- [Kelly] A deal seemed close on public mask wearing, the Senate proposes taking a leading role in the DMV, and a federal judge steps into North Carolina's abortion debate.

This is "State Lines."

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[stirring energetic music] - Hello again.

Welcome to "State Lines."

I'm Kelly McCullen.

Joining me today, we have a great panel.

First, Dawn Vaughan of "The News & Observer."

To her right, Senator Jay Chaudhuri, who represents Wake County.

Senator Benton Sawrey of Johnston County joins us and WUNC Radio's Colin Campbell is in seat number four.

Well, Colin, you get to go first today with the... We have a lot of top stories, but we'll just start with this story where a federal judge has blocked portions of an ongoing North Carolina state law that regulated or restricted, really, the distribution of abortion pills.

Judge Catherine Eagles ruled that FDA regulations now override state law rules where the state required abortion medicines to be prescribed only by a doctor.

Women seeking abortions could only receive abortion bills in person, and it required a post-abortion follow-up visit with the doctor.

The federal court ruling prevents local or state politicians or law enforcement from punishing any patient who follows the federal rulings on abortion.

I don't wanna reinvent or reenter this abortion debate.

That's not gonna change a mind.

However, a federal court judge has laid an issue out on a week when abortion was part of the first gubernatorial campaign ad so let's talk the politics.

- Yeah, so this sort of renews the attention on sort of the fine print of this law.

I mean, I think most people who pay at least a little bit of attention know that we moved last year from a 20-week abortion ban to 12 weeks with exceptions.

This was one of those things that maybe didn't get that much attention.

This is the sort of abortion pills that you can take at home.

The legislature wanted that to be something you did in a doctor's office, which would become more restrictive, particularly as North Carolina becomes this destination state when other states around us have stricter abortion laws.

People are coming here, and they'd like to not necessarily have to be here for three or four days, multiple doctor's appointments to get something like an abortion pill.

But I think this focus is in the debate on that aspect of it.

As you mentioned, Josh Stein's first ads came out this week all about what Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson has said in opposition to abortion in the past.

You also had Robinson himself speaking at an event sponsored by a group that is very, very anti-abortion to the point that they believe birth control pills are, in their words, evil.

So there's a lot of fodder for the governor's race wrapped up in all this.

And you're gonna hear more about it on the legal side because there's probably gonna be appeals.

There's probably some other pending cases related to abortion in the state.

It gonna be a headline all the way to November.

- Senator Sawrey, this is, regardless of the federal ruling, there's a lot of boring legalese, probably, in that ruling from Judge Eagles.

But it's an issue that nothing a few million dollars on each side and campaign ads can't elevate to the viewer conscience.

What do you take on the federal court ruling coming in?

Especially now it's, we're right before 2024's election.

- Well, it's gonna bring the abortion pill topic back to the forefront of the political debate.

But I think there's an interesting legal issue here that it's gonna get appealed, of course.

It's gonna go to the Supreme Court.

There's an argument made about how FDA regulations might preempt state law, and I think that's a question that's gonna be resolved by the Supreme Court or the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.

I mean, remember that it wasn't so long ago that FDA regulations actually were consistent with North Carolina or current North Carolina law on where these pills were supposed to have been taken, how the process was supposed to work with that.

That's now changed.

You know, I'm making the argument that change was political by the Biden administration, kind of as an act of convenience to advance an agenda.

We obviously saw that as something that's a safety measure and a pro-life measure to make sure that we're taking care of the woman in this particular context.

So I do think that it's gonna be a question that's ultimately gonna get resolved sometime in the next two to three years.

Disappointed in the ruling, but ultimately not surprised.

- Senator Chaudhuri, your take from the Democratic side.

- Well, I'll tell you a couple things.

I'd say the ruling does shine a light on access to abortion medication pills, and I think is a win for thousands of women, particularly in rural areas.

Two, I think it's a reflection of the passage of Senate Bill 2, a bill that ironically passed faster than the 72-hour waiting period that's provided in the bill for women to have an abortion.

And I think it reflects how sloppy the process was.

And I think to Senator Sawrey's point, my counter would be that the judge did decide that the FDA regulations were run afoul by the state law that was passed.

And I think in the end, this was a win for women in the state for reproductive choice, and it shows that politicians make crappy physicians.

- Dawn, are you gonna argue with the point that politicians make for crappy physicians?

- I don't think it's... Maybe there's one physician in the legislature.

- There's one at least.

- In the House, right?

Who actually is a doctor.

Or maybe there's two.

No one in the Senate that I'm aware of, so hopefully they talk to actual physicians when they have laws that obviously would take that into account.

- Do you think the rank and file North Carolina voters, the average person who's engaged at an average level, does a court ruling like this generate more interest where they're gonna take a deeper dive into the politics going on right now in Raleigh and then the candidates down the road?

- Yeah, I think people just wanna know, what's the end result of this?

North Carolina, the way the law works, there's not gonna be a ballot measure on abortion, which has happened in other states.

And if you look at the polling and what's happened in other states, it is, you know, people don't want more of the restrictions like some of the more restrictive states that have had much shorter, you know, the heartbeat or a much shorter span than North Carolina's 12 weeks.

And Senate Leader Berger told reporters the other day that the polling is where it stands now.

He does not want to change, personally, additional restrictions through legislation so we'll see.

Obviously, the governor's race, you know, shines a light.

- Absolutely.

Well, how Senate leaders seemed to have a deal in place on public mask-wearing band this week.

They didn't have a deal after all the Senate passed that legislation does let you wear, public a mask in public for Healthcare reasons.

The legislation currently targets wearing of masks by people committing crimes the bill also carry the new campaign finance provision that seems to allow the state Republican Party to accept contributions from GOP linked political groups.

House leaders delayed the vote saying the Republican caucus, there is too split on the health related mask-wearing provisions.

Where do we go with this?

Start with the mask deal.

OK, - Everybody jumped, said we had a deal in place that protect people who are sick will also doesn't protect protesters to use a mask to hide their identity to commit crimes or to commit crimes and cause mischief.

- Well, there's kind of a period with you know no deal or nothing you know that there was an action of the Legislature last week and Speaker Moore's father passed away and they they didn't have voting sessions are committees so there wasn't really a lot of the conversations going on, but a Republican House member Aaron Perez said she would vote not to concur with the Senate bill so that kind of changed everything because of the how close the numbers are on - once you get something and then if Cooper vetoes it and it goes back.

So the House Republicans were ready to work out some sort of deal with the senate and that just kind of you know stalled out for a little while was tabled and then my colleague had a gotten wind Thursday morning that that this was that this was coming and that the House would have it so we're all reporters our perspective is there's big breaking news of the deal and what's in it let's read the bill really quick and he was in the House, I'm in the Senate and then when we're reading the bill really quick.

There's campaign finance in here and that led to more drama in the Senate, so more they can talk about.

- Hold that thought because the mask deal's been a big deal for the last month, Senator Chauduri state of the mask deal promise we'll get back to the campaign finance pace to seem to have anything to do with mask on the mask of the deals in place.

It seemed that there was a provision in there you can't use a mask to hide behind you hide your identity to cause problems, but you can wear a mask in public if you're sick or you feel like you're compromised What do you make of the deal the mask deal independent of the extra piece.

I mean I'll be completely honest with you, when the bill, I mean the bill was provided to us without any notice and the fact of the matter is the campaign finance election portion of the bill what's so troublesome.

We didn't even debate the masking portion of the bill and You know we can talk about that in a minute but that that's really what ended up dominating the discussion for Senate Democrats yesterday.

- That what happened Senator?

Well so on the masking part I think that the language that we reached the conference report is a good compromise.

Mean it's not not that that language in mind that it was necessarily you're required to to get to the time it was because keep in mind from 1953 to 2020 people could freely wear a mask to prevent the spread of contagious disease without risk of any sort of criminal things, it's all about concealing identity.

The concern we heard from you know members on the floor and then from the public was that it wasn't clear enough.

And we certainly know people the fear for think being arrested for being immunocompromised or something of that nature, so what the language provides is that you can wear a surgical or medical grade mask for the purpose of preventing the spread of contagious disease.

That addresses the concerns I believe is a DHHS recommendation.

So I'm hopeful that this resolves that issue entirely.

I remember back for 2020, it was unusual to see someone walking in a grocery store with a mask, you thought they're really sick.

It does show us the world's changed.

Yeah, it's become really common.

I use all the questions I got on social media after this bill came out was what exactly is a medical grade mask to slow people down during the pandemic during these homemade masks and so the question is are you know are those still allowed are you have to go down to the store and buy an N-95 to really qualify.

You know, there's there's some confusion around this.

I think even now that probably will be addressed over time.

But the bottom line is I aside from people just being a jerk to someone in public.

You wear a mask, you're probably not going really run afoul of the law because it is so common.

It does have a man in the in the CR the.

The conference report committee reported said that you have to remove the mask at the request of law enforcement they're like some things in there that I think would provide for the Republican concerns initial concerns wanting the bill with the protesters that if you're wearing a mask, it needs to be an actual mask for medical reasons not just some sort of face covering and that that it says temporarily remove that some of the language.

There's also a religious exemption and I again like it's everyone's reading this really quick and trying to figure it out that my reading of it also is that that there's an exemption for you know executive orders municipalities telling you to wear it.

So there's like there's a lot of in the weeds things and again this hasn't passed yet so because of all the campaign finance part of the drama and everything in the Senate the House isn't taking it up until this coming week if they do.

Go there with this the campaign finance part.

Democrats came out and saidso you're helping the Republicans only with a change in state law that allows them to accept money from the Republican Governors Association, other large groups that have large amounts of money for campaign.

So it's a it's complicated for me, I'm not a campaign to looking at that.

I think it has to do with us the ways Senate leader Berger is telling reporters right after the vote is that he talked about the the Board of elections, a majority Democrat Board of elections.

This ruling and 2020 4 DGA the Democratic Governors Association and he thought that benefited Democrats and not Republicans and they want to even things out.

It's a more complicated than that and it's really just how DGA NRG in these groups.

What their rules are and how they spend can Payne money and I think the main focus here is on Republican Council state candidates and the dark money aspect is that you it appears that you will not Republican donors won't have to have their name attached to their giving to because a lot of Republicans actually don't like Michele Morrow the candidate for gpi which is Council state.

And maybe aren't as a fan of Robinson but still want to give money to Republicans just not these very specific you can you give money to another organization is outside and then that money could go according to however the organization wants to invest in candidates on North Carolina ballots that what we're talking about?

Put on your boxing gloves, gentlemen!

[all chattering] Senator Chaudhuri,you held a press conference, you walked out and no Democrat voted for for that bill at all.

28 0 all Republican.

- Yeah, well I mean as I mentioned, really the mass portion of the bill wasn't even discussed in caucus.

'cause I think the campaign finance provisions were so troubling.

From our perspective, we see this as making a significant change to the rules of the game as far as who's running state wide.

And from our perspective, this essentially allows a convicted felon or a millionaire to provide dollars to a campaign without any accountability or disclosure.

If you look at the specifics of the bill, there are two things that it removes.

One is it removes compliance for federal political action committees to comply with state compliance laws, which include disclosures.

So less disclosures.

And secondly, it doesn't require that a political action committee have a registered treasurer or deputy treasurer here in the state.

And so that really takes away any enforcement action from the State Board of Elections.

So less disclosure, less enforcement, essentially provides the Republicans an opportunity to buy this coming election.

- Now, Republicans will say, I haven't picked up the phone, like you did and up call and say, "What is this bill?

"'cause it's so confusing."

Are Democrats in North Carolina able to get money from outside the state, from the Democratic Governor's Association?

But the Republican Party in North Carolina cannot get money from the Republican Governor's Association?

- No, no.

Look, this is not, at the end of the day this is all about disclosure and accountability, which is something that is removed in this bill.

And it's also about the ability for the State Board of Election to enforce what is taking place with Federal Political Action Committees that may be giving money where they have a registered treasurer or deputy treasurer here in the state.

- Senator Sawrey.

- Not surprising, but I disagree with my colleague Mr. Chaudhuri, on this particular topic.

And I appreciate the talking point, because it's an attempt to gin up some controversy and press about certain people being able to give money or donations or something of that nature.

But the fact of the matter is, the Democrats have been able to do this since 2020.

I've read the letter from their council.

So I've seen how it is.

It's really an issue of just accounting.

The DGA and the various Democrat umbrella organizations, - [Kelly] DGA, what is that?

- Democrat Governor Association or various, you know, their political arms had been using a different accounting method.

That they had the State Board of Elections sign off on years ago.

What this does is it put the Republicans at a significant disadvantage and it would continue to do so.

This just simply levels the playing field.

It brings North Carolina law in compliance.

So both political parties and their umbrella organizations can have the same seat at the table, the same opportunity, whether this is a good thing or not with the outside money.

That's a separate debate and a separate topic, just a history lesson that I wanna bring up from 2008, I believe there was an adjournment resolution that was passed at the end, maybe it was 2004, that actually took away Patrick Valentine's ability to receive any money at all.

So there's a difference here between leveling the playing field and actually cutting somebody off and trying to buy an election.

We've seen that happen before.

That's not the case here.

- Kelly, I would simply submit, if this were the discussion and debate that we were having in the Senate, that would be thing.

But the fact of the matter is we had a significant provision that changes campaign finance laws, that was introduced to Senate Democrats without any notice whatsoever, without any input or feedback from experts in this field.

And I think it, I mean, I think it raises a lot of questions.

- Yeah.

What was the common thread between these two things?

The ideas you're allowing people to put a mask on themselves to give money and keep their identity separate.

I'm not sure how these two things fit together in one bill.

- Well, it does mask mega donors from giving money to Republican candidates.

- You could take the masking concept and apply that to the administrative decision done by partisan State Board of Elections that had ramifications of millions of dollars over periods of time.

- I was gonna say one thing that I don't understand is why, I mean, if whoever controls the votes controls the legislation with a super majority, so putting something into this bill, you could also run it separately.

And Republicans have the numbers to run the bill as they want and pass it and overturn a veto from Democratic Governor Cooper.

So the putting it together and it obviously drew a lot of attention, but you could also just run it separately and still have the same vote.

So that's kind of what a lot of the drama centered around, was putting this together and I think Colin, you were around years ago with the motorcycle/abortion bill or something like that.

- That's not what they called that bill.

[all laughing] - Yeah, but I mean, it's one of those things that's so frustrating about covering the legislature, is you don't know what they're gonna vote on that day.

I opted to work from home the other day, because I thought that the calendar looked like it was totally boring stuff and it turned out to be the most dramatic day of the month at the legislative building.

- Well welcome to the life of a Senator.

- You won't make that mistake again.

- I spent over 10 years covering the legislature hosting "Legislative Week in Review."

Adding a provision onto a bill that's already passed is not a surprise.

It should not surprise any reporter.

It's just a bummer when you take that one day to kinda turn your back and they do this.

- Yeah, but you think about the general public who is trying to pay attention to this stuff and it's really opaque to get through, 'cause you don't know what they're gonna be doing.

- With Republicans, why didn't you just change your accounting structure at the party level to just do what they're doing, as opposed to changing state law?

I mean, it's so weedy, but why don't just do what they do?

- And I'm not part of those organizations, so I don't know the answer to that specific question, - [Kelly] But you're speaking for every Republican in this.

- Ah, no, no, no.

But I can't answer that question.

But I would, to Colin's point about the disclosure and transparency, this was done in a public setting with cameras, with reporters, with an opportunity for debate, which they passed on, and an opportunity to discuss the issue.

The State Board of Elections and their partisan election board decision, that was done in the dark of night.

Not in the same circumstances at all.

So I'd submit and I'd argue that what we did in an attempt to level the playing field and make this fair across the board for all players at the table, much more transparent.

- Senate Rules Chair, Bill Rabon's Republican Majority did let the Democrats caucus, which kind of raised my flag where I hadn't gotten to, I was reading the report and hadn't gotten to the campaign finance yet.

And then I thought, is it all the Senate Democrats need to decide do they wanna support or oppose the mass?

This is a reporters thought, before we also got into seeing what else was going on.

- Well, I should add the complexity of this campaign finance law change was so opaque that the non-partisan staff that provided the briefing to us, the Senate Democrats, could not even fully explain to us what the changes were.

- I've heard it's tough to understand and I think that's, you know, you could read, it's all public record, I guess, so.

- Well, do you wanna talk about amendments?

You wanna talk about DMV?

What do we wanna talk about next, Colin?

- I don't know, I can talk a little about constitutional amendments, that was the other thing.

Constitutional amendments would keenly be a big deal if they weren't overshadowed by campaign finance, and walkouts, and all these other things.

- [Kelly] Well, hold on one second.

We got some nice video rolling there.

- Yeah, yeah.

- We just had it going.

Two proposals are unveiled, one would possibly have voters decide on a state constitutional amendment.

Republican leaders want an amendment clarifying that only US citizens over 18 years old can vote, state law.

Or I think the constitution has some definitions on who can vote.

And you can't vote in a federal election at all if you are not a US citizen.

So now Colin, your turn is up.

Interesting.

This will get some interest among Republican voters.

I think the Republican leaders believe that.

You need 60% of each chamber's vote in approval, not 51%.

So they have 60%.

- Yeah, I mean, I think the likelihood that this gets to the ballot this year, and maybe is something that sort of entices Republican voters, who maybe they're not excited about some of the candidates, maybe they're not a big Trump fan, but they have been watching the news and are concerned about the idea of people who aren't citizens voting.

That's something that hasn't happened in the state.

The state law is pretty clear on that.

But the worry that we heard from Republicans as the rationale for this was that, you know, there's the potential for like an activist judge or something to come in and change the law.

There are some municipalities, other places in the country outside of North Carolina, that do allow some non-citizen voting in their local elections.

So it's gonna be an interesting point of debate, one way or the other, even if it doesn't really functionally change what the law is here already.

- I'm gonna turn it to Senator Sawrey.

- So statute certainly is, I mean, is clear on citizen voting rights, but the actual constitutional provision, it seems permissive, "Is entitled to vote," not necessarily excluding the non-citizen voters in this case.

And what we've seen across the nation are municipalities allowing non-citizens to vote in some local municipal elections.

I just don't think that's in line with North Carolina values.

We've looked at some polling data on this.

This is through the roof, it's across the board, Republicans, Democrats, independents, it's something that's an 80% issue.

And I think will really, really resonate with voters in North Carolina.

- Senator Chaudhuri.

- I mean, this is kind of an absurd constitutional amendment because it's designed to drive the base from the Republicans to come turn out in November.

And to give, you know, my rationale of the assert, I don't read it as permissive.

I mean, we could also add to the constitutional amendment that dogs and cats and parrots shouldn't vote, and nobody would debate that either.

I mean, this is kind of akin to what we're seeing with this constitutional amendment.

- I remember the hunt and fish constitutional amendment from a couple years ago, that you have a right to hunt and fish, even though I don't think anybody on the political spectrum thinks that either of those things are bad.

- I mean, maybe there's a parrot lobby that, you know, is out there and isn't gonna like that.

- Well, interestingly, you talk about the hunt and fish amendment, not to go down a rabbit hole, but I mean, there've been some questions under that right to hunt and fish argument with respect to marine fisheries and how they're managing things.

So yes, I mean, we can talk about that, and we can make light of some of these things, but it's possible that this could come up, it's possible.

We do have some municipalities and some pockets in North Carolina where we could see an attempt to take an activist position with regard to non-citizen voting.

So I think this is a very proactive step.

I don't think it's just our base, I think it's your base too.

Your base wants to see citizen-only voting.

I've seen the data.

- Well, Senator Chaudhuri, let's stay right there.

Democrats, you're proposing a constitutional amendment of your own for, I guess, a sunshine law as a constitutional amendment protecting open records access for the public to legislative emails, correspondence, and anything.

Your take on this, this is a separate issue.

I just look, going off the script here and riffing, but give us your thoughts on this.

Press conference was called.

You think a constitutional amendment is needed to override a state law?

- Look, I think it's an important step to counter, I think the lack of transparency in the pattern that we're seeing with the governing majority in this space.

Justice Louis Brandeis once wisely said that sunlight is the best disinfectant.

We've seen Republicans, in their budget that was passed last year, basically allow lawmakers to sell or destroy their public records.

I mean, that is no longer accessible to the press.

We have seen, we just had a discussion about now dark money with less accountability.

I think allowing a constitutional amendment like this provides more transparency that's a hallmark of a civil society, and helps bolster our democracy.

And I think enshrining that as a right is a good thing to do.

I think we want to make sure that our citizens have access to public records, 'cause that's the best way to hold our lawmakers accountable.

- Senator Sawrey.

- So I think that the budget provision that my colleague is talking about has been overblown.

I still get public record requests.

I still respond to public record requests.

I know that my colleagues are still getting and responding to those as well.

All that budget provision did was memorialize what was existing North Carolina law and practice with who was the custodian of public records.

I don't see a public record crisis.

In fact, I get random requests from time to time just to send one email and I'll pick off the most recent form email I get on an HOA matter and flip it to 'em, just so they can see what we deal with on a daily basis.

- Kelly, Senator Sawrey is a great public servant in providing those public records.

I know you've been cited for doing such.

But as the law stands now, your other colleagues and my colleagues don't have to do so.

- Dawn, I'm gonna ask your opinion.

The media is largely in favor of sunshine and transparency.

It's one of the few issues, I think, reporters are just openly one-sided about.

- We can advocate all, yeah.

- Your thoughts on a constitutional amendment.

I mean, if one amendment is to gen up the votes, could this one not be just be used to gen up the votes for Democrats or?

- It's public business, the public should be able to, - Here we go.

- And the press, you know, should be aware of what's being done on their behalf.

You know, we all pay taxes.

So the amendment thing is a, I think the similar, it's a democratic tactic, and it doesn't, it's, to get an amendment on the ballot, you need a super majority, Democrats obviously don't have that, I mean, as far as the votes.

But it's a way to bring attention that they think is important.

State Senator Rachel Hunt, who's running for Lieutenant Governor, wanted a abortion amendment.

And so Democrats are doing this the same way with the walkout on the floor of the Senate to bring attention to things because they don't have the numbers of that voting power.

And this is one way that they're doing it.

And I think, you know, Craig Meyer is a lot behind this, and he's served in both chambers.

- Final word, Colin, I'm under a minute.

- Yeah, so I mean, I think this is one of those things where we'll get excited about it, but it's hard to convince the general public to care about public records, 'cause most of them, it's hard to convince them to care about government in general.

Thankfully, a lot of them watch this show, so they do care at least a little bit.

- I hope they do.

- But here we get down in the weeds on some of these things, those of us who hang out in the building and it's difficult to make transparency a voting issue.

- Well, I really appreciate the quality of this conversation, at least for this week.

It's a great panel, Dawn, thank you, Jay, Benton, Colin.

And thank you for watching us here on "State Lines."

We can't do it without you and your support of public television, really.

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

I'll read your email, I'll reply to most of them.

I'm Kelly McCullan.

Thanks for watching and I'll see you next time.

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