- Hi, I'm Marc Rotterman.

Coming up on "Front Row".

The US Supreme Court overturns Roe V. Wade.

Existing home prices reach record highs and President Biden calls for a gas tax holiday.

Next.

- [Announcer] Major funding for "Front Row" was provided by Robert L Luddy, additional funding provided by Patricia and Koo Yuen through the Yuen Foundation, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities and by.

Funding for the Lightning Round provided by Boddie-Noell Foundation, NC Realtors, Mary Louise and John Burress, Rifenburg Construction and Helen Laughery.

A complete list of funders can be found at pbsc.org/frontrow.

[dramatic music] ♪ - Welcome back.

Joining the conversation, Donna King, Editor-in-Chief of "Carolina Journal", Morgan Jackson, Chief Political Strategist for Governor Roy Cooper, Democratic State Senator Jay Chaudhuri, and Nelson Dollar, Senior Advisor, North Carolina Speaker of the House.

Donna, let's begin with the Supreme Court ruling of Roe V. Wade.

- Absolutely, this morning, Friday morning, the US Supreme Court issued a decision that, essentially, overturns the 1973 law Roe versus Wade, ending its impact on abortion rights and on, in saying that you have a constitutional right to an abortion.

Now, it's important to note that this decision Dobbs versus Jackson Women's Health does not outlaw abortion.

It doesn't ban abortion.

What it does is say that ends the federal constitutional right to an abortion and moves those decision rights to the individual states.

Now the conservative majority on.

- [Marc] Five four decision.

- It was a five four decision on the conservative leaning US Supreme Court.

What they said is that the foundation of Roe versus Wade was wrong, that there was not a constitutional right to it.

And that states have different gun laws, different tax laws.

This now, abortion law becomes one of the ones that will vary by states.

There were no real surprises in how the justices voted.

And of course we know that, you know, earlier this month, actually in May, an early draft of this decision.

- [Marc] Was leaked.

- Was leaked and there certainly is expected to be a lot of response over the weekend.

- Jay, your take on this ruling.

- Well, I'd say number one, the ruling's not surprising since we had the leak earlier.

I think what is somewhat surprising is if you look at Clarence Thomas's decision, the fact that he's signaling the fact that now we know that birth control could be struck down by the courts as well as gay marriage.

So, I think that the completion of the control of the court now by conservatives is being seen and this opinion and frankly other opinions that have come out on gun laws and how we fund public education.

Secondly, I think as Donna said, it really shifts the fight to the states on these issues and it should be a real wake up call for Democrats to focus on state legislative races.

And the last thing I will say is that, you know, we know that the public opinion doesn't side with this opinion.

I think it's good news for Democrats focusing on state legislatures that they have to bring the fight on focusing on reproductive rights.

I, we, you know, I think we saw abortion rights as maybe a motivator, but I think the fact that this decision is real is really gonna animate folks and independent women, frankly.

- Morgan, that's a good segue.

Politically, what's the impact on midterms?

- I think this is an earthquake in the midterms.

I think we are seeing, we've seen the environment currently favors Republicans with the wind at their back.

This, in a similar environment in 2018, Democrats had a a gale force wind at their back doing well.

And then the Brett Kavanaugh hearings came and changed all of that.

I think you're gonna see a huge change in the shift to folks.

When you look at where.

- [Marc] Base motivator?

- Base motivators, the challenge, one of the reasons that Democrats are having a hard time in polls right now is because Democrats are not motivated.

This changes all of that.

This makes it very clear.

- [Marc] Supersedes inflation, the economy you think?

- I think for some voters it does.

Listen, you've got an electorate that's 54% female, the battle for the US Supreme, I mean, excuse me, the US Senate race.

Whoever wins the suburbs and wins them well is gonna win that race.

That's a big, big deal.

Suburban women care greatly about their own control over their own decisions of their body.

When you look at the state legislative races, 90% of the swing seats that are up for grabs in the House and Senate this year are in the suburbs.

Women in the suburbs are gonna be a huge focus and this is a big deal.

- Nelson, wrap this up in about 60 seconds.

- Well, under the prior Casey decision, North Carolina already had informed consent, a 72 hour waiting period, parental consent for a minor, a ban on abortions for sex selection and those kinds of things.

But what this decision does with removing Roe, you will have a ban on abortion in North Carolina beyond 20 weeks.

It goes sort of back to the old law that was in place in North Carolina.

There was a bill that was passed in 2015 that tightened some of the emergency rules for being able to have an abortion past 20 weeks, that has still in the federal courts and this decision will very likely change the outcome there.

- Great conversation.

I'm sure this is not the last time we talk about it.

I wanna talk to you Jay, about existing home prices.

They're going through the roof.

- No, they really are.

So, you know, Axios Raleigh actually reported this week that Raleigh, when it comes to home building, we're second in the country in all Metro areas.

And we have a hot housing market because it's a product of too much demand and too few homes.

The "Wall Street Journal" talked about the fact that the first, for the first time, we're seeing US home values go over 400,000.

The median average home in Wake County is $485,000.

We do have rising mortgage rates as you know, Marc.

And I think that raises a real question about whether the regional housing markets are overvalued.

Regardless, I think if you talk to folks in the Wake County triangle market, they would tell you that the market might flatten a little bit but it's still gonna be a challenge for us in the long term.

And so I think the real question for policy makers is what do we do about the housing market?

Should we put more money towards the North Carolina housing finance agency?

Should we subsidize firefighters and teachers who can't live in the places where they work?

Should we expand tax relief to the elderly and disabled?

Should we have renter's tax credits?

And I think those are the challenges that we confront both at the legislative level and local government.

- Is this a free market issue or we need government to weigh in here?

- Well, when government weighs in, they usually make the issue worse.

I mean, but in the last two years, housing prices have jumped almost 40% and that is not a normal housing market.

A lot of folks believe we have a housing bubble out there that could burst as interest rates continue to rise.

And we've already seen from the April to May numbers, a very sharp decline in new home starts.

That was down 14.4%.

Building permits were also down.

New data is just coming out here Friday, which we think is gonna also show some slowing in the housing market.

COVID created a huge problem where people weren't buying, they weren't going and seeing the homes, so you had all this demand that came into the market once the COVID restrictions were released.

Residential construction, issues there, are bellwether for recession.

- Morgan, but the blue collar and middle class families are getting priced out, aren't they?

- They're absolutely getting priced out.

You're having folks, as Jay talked about, move further away from where they work because they can't afford to live where they've been living, frankly.

Listen, this is a great market for sellers.

It's a great market for home equity as folks, their equity values are going up tremendously.

The issue really is, and Jay talked about Raleigh, Charlotte's fifth in the nation in new housing permits as well, is that a lot of been driven in North Carolina by the new jobs that are being created and the the population that's moving to the triangle, that's moving to Charlotte, that's moving to the urban areas and is creating incredible competition and driving these prices up.

So while I do think there's a bubble coming, it feels like the Raleighs and the Charlottes are gonna be immune a little bit longer than some of these other areas.

- Donna, is this a supply issue?

- I think it is partly a supply issue, but really this is a cost of living issue.

60% of people say that making housing costs are very difficult right now.

But some of this is, some of it is left over from the the eviction moratorium that was established during COVID.

A lot of these property owners are having to drive up rental prices to make themselves whole, hold onto their property.

But really the cost of living, inflation, housing, food, gas, all of these are critical parts to the calculus that will determine how people vote and being able to house their families, being able to educate their kids, put gas in their car.

These are all election issues.

And when you print money, whether it's the American Rescue Plan or tax credits or whatever, when you print money and you put more money in circulation in the economy, it drives prices up.

- Okay, I'm changing gears.

I want to talk about the gas tax holiday that the president's proposing, my friend.

- Yes, the gas price gimmick of the week.

And this week, it's a 90-day federal gas tax holiday that might get you a quarter or a half a tank of gas sometime between now and the end of the year.

- [Marc] It's about $2 on a hundred.

- Right, Congress is not enamored with this idea for a host of reasons.

We basically have the absolute worst energy policy right now in this nation's history.

And we keep bouncing between strategies and ideas.

Empty the strategic reserve, put corn in your tank, which raises food prices, the blame game, blame everybody, Russia's oil companies, whatever, and then go hat in hand to he most repressive countries on the planet, ask them for more oil.

Everything except doing what we should do, which is rollback regulations, invest in cheap oil here in America.

We've lost over a million barrels per day in refinery capacity in the United States.

We're shutting down pipeline projects.

We haven't built a new refinery in this country since 1977.

That's where we need to focus, is our own energy infrastructure.

- I saw Steny Hoyer came out and has some reservations about the gas tax idea.

Is it DOA, you think, Morgan, to Congress?

- I think it's a challenge to get there.

I think what you see the president doing is trying a lot, move a lot of levers to provide relief.

It is extremely frustrating to people right now that gas is twice what it was last year.

- How big a political issue is this?

- It's a huge political issue.

But listen, I always come back to- - [Marc] He wears the jacket, he's in charge.

- He does, as the president, you wear the jacket on the economy, that's the buck stops with you.

But the other thing I'll say is it's incredibly frustrating to voters, again, that they're paying twice what they paid last year.

All of us at this table are paying twice what we paid last year.

But at the same time, I realize the energy policy is very intricate, but why is big oil making so much money?

- But are they making so much money, Jerry?

- These guys, hold on a second, these guys made $35 billion profit in the first quarter of this year, 300%- - But there's less supply, so it makes it more expensive.

- But why are they making money and it's costing us more money?

- Let me ask you, is it feasible, Jay, to get rid of fossil fuels at this time?

Is green energy really the answer?

- Well, I mean, I think that misses the debate, right?

I mean, we're looking at a mixed set of energy policies.

I mean, I think, one, to Morgan's point, you can't dismiss the fact that oil companies have made a record amount of money.

It was $25 million in the fourth quarter, $75 billion in the last quarter.

In the United Kingdom, they're looking to tax that windfall profit so that they can send the rebates back to the consumers.

But then, secondly, if you wanna look at a short term solution, I think the gas tax rebate should absolutely be looked at as a possibility because I think in an economy where every single penny matters to families, it's important to look at what we can do to help those families out.

- Donna, do you think that families of America are blaming big oil or are they blaming Joe Biden?

- Not at all, I think what you're seeing is a lockstep commitment to the Biden messaging machine.

What this is is yet again too little too late in policy.

It's a 3% discount for 90 days or something on a $5 gallon of gas.

That's what they're paying attention to.

And I think bad policy is bad policy.

No matter how much messaging you put out there, no matter who you blame, it is still bad policy, and people will come back and they will try to fill up their gas tank, and they're gonna look at him.

- Well, let me ask you, Nelson, green energy, how far away are we from really having green energy cards?

I think there's only what, 2% of Americans have EV cars, right?

- A tremendous distance.

83% of the world's energy needs are provided by fossil fuels, only 17% by the renewables.

You don't have the nuclear power generation base there.

You're going to have to have more natural gas generation.

All you have to do is look at Germany, which I'll talk about later, that has gone way over to green energy without an actual rational plan.

But Biden does have a plan.

If we have a recession, gas prices will go down.

- Well, is it smart politically to go over to Saudi Arabia and ask them to pump more oil, you think?

- Listen, I think you have to do an all of the above approach.

And I think that's what you see the president doing, trying to move every lever he can to reduce gas prices.

- You're a great advocate.

I wanna move on and talk to you, come right back and talk about the American rescue transformational grants that the governor announced this week, my friend.

- So this was the first tranche of money that we've seen that is focused on rural transformation grants.

That it is, it benefits, it's $20 million that went out this week to 30 communities around the state, rural communities.

It's really based on sort of three criteria.

The first thing is to give it to grant money to these localities for downtown revitalization.

A lot of these small towns are seeing if they can get coffee shops, if they can get breweries, if they can get these different kind of stores built in their downtown urban core, or not urban core, but downtown core, you see people come back there, you see jobs being created by that.

The second thing is about site prep.

It helps these communities fund, a lot of these rural communities don't have the tax base to fund site prep for sites to bring the industry in.

One of the reasons you can't find jobs in rural areas is that they're not prepared.

They don't have the land acquired, the localities don't, they don't have the site prep that it takes to, like you see these major transformationals in urban areas.

And the third thing is to deal with quality of life.

You see a lot of these rural towns who've lost their grocery store.

They're food deserts.

And one of the things you see to get people back living in rural areas is you gotta have an ability to have a restaurant, you gotta have an ability to have a grocery store nearby.

You also have to have the ability to have affordable housing.

And so these grants can be transformational for these small towns.

And this is the first tranche, there will be more coming.

This is all part of the American Rescue Plan money that's finally getting out through the states.

I think it's a big deal in rural North Carolina.

- Nelson, do we have an accountability mechanism for this?

See how the money's being spent?

- Well we do, we probably have one of the best state auditors out there, plus you have federal audit requirements as well.

But you know, the Republican leadership in the general assembly is largely from rural areas.

So last year, prior budgets, you'll see it in the budget coming up this year.

- So leadership is for this, you think?

- Well, yes, because we fund these.

We're the ones that put the money in there and not just these grants but we have already appropriated hundreds of millions of dollars in broadband, water and sewer projects all over the state, school construction, roads, you'll see more major investments there.

Hundreds of millions in workforce housing, economic development, and healthcare in these rural areas to help them grow.

Because what you have seen is about 40% of North Carolina's cities and towns around the state have actually seen a depopulation.

So you have a growing state around the metro areas and a lot of the rural areas are struggling.

Infrastructure's the key.

- Donna, in general, should government be involved in economic development do you think?

- I mean, I think that it's nice.

There's what, 40, $48 million for this?

Sidewalks and empty lots and things like that?

But you know, real policy that plays a long game that's truly transformative, to me that's a bigger deal.

If you're talking about rural eastern North Carolina, something like the Atlantic Coast Pipeline-- - Well, enterprise zones.

- Would have been a much bigger deal.

- And things like that.

- Yeah, I mean I think that you really need something that brings industry, brings prosperity, brings, you know, all the coffee shops and sidewalks will show up if you make a commitment to energy and things like natural gas in eastern North Carolina.

These communities were devastated by COVID shutdowns, particularly the ones that are in tourism areas.

These real investments in bringing industry, bringing energy policy there, those will be the things that really transform rural areas.

- Jay, wrap this up in about 30 seconds.

Put it in context.

- Real quick, just to set the record straight with Nelson.

I mean, the money didn't come from general assembly.

Money came from a Democratically controlled Congress that passed the rescue plan in the-- - Billions of dollars, of state dollars.

I'll show you in the-- - But, but, the infrastructure bill that's allowing for broadband and the grants that are provided by Governor Cooper came from Congress.

And I think Governor Cooper is doing the right thing.

If you wanna try to grow the rural economy, you've gotta have a healthy workforce, you gotta make sure communities are connected, and you have a, grow out that sector.

I think you look at all the grants he's granted it fits that strategy well.

- Okay, let's go to the most under reported story of the week, Donna.

- Yes, absolutely.

So the US Supreme Court, we were talking a lot about US Supreme Court decisions this week, one of them that the US Supreme Court ruled that legislative leaders, in this case, Phil Berger, Tim Moore, can intervene.

They can step into the battle over voter ID in that lawsuit.

They had been kind of kept out of it.

Now the US Supreme Court says yes, they have the right to be there at the table.

- Okay, what does that mean to North Carolina?

- Well right now, there's lawsuits ongoing about voter ID in 2018, North Carolina voters-- - We have to show voter ID in November?

- That's correct.

No, no, but in 2018, North Carolina voters, the majority voted that you should have to show an ID.

It's been tangled up in lawsuits ever since.

- Quickly, there was a religious ruling on education and taxpayer money.

Talk to us about that quickly.

- Yes, so there was a ruling that, from the US Supreme Court, that scholarships given by the state can include religious organizations.

Now that means that for North Carolina's opportunity scholarships, it basically, the judges said that if you're gonna offer voucher scholarships to folks who need them for education, if it's public money, you can't take religious schools off the table as an option for families who wanna use that money there.

- Morgan.

- Under reported this week, I think is summer school is not only back, but it's accelerating.

Summer school has traditionally been used through the K through 12 system as a way to help kids that had fallen behind during the year to catch up so that they could be ready for the next year.

We saw during COVID that that is expanded, that it was a larger group of kids that needed that access to summer school.

And what we're seeing is this summer, not only did it expand last summer, this summer's expanded even greater to not only catch up camp but to accelerate people who want to get ahead.

And so I think you see a lot of folks talking about, and this is across the country, is that it gives an opportunity for kids to get ahead of next year.

And you're looking at sort of a quasi expansion of the school year because you've got sort of different sets of kids that are gonna spend, you know, are you talking about year-round schools to a certain extent, and you are for certain families.

- Jay.

- My colleague, Senator Mujtaba Mohammad of Mecklenburg County held a press conference calling on the general assembly to use state funds to extend the free breakfast and the lunch program for public school students.

That would cost the budget, that would be in the budget about $93 million.

The reason he did so is that the federal pandemic program that we had in existence is gonna run out at the end of this month.

Right now, about 21 million students have access to free lunch; that would go away.

And I think what's interesting is there is now a bipartisan effort in Congress to look at trying to continue that program that's also being championed by Republican Congresswoman Virginia Foxx.

- Nelson, then it does have legs if she's in on it.

- The looming debt crisis, last year, total global debt, public and private, topped over $303 trillion.

That's three times the global gross domestic product.

In the US, our total GDP to debt ratio moved up over 350%.

Since the Great Recession in 2008, the US economy has grown by 56% while government debt has soared by 300%.

So, a reckoning is fast approaching in the US, but globally as well, and governments are gonna face difficult choices, austerity, default, hyperinflation, inflation's infecting- - Interest rates really affect our debt, right?

- They will, because every 1% of additional interest rate hike in the US is another $310 billion to the national debt.

Financial repression, which are capital and cost controls, are also out there.

Learn the term financial repression.

Of course, the best solution, of course, is higher real growth, but we're not focusing on that right now.

- Okay, I want to go to the Lightning Round.

Who's up and who's down this week, Donna?

- Up, I would say efforts to engage more of the public, more parents in public education.

There's a bill filed this week by Jon Hardister at Guilford County that would mean the north, - Republican?

- Republican from Guilford County that the state Board of Education would be elected positions.

Right now they're appointed.

That measure would say, "Okay every voter has a say in who heading our public school system."

Down, it's a small private healthcare.

The state appeals court tossed out a lawsuit over Certificate of Need laws.

That Certificate of Need is basically a permission slip that tells doctors where they can set up their practice, what kind of equipment they can buy, that kind of thing, as the court of appeals tossed it out.

- My friend.

- So who's up this week, I would tell you is Arizona State House Speaker Republican Rusty Bowers.

- Powerful testimony.

- Powerful testimony by he and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, if I said that correctly.

- Right.

- I'm sure I butchered it, is that they testified, and these were very strong Trump supporters and campaigned with the president, supported him.

They stood up to the president, despite numerous bullying and personal threats to their own safety.

- It was a really bad week for Donald Trump.

- It was a, and that's my down, brother.

It's evergreen.

In all seriousness, these hearings continue to give the signal at how bad the situation truly was in Trump's interference with the election.

We all knew it, but hearing Republicans say it is damaging to the president.

And I think the question's gonna be is are Republicans seeing this and saying, "It's time to move on?"

- Jay, who's up and who's down?

I think they are starting to move on.

- Yeah, I mean, same as Morgan, really.

State election officials that testified in the January 6th hearing, but particularly Arizona Speaker of the House Rusty Bowers.

I mean, if anybody hasn't watched this testimony, it's an amazing testimony that I think also talks about how much he affirms and is really almost divinely inspired by the US Constitution.

Who's down?

To quote Axios Raleigh and Tom Petty, "This was the last dance with Mary Jane."

In a closed door meeting, House Republicans - Explain what you're talking about Mary Jane.

Some of our younger viewers.

- We talking about cannabis.

- Kids call it weed, - The House Republicans.

by the way.

- House Republicans all but killed the medical marijuana bill that overwhelmingly passed the State Senate.

- No comment.

- Okay.

Nelson?

- Up, King Coal in Germany where they've invested heavily in renewables, even though it's not very windy or sunny in Germany.

They shut down their nuclear power thinking they could rely on Russian natural gas.

So now they are back to lignite mining.

That is the dirtiest coal that you can burn for power.

So plan's gone awry.

Who's down, President Biden, not for falling off his bike, but he continues to fall on the polls.

Even some progressive polling organizations have his job approval down to 32%.

And also they did a, for Democrats 18-34, a whopping 62% said that they are disappointed in what Biden is doing for them.

- Headline next week?

- Well, I think it's gonna be all about the budget.

All about the budget and, you know, could be Medicaid expansion.

- We have a budget next week, you think my friend?

- I feel like we're gonna have a budget and Medicaid expansion next week.

- Okay.

Headline, next week?

- I'm gonna say that Democrats raise a record amount of dollars are reinvigorated and focus on the midterm 2022 race after Roe.

- Nelson, headline next week?

- Well, both General Assembly rolls out the budget and the reaction to the Roe decision.

- Great job panel.

That's it for us.

Thanks for watching.

Hope to see you next week on Front Row.

Have a great weekend.

[dramatic music] ♪ - [Announcer] Major funding for Front Row was provided by Robert L Luddy.

Additional funding provided by Patricia and Koo Yuen through the Yuen Foundation, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities.

And by.

Funding for the Lightning Round provided by Boddie-Noell Foundation, NC Realtors, Mary Louise and John Burriess, Rifenburg Construction, and Helen Laughery.

A complete list of funders can be found at pbsnc.org/frontrow.

[dramatic music] ♪