- [Kelly] Attorney General, Josh Stein, says he's running for Governor in 2024, and legislative Republican leaders suggest now may be the time to reform how we pay for our state's roads and highways.

This is State Lines.

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[uplifting music] ♪ - Another week's in the books here in North Carolina.

Thanks for joining us here on State Lines.

I'm Kelly McCullen, your host, and I'm joined this week by the John Locke Foundation's, Mitch Kokai, Campaign and Corporate Strategist, Morgan Jackson, Anna Beavon Gravely of NCFREE, and Public Relations Consultant, Pat Ryan.

Thank you so much for being here and discussing the issues.

What a big week it's been.

And Morgan, I've got breaking news Mitch told me about.

You may not know about this but North Carolina Attorney General, Josh Stein, announced this week he's seeking the 2024 Democratic nomination for Governor.

Mr. Stein is a two-term attorney general and former state senator from Wake County.

He is the first major party candidate to announce a gubernatorial run.

Our current governor, Roy Cooper's, term-limited, making this an open seat for the next election cycle.

Morgan, I was joking with you, but you're with Team Stein.

Why get outta the gate so early?

- Well, it's time.

First of all, we turned the corner past the 2022 elections.

We are in cycle for 2024.

These races in North Carolina are hard fought, they're large.

They are often won on the margins.

They're very competitive.

North Carolina's a 50/50 State.

The early bird gets the worm here.

And Attorney General Stein was ready to make an announcement.

There's no point in being coy about it, he's running for governor, and so it's time to get started.

He laid out this weekend, a campaign video announcement exactly what's at stake in North Carolina, and what his position is and what kind of governor that he would be.

He starts off this race in an incredibly strong position.

At the same time he announced, he had the largest list of endorsements from the state House to the courthouse, of any governor candidate in North Carolina history.

He also begins this campaign having just raised over $5 million and with $4 million in the bank.

He starts off at a good place.

His presumed opponent is Mark Robinson.

We took Robinson to task in this video because we believe this is a choice.

North Carolina is at a crossroads and it's at a choice.

Voters have a choice to make about what kind of future they want.

And so you'll see that a lot in this campaign.

- He still has two years as Attorney General, and he's elected and so he has that job to do.

How do you balance being a major party gubernatorial candidate and attorney general?

- In politics, you have to learn to chew gum and walk at the same time, and the Attorney General will be great at that.

- All right, Mitch.

You've heard Morgan Team Stein's there, and he says it's time early bird gets the worm.

What does this mean for the Democratic party to have such a prolific politician go, "I'm in?"

- Well, I think it's very interesting.

Ever since the 2020 election when Roy Cooper won reelection and Josh Stein won reelection, almost everyone thought, "Okay, Josh Stein's going to be probably the front runner running for governor next time around, since Roy Cooper can't do it."

So it's not a surprise that he's running.

The fact that he is announcing at this point is a little surprising, given that in recent history the announcements have tended to come in the fall before the election year, or sometimes even as late as December before the election year.

But I think Morgan is right that by getting out early, he's basically saying to any other Democrat who's even thinking about it, "Look, I'm here and you're gonna have to battle against me, and you're gonna have to battle against not only my endorsements, but also my fundraising."

I think it also is interesting that in that opening video, by openly attacking Mark Robinson, he's also sending a message to Republicans that, "Hey, this is the attack we're gonna use on the lieutenant governor if he runs for governor.

Do you really want him to be your nominee?"

I think Josh Stein would like nothing more than for Republicans to fight over who their candidate will be.

- Anna Beavon, you watch campaigns and analyze candidates, usually closer to an election in a primary cycle.

- Much closer.

Yes.

- What do you make, and before you assume that people have seen this campaign video, Josh Stein released a video, I saw it on Twitter, it may be on, who knows where you've put it, Morgan.

But there's one out there, it's about three minutes long and - - Right.

- Go find it yourself and look at it.

And your thoughts on 2024 kicking off in such high profile fashion?

- I think it's gonna make for a really long cycle, but Morgan's exactly right, we've already started.

We started 2024 the day after the election in 2022.

And I think what's interesting, and correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think he mentioned Mark Robinson's name in the ad.

Is that correct?

- Yes, he did.

- Oh, he did.

- Yeah.

Oh, absolutely.

- Okay.

Okay.

I guess I was just so distracted by the whole ad.

But I think there's more to the ad than just naming Mark Robinson.

I think there's also the culture that is around Mark Robinson that he's also addressing.

I don't, you're here and the expert.

But I think that that just means it's gonna be a really long year.

And getting out front with this announcement and this ad is really hoping to start the race earlier between the two presumed candidates.

- Pat, you worked in Senator Phil Berger's office so that's a legislative leadership at the highest levels.

What does a gubernatorial announcement do to possibly affect thinking in the Senate State House, and in the greater scheme of how policy's gonna be driven forward?

- Yeah, I don't think it changes much.

I mean, like everybody said, everybody has expected Attorney General Stein to run for governor for quite a long time now.

Just a couple points I wanted to make about what was said earlier.

What the early announcement signals to me, is perhaps some lack of confidence that Stein could get through a primary unscathed if he waited.

I think recent public polling, maybe from late last year, had Stein in the low 20s I think, in a primary matchup.

And there's, of course, discussion of EPA Administrator, Michael Regan, perhaps also considering a run, right?

And so, is part of the calculation, Morgan would know and have something to tell me, but is part of the calculation, well, you know Regan's in DC doing a job up there, perhaps he can't start as early as we can.

Of course, the list of legislator endorsements seems another signal of trying to crowd out some of the institutional support that another candidate, Mike Garner, who's, of course, locking down donors.

So all that seems to signal to me, something of a worry of being able to get through a primary without much of a challenge, right?

And then on the Robinson front, you know, of course Morgan's going to spend two years replaying lieutenant governor's greatest hits, you know, that the media's covered at length.

But I think in some ways Stein represents almost an ideal contrast to Robinson for the Robinson camp where Robinson is, you know, sometimes brash and off the cuff, Stein is much more measured and restrained which I think presents some potential authenticity questions and issues, right?

And, of course, Robinson is a former blue collar factory worker, right?

Very blue collar.

And Stein is an Ivy League educated lawyer.

You know, that level of sophistication probably plays well in Raleigh cocktail parties.

But, Robinson I think is representative probably of much more of the state.

- Well, Morgan, you hear them, I'll get you a notepad.

You can write down all the questions they have for you.

Is there a finite amount of oxygen in the Democratic primary that Michael Reagan or any Democrat could have jumped in ahead of Josh Stein?

They didn't do it.

Find out I'm out of oxygen there?

- There's not gonna be a serious primary from anybody, I can tell you that.

Having spoken to all of the folks that the Republicans continue to encourage to run, no, none of those folks are interested in running and they're all on Team Stein.

So, I'm not concerned about that at all.

- One interesting point, you mentioned the impact on public policy, I think by Josh Stein coming up now with a message that's going to be seen by many as partisan, it does make it more interesting for him during this legislative session.

He could have built up a number of bipartisan wins working with the Republican General Assembly.

They might look at this ad and future ads and say, "Do we really wanna work with this guy this year?"

- Final word, Morgan, and we'll move on to the next topic.

Why not use that first ad more biographically to let people know who Josh Stein is versus go ahead and you've picked a presumed target and off you go campaigning?

- I think you have to set up for voters what's at stake here and I think that's what Stein was attempting to do in the ad, and I think which which we were able to do in the ad is, again, North Carolina's at a crossroads.

It's about the future we want to have.

And you have two very different people who have very different visions of what North Carolina should look like moving forward.

And we're gonna make that case again and again and again because it's a decision that voters are gonna have to make.

- And we're gonna invite campaign spokespeople with the GOP and anyone who comes in as a major contender for Party.

I wanna be fair to all our viewers out there.

And moving on to our next topic tonight, keeping it in Raleigh, North Carolina house speaker Tim Moore is offering a few chairperson positions to a select few house Democrats.

Republicans are holding a 71-49 advantage over the Dems, but co-chair positions have been offered to representatives Tricia Cotham of Mecklenburg County, Edgecombe County representative Shelly Willingham and Northampton County Democratic representative Michael Wray.

Ms. Cotham will co-chair the K-12 Education Committee.

Willingham will serve as co-chair on the Alcoholic Beverage Control Committee, and Representative Wray will serve as co-chair on the House Finance Committee and also serve as an Ethics Committee co-chair.

Mitch, turn this over to you.

With a 71-49 GOP majority, are they just being nice to the Democrats?

- I think one of the reasons this has drawn particular interest is the fact that if you look at the numbers for a veto override in the state house, Republicans are one vote short.

On the senate side, there are 30 Republicans, 20 Democrats.

If the Republicans all stick together, they can all override a veto.

The Republicans on the house side will need to have some help.

And so we've seen that play out now in a couple of different news items.

One was about the house rules, where now it's easier for the house to put a veto on the calendar and vote on it without giving advanced notice.

And there's been a lot of pushback from Democrats saying "Wait a minute, this means we can't even go to the restroom."

Or you could put the measure up there and get your veto passed.

But also in the appointment of these committee chairmanships, people are saying, "Are these the people who would be most likely to peel off and vote for a veto override?"

I'm not sure that that is really weighing in with what Tim Moore is doing.

I think among these appointments, the most interesting ones are putting a Democrat as a senior chair on the Finance Committee which is the tax writing committee.

And also putting a democrat who has been out of the General Assembly for several terms coming back to be one of the top leaders in the Education Committee.

That's very significant.

- If you're a Democrat, Morgan, and you take a a committee co-chair position as a Democrat in a Republican-dominated house, how would you advise that if you didn't know who the players were and someone took you to another state and said, "This is what they're doing."

- Listen, I think this is an important opportunity for these Democrats and I think they will use this opportunity to influence legislation, especially in the committee work for the positive.

And listen, these are all Democrats that share core Democratic values, not only with the governor, with their colleagues in the General Assembly, but with their constituents.

There are always gonna be issues that there's disagreements in amongst party, whether it's the Republican party or Democratic party, and we're gonna see those issues.

But I feel confident in these Democrats on issues that matter and our core Democratic values will stand strong and vote the right way.

But I think they will use their influence and leverage to make bills better.

And I look forward to that.

- AB what are your thoughts?

You've met a lot of these candidates and know them through a few cycles now through analyzing these races.

What's your take?

- Yeah, I could not agree more with actually what you just said at the end.

There's a huge opportunity for these particular people.

And they're not the only three.

There are nine others, nine other democrats that are in the same position.

And the task they have is can they make a, like, better policy?

Can we have better government?

I think some of the questions that we've had, that have been whispered around are super majorities, are functional super majorities, do they make for good government?

That's the the next question that's being asked.

And I think putting these Democrats in positions of authority and decision-making ability does really speak to, "Hey, we wanna take this seriously and we wanna make good policy."

- Pat, how can Democrats make Republicans better policy writers if just a few are there to influence a discussion, even if ultimately they're ignored in the final bill?

- Sure, so we've seen things like this on fairly high profile issues in years past.

In 2018, the voter ID law that was enacted had a Democrat as a primary sponsor.

He has said publicly many times that he influenced that legislation and policy in what he thinks is for the better, right?

And then just last year, maybe it's 2021, there were a number of Democrats on the Conference Committee negotiating the final budget, right?

And they, I think if you look at the final product, you can find that they almost certainly influenced that product, right?

So I think sometimes there's there's this level of surprise, "Oh, why would Republicans allow Democrats to be part of the process?"

Well, it's happened plenty of times previously, And it's, you know, there's generally a good faith sentiment that, hey, if you have an idea that's not wild and you know, politically toxic, then, like, we should listen to that idea.

Maybe that happens more often than people think.

- Mitch, you raise a valid point that a lot of eyes will be on these few Democrats and if there is a veto override, there's pressure on them right out of the jump from any kind of potential controversy, is that fair to them?

- You know, they're putting themselves in that position, I think Morgan is right, that most everyone's expecting that on some major issues that are likely to divide Democrats and Republicans, that these Democrats are probably going to stick with the Democratic party.

Although we have seen Michael Ray in the past vote to override vetoes on some issues and he might on on some certain issues.

I think one of the other things, and this has been alluded to by others, is that in the house, they don't wanna pass everything 71 to 49 and have everything be a party line vote.

They'd like to get 90, 100 votes for things.

And if you have Democrats playing a part of the process you might get to that.

That's actually what helped with the state budget the last two times.

The votes were so overwhelmingly bipartisan that Governor Cooper really didn't have a legitimate case for making a veto.

Statistically, if you're down there and count the votes, a lot of the votes are bipartisan, anyway.

We just pay attention to all the partisan rancor.

Northern Carolina's legislatures entering its 2023 session.

Little slow right now, but GOP leaders are apparently on the record about highway funding.

Senator Berger, Speaker Moore made some comments at the Charlotte Regional Business Alliance.

I think that's the right term.

They suggest lawmakers may look soon beyond gas taxes to fund transportation infrastructure.

The Highway Trust Fund could be funded using sales taxes already collected on transportation related services as well as the gas tax.

Anna Beavon, did I get that right?

- Yes, you did.

This is one of the many issues that fall within the infrastructure conversation.

In years past, we've been talking about infrastructure and sort of like a one size fits all.

Infrastructure is sort of like when we talk about chocolate candy.

It divides into a lot of different things.

It's M&Ms or Reese's.

And now we're starting to see that divide up with how do we pay for roads?

How do we pay for transportation?

How can we do that better?

And that's where we're sort of looking at what does this modernization process look like?

And I think what our lawmakers Senator Berger and Speaker Moore are offering up is a transition to a better idea.

And I think we're gonna see more of that to come.

- Pat, you've set in those, those meetings in previous sessions.

This is not a new topic.

What is the conservative Republican case, if you will for gas taxes and paying for our roads?

- Yeah, I don't know that it's really a Republican or Democratic issue.

It's a pure policy problem and a pure math problem.

I mean, the reality is our roads and highways and bridges are primarily funded from the gas tax.

There are more electric vehicles on the road that don't use gas.

And those vehicles are still causing wear and tear to roads.

They're not contributing to the maintenance of those roads, right.

And the for gas powered vehicles, the miles per gallon ratios are increasing.

And so you add all those things together and there's just simply not a sustainable and long-term source of revenue anymore to maintain highways and build new roads and bridges.

And so, you know, how you fix that of course requires finding new ways to inject revenue.

I think one idea that was floated around a couple of years ago, which I think has value, is saying, "Okay, well if you drive an electric vehicle, that's great "but you're still using the roads "and you're not paying any taxes "through gasoline purchases to maintain those roads.

"Maybe there should be a fee on those vehicles right?"

That, of course angers an industry, right.

And they push back and say, "No, we don't want you to impose any fees on our product."

So it's not strictly a Republican Democratic issue.

It's really a, we have a major policy problem here and how do we solve it in a way that doesn't result in everybody being really mad and opposing it.

- Mitch, and from what I read out of that speech, was a week or two back, it didn't say tax increase.

It said We take taxes already collected, maybe somehow carve it out in the budget.

It gets complicated at the kitchen table level, so.

- Yeah, there have been transfers from the highway fund and the highway trust fund for different things.

And I think the basic issue and we've sort of touched on this, is that years ago the gas tax was kind of a good user fee.

You go, you fill up at the pump.

It kind of pays for how much you're gonna drive.

But because cars have become more fuel efficient because there are more electric vehicles and because Governor Cooper wants to see us have even more electric vehicles.

- Absolutely.

- That's not going to end up paying the bills to keep these roads for the upkeep.

So you're gonna have to find a new way to deal with it.

There have been other ideas such as vehicle miles traveled fees, and then there's some concerns about how would you make sure that that works and that you don't have privacy issues.

There are all kinds of things that need to be addressed but one thing we do know is you can't have the gas tax be the long-term source for paying for these roads anymore.

- And I don't hear any elected leaders now talking about the economy downturn.

Let's freeze or reduce the gas tax on a temporary holiday That seems to be in North Carolina's past.

But Morgan, I can see Republicans, they're saying it.

We wanna fund roads and highways, and they're drawing that distinction with bike lanes and greenways and things that, let's just be honest, Democrats really like, but I have a sneaking suspicion Republicans use a lot.

- That's exactly right.

I mean, go to any greenway on the weekend and it's not just a bunch of Democrats walking around out there riding bikes.

- You'll see a Libertarian or two, you know.

- That's right.

But no, listen, I think it's a broader discussion honestly than just roads.

Roads is a key portion of what we need to deal with but we can't just build 14, 15, 18 lane highways.

At some point you run outta room on that.

At the end of the day, it has to be a broader discussion that includes mass transit whether that is commuter rail, whether that is light rail whether it is more rapid bus service.

North Carolina, the great part about North Carolina is we are growing rapidly and we are contin.

People want to move here.

They want to live here.

That's why one of the reasons that that we are the best state in the country for business, especially relocation.

And so we've gotta deal with the future that we're gonna have 25 years, 50 years from now.

That's gotta include an ability not just for stronger roads and more funding from an antiquated funding system but also how do we deal with mass transit?

- Law enforcement is investigating damage, you might call it destruction, of up to three radio broadcast towers in Winston-Salem.

It is reported the towers were attacked over the past five weeks, WSJS radio, their team says.

The first assumption was that the brutally cold freezing weather might have taken down that first tower.

But once they inspected it, they confirmed what appears to be the work of quote vandals.

The tower attacks occurred before Christmas around New Year's and now very recently, station executives say the tower attack appears sophisticated and that cutting down a broadcast tower requires special skills and special tools.

Pat, this is a criminal investigation.

You hear FBI thrown around and if you read more than one article, there's different facts in all the news articles.

So this is quiet, but your initial thoughts on security of families and security of our core infrastructure.

Somebody's doing this all over the state, at least in some degree.

- All over the country.

Yeah, I mean you couple that with of course the substation shooting in Moore County last month.

Another substation was shot up in Randolph County last week.

Substations have been targeted and shot in other parts of the country, for years there have been cyber attacks on substations and power infrastructure.

I mean, it's a problem that's existed for a long time, but I think thousands of people being without heat or electricity in the middle of a cold spill in December in North Carolina really brought a lot of attention to that, right?

So you put those three events together, those multiple events together, and I think a lot of people are rightfully on edge, especially because there really are no answers.

Nobody's been arrested in Moore County, nobody's been arrested in Randolph County, to my knowledge.

And so I know there's discussion that, "Oh, hey, the legislature's gonna take a look at this next year," and that's great, I don't know what solutions there are.

There are 55,000 substations in this country.

There's 450,000 miles of high-power transmission lines in this country.

You can't build a bulletproof wall around all of them.

And so the combination of a lack of readily available solutions and the real lack of information on who's behind these attacks, I think is pretty disconcerting to a lot of folks.

- Mitch, from the political standpoint, legislative standpoint, it's really easy for someone to release a press release to say we're gonna put real teeth in the laws.

But somebody shooting power stations or cutting down radio towers, is five more years in state prison gonna get the job done?

I mean, how should we feel about this?

- The people who are wanting to do this are probably the ones who are ignoring the types of penalties that they would get and aren't gonna be all that more concerned about a couple of extra years in prison.

'Cause the folks who do this are acting on some sort of bizarre agenda that none of us can really explain all that well.

But I think one of the key things about the incident that you mentioned, and also the Moore County substation shooting, it reminds us just how fragile some of this infrastructure really is.

It works well.

It tends to work 24/7, 365, but when it doesn't, that causes real problems for people, and it reminds us that, oh, you know, more needs to be done to make sure that this stuff is secure.

But as Pat said, you can't put up a five-inch stone wall around every one of these pieces of infrastructure.

There has to be some more serious thought about the proper balance between boosting security, which needs to be done, and making sure that it's something that's gonna be sustainable.

- Morgan, David Crabtree here at the station interviewed Governor Cooper just before the holidays.

The government didn't shy away from acknowledging this is a potential infrastructure issue.

But as this happens more and more, and as people read the newspaper articles, they're gonna look to the executive branch And in the future, whether it's Stein, or Robinson, or Falwell, whoever, what's the right gubernatorial role in this to protect us from power being out or from broadcasters being affected potentially?

- Listen, I think a lot of points, I agree with most every point that's been made today about this issue, I think part of it is you have to understand is we have to go after the groups that are doing this.

It has been, these are sophisticated, coordinated attacks.

We've seen this, not only around North Carolina, and it sort of made it real to us in Moore County.

And I'm a Moore County native, and my mother still lives there, so it was very real.

- Did she lose power?

- She did not.

She's not on the Duke line, but a lot of her friends did and were out for four days.

And it's a serious issue, but it is, you've seen this growth, especially from neo-Nazi and white supremacy groups around the country that are promoting attacks on infrastructure.

We've seen it in Oregon and Washington state, where it's been really bad as well.

But it's the kind of thing we have to call this what, we have to start by calling this what it is.

It's not vandalism, it's domestic terrorism.

Folks are trying to scare communities, they are trying to hurt communities, and that's hurting real people.

Whatever their political agenda is, it's really dangerous.

And as Mitch said, how we could understand what they're trying to accomplish, I don't know, but it is very concerning.

It's something we're gonna have to continue to deal with.

But we gotta call these groups out, we gotta go after 'em.

- Morgan used strong language.

These are in press releases, "They're vandals, they're looking for copper, they're looking for steel to sell."

Do words matter, and does messaging matter if you're a utility, if you're a law?

Of course it does for law enforcement investigations.

Your thoughts?

- Yeah, I think messaging matters in every way.

I mean, we have people here on both sides of me that deal in messaging.

And I think when we start talking about, or when we start using really strong language, it makes people wake up a little bit more.

I think this is something that's been going on for a long time, but we're just now really paying attention to it.

And I think that's very concerning for a lot of people because we don't have a lot of information about the motive behind this.

Is there a pattern?

Where are they gonna go next?

How much coordination is there between the groups that are doing this?

- Yeah, I think it's important to stay pretty narrowly focused on the facts that are available right now.

For example, after the Moore County substation shooting, there was a lot of speculation that, well, it certainly must be related to, I think a drag show or something that was happening down the street.

Morgan mentioned extremists, organized domestic extremists, right?

It seems likely, perhaps, that those are the explanations, but I think it's important in messaging to stay focused on exactly what we know.

- Pat, we gotta run.

Thanks, gang, for joining us on the panel today.

That's "State Lines" for this week Hope you enjoyed it.

See you next time.

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