Donald Trump Jr. says no way.

- Yeah, that's my understanding.

- I mean I don't wanna get too far in the weeds in that.

Look, you've been in the media business, endorsements, are they?

- I mean, I think it's exactly what you're saying, it depends on who the endorsement comes from.

In this case we're talking about if we are, I don't think this is that surprising though if we look at the Democrat thing, talk to Cumberland County Democrats, Kirk Deviere and Elmer Floyd and some of those, Governor Cooper came in, literally brought in a primary challenger.

And the Democratic Governor's Association was backing primary candidates who were Trump endorsed, who they didn't think could win the general.

I think exactly what you're saying, that happens in politicians, in this case, you have a group, a Conservative group that's backing Ray and Brockman for example.

And they found something they have in common policy wise.

And I think there should be more of that, not less.

I think that if you can find somebody that you agree with 20% of the time and you can reach across the aisle, that's better than somebody who you can agree with 0% of the time.

- Lynn, let's move over to this cross party meddling, Republicans messing with the Brockman and Ray races.

There were two, who by some Democrats, are considered Conservative Democrats.

So we have Republicans in there and then Democrats attacking their own, if you will, if you go by party affiliation, sort it out for us.

- Yeah, it was really interesting to see that Conservative support for Democrats and you would think that that would hurt candidates in a Democratic primary.

But maybe the calculation is that no one will know who the Carolina Leadership Coalition is.

- Right.

- Or not.

- Those are the Republican backed group that are supporting that supporting the Democrats, Ray.

- Exactly, exactly.

- Okay, got it.

And there's also some, Eva Clayton's use of the Eva Clayton photo with Michael Ray, which he said she objected to 'cause she has not endorsed.

But it's an interesting change and not something I've seen on a legislative level, but there's a real move I think, on the part of both parties against any kind of bipartisan cooperation.

I mean, wasn't Thom Tillis censured by the Republican party for working across the aisle and doing some things that Republicans didn't like?

So I think it cuts both ways.

I mean, there's a lot of party supporters look askance at members of their party working with the other side.

- Right and they need to make their tents bigger.

They need to make allowances for folks to represent their constituents rather than just their party.

- Yeah and I think that's a challenge in the environment that we're operating in.

Winning elections is all about building coalitions.

And so you have to build coalitions where you can find the numbers too that reflect your values and what you want to achieve.

And that looks different in different parts of the state with different candidates, but at the end of the day, it's about getting more votes than your opponent.

And so building those coalitions about how you do that to get across the finish line.

- What's disappointing about it is that we talk oftentimes about the need for bipartisanship and working across the aisle.

And in the general assembly recently with the Deviere race, with these two races, you were seeing instances where people, they were willing to work with a Republican majority for the betterment of their districts candidly, and then they're being punished by the party apparatus to do so.

I think in the long term, it's going to be harmful to the Democrat Party.

I think what you're gonna see is the minority position in the General Assembly gets smaller and smaller because Representative Ray is a uniquely qualified member for that particular district as a Democrat.

I'm not sure that a progressive Democrat could win that district with the same margins that he has previously.

- You're a Republican saying that, and that doesn't help the cause!

- Well... - Durham City Council passed a resolution this week demanding a ceasefire in Gaza.

The council voted 5-2, Lynn, to call for that ceasefire to call for the end of US military aid to Israel.

Anti-war protestors filled their council chamber.

The resolution didn't really reach the floor until after 10:00 that night of the meeting.

The vote occurred somewhere between midnight and 1:00 a.m.

Some city leaders are beginning to worry such resolutions could split the Durham community.

Carrboro Council passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire and Raleigh leaders have made clear they're not addressing this issue and folks are filling their councils too.

What's with the international intrigue being brought to the city council level?

What effect is that?

- Well, there are people who want ceasefire who want their leadership to weigh in.

I think there have been more than 70 cities across the country that have adopted ceasefire resolutions.

And, y'know, the issue is going to be divisive and I've seen that all of the ceasefire resolutions have been very carefully worded and very carefully parsed afterwards.

I mean, did they mention Hamas?

Did they mention humanitarian aid?

Did they mention hostages?

And getting the wording right has been really super important here, but I think that divisiveness, I mean, there's divisiveness about the ceasefire internationally.

I mean, it's going to be controversial.

- Senator, sorry, this thing's spreading through.

The protestors know what they're doing.

They're very good at it.

Bringing these international decisions to city councils, I don't think Israel's gonna care what the Durham City Council votes, or Carrboro or Raleigh, however, lot of ink, lot of video, lot of audio coming outta those council meetings.

- It's virtue signaling by progressive factions in these large urban centers.

Y'know, the General Assembly, for example, shortly after the October 7th attacks, I mean, we sent a clear statement, y'know, on behalf of the leaders that we supported Israel's right to defend itself.

And let's be clear, Hamas is a terrorist organization that murdered thousands of citizens in Israel, is abusive to his own citizens.

- And there are local people with ties to the region, of course.

- There are.

I mean, they're holding hostages.

They're creating terror.

I mean, they're part of a larger network of evil throughout the world, and we need to recognize that.

It's interesting to me that the Durham City Council vote was divided.

And I think that that was the clear message that there's disagreement and dispute about whether to even have these conversations.

And I think it was a good reflection that even in cities like Durham, which are strong, progressive, Democratic cities, that you see people that are even disagreeing over whether to support this.

- Well, the council vote was- - [Lynn] 5-2.

- Organizationally split.

Not that the individual people who voted no, whether they weighed in their own opinion on it, the city's divided, this vote should be divided independent of personal opinion.

Senator Bode, this could get to Raleigh.

What's... How much tolerance will there be for people crowding the Senate and House Chamber of this state, furling the flags and demanding and interrupting proceeds of the State of North Carolina?

- Sure, so this is, I think we can all agree, there's been an unimaginable tragedy.

There's been a ton of suffering.

I was part of a bipartisan group of legislators that watched the footage from October 7th that the consulate, the Israeli consulate, put on.

I was part of the bipartisan delegation that sat with family members of the hostages.

And I have, like I'm sure you all, watched the humanitarian crisis unfold in Gaza.

This is an issue that is gonna take people working in good faith to bring hostages home and to find a pathway forward.

The legislature doesn't have jurisdiction over that, but I hope and pray every single day that we get there.

- Donna, how do we balance this out?

May is a short session.

You know people are gonna go to Raleigh.

You have one minute, we gotta get outta here.

- Sure, well, I mean, I think most people, including citizens of Durham, would rather see the Durham City Council work on how to keep their schools open, how to fix potholes, how to do the things that they're there to do.

The idea that taxpayers of the City of Durham are watching their city council work on international issues, rather than keeping their neighborhoods safe, rather than making sure their streets are clear.

When these groups block highways and clog up our city councils, I think their message gets lost, it becomes noise, and I think it is strategically a mistake.

- Alright, Lynn, thank you so much for being on this week.

- Thanks.

- We got through most of it.

I wanted to talk about RFK, but we didn't get there.

Maybe next time.

Benton, good to see you.

Senator Bode.

- Great to talk to you.

- And Don, always great to see you.

Thank you for watching, folks.

Email your thoughts and opinions to statelines@pbsnc.org.

We'll read every email.

I'm Kelly McCullen.

Thank you for watching.

We'll see you next time.

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