- [Kelly] The 2024 North Carolina election ballot is settled after this week's runoffs.

The State Senate keeps moving anti-masking legislation for protests as UNC Chapel Hill redirects DEI funding to public safety.

This is "State Lines."

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[engaging music] ♪ - Welcome to "State Lines."

I'm Kelly McCullen.

Joining me today is Cardinal and Pine political correspondent Mike McElroy.

There you go, Mike.

Good day to you, sir.

- Thank you, sir.

- [Kelly] Wake County representative Maria Cervania debuts on the show, great to have you here.

- Thank you for having me.

- To your right, Senator Benton Sawrey of Johnston County.

And in seat four, representing the mass media, Colin Campbell, WUNC Radio, Capital Bureau Chief, I wanna get that right.

Well deserved honor.

- Don't put my fancy title.

- It is a fancy title.

You have your fancy studio down at the legislative bureau, right where I used to produce "Legislative Week in Review."

- Yeah, the ghost of PBS are still down there in that dungeon basement.

- You better believe it's a ghost.

The 2024 general election is officially underway, following three Republican primary runoffs that happened this week.

Very quickly, Hal Weatherman earned the GOP nomination for Lieutenant Governor.

Republican Dave Boliek, who is also on the UNC Board of Governors, this station is part of the UNC system as a full disclaimer, he's challenging Democrat Jessica Holmes for state auditor.

And attorney Brad Knott clinched the GOP nomination for the 13th US Congressional District.

Colin, I'd say hundreds of thousands of votes should have decided all three races, I think it was probably thousands.

But now we can look forward to November, can't we?

- Yeah, if the general election hadn't already started with all the races that were decided in the March primary, now the candidates for lieutenant governor and state auditor can really go at it, now that we know who the Republican nominees are gonna be in those races.

But these, I mean these are the down-ballot races that this is probably, honestly, the most attention they're gonna get because they were the only things on the ballot, along with that congressional race that ended up being kind of a dud because one of the candidates dropped out.

Whereas now, as we get into the general election, we're back focused to the top of the ticket, the presidential, the governor's race.

We probably won't be talking about state auditor quite as much between now and November.

- Sir, you and I are on public media.

We will be talking about the state auditors.

- Come on down and have a full-length interview about your plans for the auditor's office.

- You know what, well deserved, 'cause they can audit us, and audit you, and everybody else in the state, it appears.

Senator Sawrey, what do you make of this ballot?

Now your team is set, the other team is set, where do we go from here?

Spend a lot of money and do what with it?

- Well spend a lot of money, get the message out.

I think the takeaway from the second runoff, I live in the 13th Congressional district, you know, it was the nexus for the Kelly Daughtry-Brad Knott race.

You know, the takeaway too, I mean a couple things, was the low turnout, generally, and then the power of the Donald Trump endorsement.

I mean, Kelly Daughtry, the daughter Leo Daughtry, longtime political power in Johnston County, east North Carolina, and Brad Knott got the Donald Trump endorsement in the prevailing, you know, I mean, so much so that she end up suspending her campaign there towards the end of it.

I think that speaks a lot to where the Republican party is today, especially going into the November electorate.

And I think you'll see a lot of candidates hitch their wagon to Trump just because they see the power of what his brand brings to the table in North Carolina.

- What does his brand bring to a state ballot?

That's a congressional race.

But you know, I've had, there's state leaders that wouldn't miss a chance to meet him.

There's a place in Smithfield he seems to fly into a lot, and does fundraisers and all that, or in Johnston County.

Does Trump carry weight down that ballot?

- He does, I think, I mean, polling data shows, I mean in North Carolina, across the board in the general election, I mean he's running several points ahead of Joe Biden at this point, even more so than his 2020 election margin.

I mean, I think you see the top-of-the-ticket politics from Washington D.C. coming down, and people are reflecting as to where they want the country to go here in the next four years.

- Representative Cervania, on the Democratic side, strong slate of tickets.

You have a president up there as an incumbent, that doesn't hurt anything.

And you've got Roy Cooper, who's trying to pass the torch to Josh Stein.

Walk us through your side of the ballot.

How do you feel?

- We have the most qualified and the strongest slate that we could ever have, not only on the top of the ticket, but all the way down to our local races as well.

If people really research and understand who their candidates are, they'll see that our grouping of candidates are the most qualified and will serve North Carolinians the best.

- In practical terms, from your experience in the State House, and working with the State Senate at times on issues, 'cause you've gotta persuade them too, how different really in business matters are Democrats and Republicans in North Carolina?

You fight over the bathroom bill, you fight over marriage bills, things are social issues, we get that, that's easy.

But when it comes down to business, when people cast that ballot, and they're not sure about Boliek, or Holmes, or Weatherman, or Hunt, what are the differences in the real world?

- In the real world, and I've actually talked to Colin about this too, 85%, 90% of what we vote on is unanimous.

We agree and we vote exactly alike.

It is those issues that are very divisive that is mostly seen.

in the public.

But people need to trust that all of us are trying our best to make North Carolina the best state when it comes to economic development, quality of life.

We all believe in that.

It's how we get there, that's a little bit different.

And that's the big.

- Well, Mike, the ballot is here, now we're in your world.

What do you think of this ballot at the top of this, I don't wanna get into Biden Trump.

I had enough of that, but one guy is viewed this way by the left and the other guy is viewed that way by the right and it's not very positive.

So can we get some positivity and some inspiration from these statewide candidates?

- Yeah, I mean, there's always the two worlds colliding, the world of politics and the world of actual real life people trying to live their lives and better their lives.

And I think that this ballot are the far, a little bit less on these races than the others though.

But voters are gonna have a really clear choice.

There are stark divides, and I know that the parties agree a lot on a lot of issues.

They, they do, but on the ones they disagree, there are very clear divides.

Even more so maybe this year than in other years, kind of all the way down the ballot because of the Trump effect that has kind of bloomed to where it's this widening gap from governor to Lieutenant Governor all the way down.

And so voters are gonna have a very clear choice on issues that may be divisive, but also really affect their day-to-day lives.

- Alright, well next topic will be coming out of the state senate where it's passed legislation to reinstate a ban on mask wearing in public places.

Mask and hoods had been banned in public between 1953 and the Covid pandemic.

Republican senator, sorry, this is my language, seemed to support adding anti-mask laws to counter recent protests 'cause people are covering their faces to protest.

But this bill appears to also ban wearing masks anywhere in public places no matter what.

I'll turn it over to you.

Help us understand this bill.

One side, I can understand why you don't want processors being anonymous, but also they're saying people are sick out there.

You have an epidemiologist sitting right next to you that likes masks.

Take this issue and simplify it for the folks.

- Sure.

Well, that's a huge challenge for the time we have on this show, but I'll do the best I can.

I think the framing of the issue, and some of that's been frustrating over the past week, what the bill does that we passed in the Senate is reverting North Carolina law, the same place that it was prior to the Covid pandemic.

So between 1953 and 2020, North Carolina had a mask ban and a hood ban in place.

That law was changed slightly as a result of the Covid pandemic.

What this bill does is goes back to the point that existed prior to Covid on January 1st, 2020.

The criticism that we hear is that the public health and safety exception was taken away.

That public health and safety exception did not exist for nearly 70 years in North Carolina.

Nobody during that period of time was arrested for wearing an N95 or a surgical mask in public.

Nobody is being arrested today for wearing an N95 or a surgical mask in public for health reasons.

And once this bill passes, nobody will be arrested for wearing a surgical mask or an N95 in public for health and safety reasons.

The Department of Health and Human Services has taken a look at this and has come to the conclusion that the bill is designed to target those who use a mask or some device to conceal their identity.

In fact, I don't bring props often to the show, but I'm going to read directly from their memo.

The language of the underlying criminal statutes all say the wearing of a mask must be done so as to conceal the identity of the wearer.

As such, legal interpretation indicates that wearing a mask worn for public health and safety purposes is not a crime.

And the removal of this exception does not open anyone up to prosecution.

This is a bill that is designed to target anonymous outside agitators who are going onto our campuses and into our cities and concealing their identities and hiding behind the law and order to frustrate law enforcement and cause civil disorder and criminal disobedience in North Carolina.

Law enforcement wants this bill.

This is a public safety bill.

This is a common sense bill.

This is the same legislation that we've had for decades.

- Hand it right off to the representative.

Your take on that, that's not really a prop, but Democrats and people who were opposed to mask ban being reinstated hit a sore point.

He went and did homework and actually brought a quote with him.

So this issue has touched a nerve with Republicans.

What do you think?

- We've had a law in the impetus of that law, that time was a strong one and still prevails now.

What has been changed before the pandemic and now currently is to take out specific text when it comes to medical masking and public health safety.

Why, why take that out?

If in fact, it's said by my colleague here that it's not against N95 or medical masking, why take it out of the law now if it's not necessary?

This seems to be more that we are trying to have a different outcome than actually what we're trying to press into this law.

- Remember, the Public Health and Safety Exception did not exist in North Carolina law until 2020.

So it's never been part of the law ever previously.

It's never been an issue previously.

And I think some of the frustration that we've had is that to the extent that this was an issue, it would've arisen in the 70 years prior.

There are members sitting in the chamber today that rose and spoke against this issue on the floor on Wednesday, who have had an opportunity since the 1970s to bring these same amendments.

No lawsuit's been filed by disability rights.

No lawsuits ever been filed by the ACLU.

It has never been an issue.

This is a political point that's being made for campaign purposes.

- And I wanna bring it back to the point that in those 70 years, we did not even have the earliest versions of Covid.

So we need to come to our modern times to know that even COVID-19's endemic, we still haven't taken it away.

Like I said, like I'm an epidemiologist, we know this.

We need to have our individual rights protected.

We feel like we wanna protect our community or ourselves not to get Covid or flu that can be life threatening.

- Nobody is saying that somebody who is immunocompromised or is sick or has a health issue, cannot wear a mask.

Nobody has ever been arrested.

Nobody's ever been prosecuted in the seven years prior to this.

It's not going to happen today.

It's not going to happen tomorrow.

The senators are speaking out against this know that, the Department of Health and Human Services knows that, lawyers know this, judges know this, everybody knows this.

Members of the Chamber are using this to score political points to generate fear.

And one of the other issues that came up in the DHS's email was one of their concerns was that public could become confused and fearful based on this language, and there are Democrats, some of your colleagues in the Senate Chamber, who are causing that.

There are some in the news media who are causing that.

So instead of framing the issues where it is, we are where we are today, which is very disappointing.

- And I could counter that because this is a health issue.

This is a personal safety issue.

And the fear, I believe, is being caused by those, and I'm not gonna say Democrat, Republican, I'm gonna say the people who are trying to take this two lines out of our current law.

It is gonna cause confusion, not only for people, but law enforcement and how they're supposed to administer the law.

You cannot guarantee that no one's going to be arrested.

You can't, as you sit here now.

- Can we look at a track record of North Carolina prosecutorial discretion since 1953 and assume that the interpretation by the Department of Health and Human Services is going to show that nobody is going to be arrested?

- And again, I'm gonna bring it back.

We did not have Covid 70 years ago.

- But we had SARS, we've had Zika, we've had various flu pandemics.

- Yes, 20 years ago, yes.

- That was during the period of time, correct?

- But we didn't instill a mask mandate during those times because we had preparedness done to make sure our people were safe and not had to have a mask mandate and such prevalence as we had.

- I'm not sure this people knew this mask law was on the books.

It was passed in the 1950s to go after the Ku Klux Klan for doing various nefarious things with hoods on their head.

And there's weird exceptions into the other, exceptions are like masquerade balls, Mardi Gras, going to form a Labor Union, but now that we're having all this debate, I think there's a lot more awareness that this law exists.

So it'd be interesting to see how police interpret it if they're trying to just look at the statute and make a judgment call on the spot, or if they listened to the Senate debate and heard what the Republicans said about what the intent of the law was.

- All right, Mike, you get the last word on this.

- I think there's a really easy way to clear up the confusion, and that's just to say, in the bill, this doesn't have anything to do with you if you're sick in a public place.

Because it says to conceal, okay, but the conceal, that's a judgment call.

And I don't understand, why was it necessary to add the health exemption in, in the first place?

If no one was gonna be in danger of being arrested for wearing a mask for health reasons, why did they need an exemption before all these things?

But I think there's just a real easy way to do it.

You clarify it in the bill, it's what happens all the time.

Right, there's confusion, and I think confusion can be good faith.

Sometimes confusion isn't a nefarious plot.

I think it's good faith confusion, so clear it up.

- There you go.

There you go, Mike, you sound like a politician there.

Wow.

Wow!

UNCs board of Trustees followed the UNC system Board of Governors order this week to disband and defund diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.

The campus trustees will shift about $2.3 million from DEI programs toward public safety efforts that appear to be a unanimous vote at a special meeting earlier this week.

Some trustees say public safety funding is needed right now, Representative Cervania, to counter all these disruptions caused by protests.

Now UNC system-wide policy to end DEI programs will eventually affect every campus in the state that's part of our system.

So the floor is yours on this one.

It's local to the campus, but Chapel Hill leading the way on removing DEI funding.

Who'd have thunk it?

- Who would've?

Considering that A lot of our industry is coming here to North Carolina because of our school systems, our universities being the pipeline of industry and being number one in business for the past two years.

If we wanna be a continuous player in the global economy, we can't take away diversity, equity, inclusion.

This is part of the preparation for our students, our future residents, our residents who are coming here, to make sure that we are a player in the world.

This is where we wanna be.

We don't wanna be isolationists, and just even DEI in its pure form, and people need to understand.

Diversity is not just this narrative of race.

It includes age, ability, religion, and then equity is about respect and being able to see one another, who they are and have an openness towards that, and inclusion's just belonging, having North Carolinians feel like they belong to something.

Just this pure definition of that, why wouldn't we want that for people?

- Senator, is DEI a reflection of a pure implementation of diversity, equity, and inclusion as a philosophy?

- No.

I don't think so.

I think DEI, in theory, I'm sure the theoretical concepts of it sound nice and their lofty goals of a utopian society, and it sounds great because we certainly want everybody to feel, you know, welcome at the table, and we do want North Carolina to be an open place for business.

DEI, though, I mean, to some people, is divisiveness.

It's exclusion, and it's a way to further drive a wedge in North Carolina's universities and school systems.

You can be diverse in viewpoints provided that you subscribe to a certain set of viewpoints that the DEI doctrine wants.

So I don't have any issue at all with this move.

I think it's long overdue.

I don't think that we should be prescribing a set of beliefs on anybody in North Carolina's university system or in our schools, and, candidly, I think that doing so would be harmful and counterproductive to the business climate in North Carolina.

I think that we should be open for business.

We should not be imposing any sort of political indoctrination on any of our future workforce.

- Colin, this debate seems to be on two parallel tracks, those who believe and those who don't believe, and there's not gonna be, I've never seen compromise on this issue when it comes to DEI offices and hiring well-paid people to run them.

- Yeah, exactly.

I mean, this is one of those things that's become this national debate, and people are viewing it different ways.

So we've sort of gotten away from, you know, what did these offices on the campuses actually do?

And did they do anything that, you know, was in any way harmful to the campus climate?

It's more this broader national issue of DEI.

Is this good or a bad type of program?

And so I think we're gonna see partisan divide continue on this, and until now, this particular issue this week got tied up with the campus protests by diverting those resources at the UNC Chapel Hill level to fund campus police directly in response to what the trustees believe to be a need for additional public safety funding in wake of the protests.

So I mean, we're hitting all the culture wars here at this point.

- And being an election year, Michael, you have to say, they had their excuse to shift money towards public safety.

There was a tent city on the Chapel Hill campus, and they said, "That's why we're doing it."

- Yeah, we can't possibly address multiple problems at once.

We have to take money from one to address another.

I think it's odd to frame the idea of exclusion, of welcoming other people to the table is somehow a threat to the people who are already there.

I think that's odd, but the other thing is the DEI offices at UNC, they funded scholarships for low income, as Representative Cervania was talking about.

The diversity is not just about race.

It's about low income folks being able to come to the thing.

These are programs that the chancellor has celebrated, the scholarship programs.

And so to defund all of DEI offices, that takes money from the scholarships.

What's gonna happen to those kids?

- All right, the State House and Senate will iron out differences, but it's expected they will approve requirements that sheriffs and law enforcement cooperate with federal immigration officials soon.

The legislation would require local law enforcement agencies to hold suspected undocumented immigrants if federal agents request it.

Those requests are called detainers.

This is a very simplified explanation of this policy, but the bill would allow people also to report up to the state attorney general if local law enforcement chooses to ignore this law should it pass and survive, let's just say a veto, I mean- - It's almost certain to happen.

You know, this is a bill that they've passed, I think, several sessions now.

The difference now is that Republicans have a veto proof majority.

So I think what's gonna happen is eventually, the House takes of this bill in some form, goes to the governor, you get a veto, and then you probably get a fairly quick override, and this becomes law after many years of Republicans trying to pass this.

- Senator Sawrey, on this issue, are most sheriffs, or you have a lot of blow back is why the state law is needed, or is it just a few sheriffs, a few police departments or a lot of 'em?

It's not wanting to cooperate with ICE, I should say.

- I think prior to 2018, every sheriff in North Carolina was cooperating with ICE.

In 2018, for whatever reason, political or not, that process slowed down or stopped.

So this is in response to that issue that occurred just several years ago.

It's going to pass, I think it went to conference this past week just to iron out a few details and some of the amendments that were made.

And we fully expect the House and the Senate will pass the conference report, send it to the governor, and then we will promptly override it.

- Representative, what do you think about this particular, any room in there for negotiation?

Could the Republicans put anything in legislation that would make you at least acceptable to you?

That law enforcement work with federal immigration?

- They work with federal immigration.

I get concerned in that due process is not served and that trust in law enforcement gets diminished because there are arrests can be made with not full disposition if a person is guilty or not, if in fact that ICE is called in the front end of that, there might be situations to where in most situations that they would, the suspect would be deported first before their day in court has been done.

That ends up being that the person who's the victim doesn't get their justice served in what was done to them.

I'm gonna go backwards a little bit and say I've been stopped by a deputy on the side of the road by the blueprint in Arizona of Sheriff Arpaio when it comes to this.

I was born in America and I am an American citizen, but because I was suspected of doing a crime, I was pulled over and even profusely saying, I'm born in America of a naval office person, veteran, veteran administration for another 20 years, after the 24 years, he still didn't believe me and kept me on the side of the road for three hours.

Now, am I supposed to be carrying my passport?

Like I could defend myself, but how about others who may not have that ability to, this again, is a law that's very confusing, confusing for citizens, non-citizens, immigrants here who are legally too, and our sheriffs are still also confused on how to enforce this.

I think it's dangerous.

It actually is counterintuitive about actually making a distrust with law enforcement.

So you cannot serve enforcement and law in cooperation.

I think it's a dangerous thing.

It's unfortunate.

- Mike, it's a state law that on the surface appears to demand local law enforcement follow the law.

Is that, overly simplified, but yeah right.

- I think so, but it also, I mean, it seems to be because the sheriffs, and it wasn't a large number, the sheriffs who were using their judgment to push back against what they thought wasn't right in those circumstances, and it takes that power away from them.

I think that the, again, with these, it's, you know, who is the bill targeting and who isn't it protecting?

And I think that yes, very violent folks who do awful things and who are arrested, I mean, like this, if this helps, that process goes smoother, I think everyone, probably most people would be okay with that.

But the fact that of the people who aren't doing anything wrong at all are, are just trying to live their lives getting caught up in this, I think that's the danger.

And I don't know that the bill takes that into account.

- I got about 30 seconds.

- Sure.

And I just wanna reiterate.

It was only a few people and this only does apply to the most violent offenders.

It's not about traffic stops or things like that.

These are two serious violent offenders in North Carolina.

- All right, well heavy show today.

You guys need to pass some legislation that gets us all on board or how about a summer vacation finish up by June 30th, pass a budget then go home.

- Yes, give me a summer vacation, please.

Thank you.

- That's right.

You know, the reporters are just as tied to Raleigh as the legislators are.

- I can't wait for them to be done for the year.

And I can relax a little.

- Colin, thank you for being on the show.

Senator, Representative Mike, thank you all.

It's been a great topic.

Thank you for watching.

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

We'll read every email.

Thank you for watching.

I'm Kelly McCullen and we'll see you next week.

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