- [Kelly] The court battles between Governor Josh Stein and legislative Republican leaders continues this week and school calendar flexibility passes the Senate.

But what are its chances in the House?

This is "State Lines."

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

I'm Kelly McCullen.

We have a great panel today.

First of all, Kimberly Reynolds of Maven Strategies right here to my right.

Hello, Kimberly.

- Hello.

- [Kelly] Representative Ray Pickett of Alleghany, Ashe, and Watauga counties debuts on "State Lines."

All your friends are watching.

- I hope so.

- [Kelly] Good to have you on the show.

- Thank you, pleasure to be here.

- [Kelly] Welcome to "State Lines."

Representative Sarah Crawford represents Wake County.

She's representing the Democrats today.

- Yep.

- [Kelly] Maybe.

- Maybe.

- [Kelly] Nick Craig.

"Carolina Journal", radio host, "Nick Craig Show" man of many media platforms.

- Good morning.

- Good to see you, Nick.

- Likewise.

- All right, well we got a lot of topics to get to, so let's get to them.

This week, North Carolina's Court of Appeals said Republican efforts to shift board appointments from Josh Stein to Council of State members can proceed.

The ruling cleared the way for state auditor Dave Boliek to quickly make three appointments to the State Board of Elections this week.

That 3-2 Democratic majority became a 3-2 Republican majority May 1st.

Governor Stein will appeal this ruling to the state Supreme Court.

And lesser down in the stories, you don't hear as much about it, Brad Briner, the treasurer, he got one appointment to the State Utilities Commission in that December law change.

And Kimberly, he filled that one as well.

These guys didn't waste any time taking that little, well, in Boliek's case, a lot of power handed to him May 1st.

So what happens next?

- Well, I mean, I think it's important before you go to what's next is how we got here.

And they have been trying to take control of the State Board of Elections for many, many years.

I think this is the fourth or fifth attempt.

Four other times, the courts have ruled this unconstitutional and ruled in favor of the Democratic governor.

You also had this on the ballot in 2018, and 60% of voters ruled not to give that power or not to take that power away from the governor.

So I just think we need to know, this has been in their sights for a very long time.

And I think it's interesting that they looked around and they saw the races they had won and they gave it to an auditor who was elected by the people to control our finances, to look at agencies and make sure we're being fiscally responsible.

And now we've handed him the State Board of Elections.

So I do think that it's just, this has been in place for a century and I just think it's just really alarming that they are trying to do this and take this away from the governor.

And so I think he's right to continue appealing this and doing that.

And then I think people are questioning the state treasurer's appointment to the person, to the utilities regulation given his relationship and his long history with the environment and the role of his wife and all of these things.

So I think we are not done with people asking questions and we're certainly not done with the court case.

And most importantly, the timing of this one for the State Board of Elections, when Justice Riggs' case has not been settled and the State Board is right in the middle of that case.

And now we've handed that to Republicans.

I think that voters should be very concerned about that.

- Representative Pickett, Republicans said, we've heard Pat Ryan, our analyst come on, he worked for Phil Berger, said for years we wanted a non, well, I guess a partisan balance on the elections board.

It never could happen, Democrats wouldn't play ball on that.

So they just go ahead and do what they think's constitutional and give Dave Boliek power over that elections board.

And here we are.

- Yes, we are.

I believe there has been some irregularities in our voting, and I hope that this is going to help alleviate that.

We have been trying a long time to get a little bit more balance on our board of elections.

So I think we're moving in the right direction.

Time will tell what the court says.

- Well, if you're a Republican, of course we're moving in the right direction.

- I don't know if balance is the word I would use.

- Yeah, we all gotta play by our rules.

You thought it was a good move.

May 1st was, it was December to May 1st that the state law had at five months to marinate.

It's almost at the state Supreme Court level, do you think it's predictable to state Supreme Court how this ruling will be to settle this issue?

- I never wanna predict on court cases 'cause I know Republicans do have control on the state Supreme Court, but they are judges and they hopefully look at the law and decide correctly.

But I don't like to predict court cases.

- Representative Crawford, it's a long running battle.

This legislative versus executive branch goes back to the McCrory administration.

They, it's not really, it's about the party, yes.

It's also about the offices.

- Yeah, absolutely.

I mean this is continued tug of war between the legislature and the governor's office or the executive branch.

And you know, I think the thing, just back to what Kimberly mentioned about how we got here, you know, this provision to take this power away from the governor was in this bill that we passed or overrode the governor's veto on, not me, but the legislature overrode the governor's veto on this bill that took power away and that power grab was nestled in this hurricane relief bill.

It was called a hurricane relief bill, but it had this huge power grab.

And so I think, you know, I think again, this is just, it's been unconstitutional for many years leading up to this, and I think, you know, we're setting a bad precedent saying like, hey kids, if you can't win the game, go ahead and change the rules.

And that's just not how we should be doing things in North Carolina.

- Nick constitutionally, it's a very serious issue regardless of whether you have a Democrat, Republican governor and the makeup of the general assembly.

But this isn't an issue that you're gonna sit around the kitchen table with your family and discuss gubernatorial appointment power.

So why should North Carolinians even care what Republicans do and what Stein does in response?

- Well, I think there has been, to the previous point made, there have been some serious questions about how the Board of Elections has operated over the past couple of election cycles.

Yes, there have been previous court cases from changes with the general assembly.

But the question at hand really here is do the other elected council of state members, including state auditor Dave Bullock, do they have executive authority within North Carolina?

The state constitution seems to indicate that.

The Appeals Court ruled unanimously that he in fact does.

And the state constitution also indicates that the General Assembly has the right to dole out that executive authority to various other elected council of state members, which is what they did back in December.

Followed all the process.

It went to Governor Roy Cooper's desk.

He vetoed it.

The GA overwrote it.

It's now law whether we like it or not.

- The state senate has approved legislation to allow public school districts to start their school academic years a bit earlier in the fall.

If the House approves, and it's still a long way to go.

School districts could start school one week earlier in August.

So if you're a family, your student would take end of semester tests likely before the December holiday break, but it removes one week from tourism season for North Carolina families, Representative Crawford.

So do we chase the grade, or do we chase the money with summer vacation being shortened in the name of good teaching?

- Well, look, I think we should always do everything we can in the name of good teaching, good public education in particular.

But I think, you know, we've seen a lot of these school calendar flexibility bills over the years and most of the time, what we've seen is these kind of one-off where a school district needs something adjusted here and there.

And so we'll do this.

I think, you know, a lot of people may not know that the school calendars are set by state law.

I don't know if a lot of people know that.

We certainly all know that here, but it's set by state law.

So if school wants to do something different, they actually have to come ask the legislature to please let us do something different.

So these school calendar flexibility bills that we are seeing, I think is a step in the right direction to make sure that we give some more local control over school districts.

And so the Senate bill that passed through the chamber this week, it does allow schools to start one week earlier in exchange for two or three weeks, actually at the end of the year.

So actually ending school a little bit before Memorial Day, which is kind of interesting to think about.

And how does that shape tourism industry?

There are some concerning things in this bill that I think are worth mentioning.

So the bill requires Department of Public Instruction to report to the general assembly schools that are in compliance, out of compliance.

And if a school is out of compliance, a school district is out of compliance, then funding can be withheld.

And it even gives the provision that the general assembly can choose to take over control of that school district.

Which raises a lot of flags for me about government overreach, about whether or not we want the general assembly in there making decisions about local school leaders.

It just doesn't seem like the right step.

There's a House version of the bill.

I think it's House Bill 121.

It's a much cleaner version of the bill.

So I'm hopeful that we can get our bill through and as a former senator, I'll just say, leave it up to the Senate to muck things up.

[group chuckling] - Representative Pickett, it's summer vacation.

There's teeth, there's teeth in this bill that will punish local school districts if they don't follow state school calendar laws in the future.

I can't imagine a local school district would accidentally not follow the state law with the school calendar.

- I don't think it'll be, excuse me, accidental.

And previously the school calendar law didn't have any teeth in it.

If they did decide not to follow it, there was nothing really could be done to 'em.

I don't know, I know the House Bill 121, I think pretty much just gives each local school district the flexibility to do whatever they want to.

That may be taken a little too far, I think.

I think maybe we need some parameters, but like in my district, we have a lot of winter weather, so we have to account for that.

And we would like to be able to start a little earlier.

We average about 11 to 14 days that we miss on an average year.

- Snow days?

- Yes.

It could be worse in bad weather years, but that's about the average.

So we would like a little bit of flexibility locally.

And I think we can work with the Senate and come up with a good bill that sort of serves across the state.

'Cause we don't want every district having their own calendar.

- Kimberly, uh oh, if you're a lobbyist, Democrats and Republicans saying, you know, put a little more local power behind local decisions.

- Well, I think it's because this is children, it's school, it's local folks seem to know what's best for their kids.

I don't think there's anything nefarious that comes.

This is not somebody doing a gotcha.

This is people coming together trying to do what is best for kids.

And the tourism industry also has a play and they've been fighting about this for 20 years.

And so I think the fact, I do not like some of those poison pills in that Senate bill, but the fact that they're coming together, they're having conversations.

And I think at the end of the day, they need to get one of 'em over and crossover and then they'll dig in.

And I hope that it's something good for kids and that gives folks some flexibility.

And makes people feel like they've won something without those really harsh punishments.

Because I don't think anything's, they're not doing it.

- Why can't the school districts just follow the law as their legislators have passed it, whether it's a Democrat or Republican bill?

What would the school districts think to be resistant?

- Well, I don't think, I think they're trying to in good faith follow the law.

But as we talked about on the show before.

You also are forcing kids to retain information all through their Christmas break and come back and take their exams.

And so those are the kind of things and the reasons why they want the flexibility and maybe your district because of snow day.

So again, I think they're just trying to make reasonable sound decisions with the children at the center.

- Political types are gonna always go for the children.

I saw it when I first came and...

But this is big money.

Millions, probably maybe a billion dollars in impact.

If you just shorten by one week, you take millions of North Carolina families out of the summer tourism season.

How do you balance it?

- It's a big issue, obviously in the eastern half of the state where summer tourism is a big deal.

And you do have to balance that.

And I think that's what legislators are doing in the general assembly.

But to the point on whether there's teeth or not in this bill.

Kelly, there's multiple school districts this year that are operating out of compliance with state law.

There's no teeth in the current legislation.

They're doing whatever they want.

They are actively defying state law.

And so while you don't want to penalize school districts for not following the law, and some have already indicated they will anyway, I feel like it's appropriate for lawmakers to step in and say, "We're gonna actually put some teeth in this to hold you accountable to the state laws that we pass and are put in place here in North Carolina."

- I wanna squeeze in one more bill from Senator Mike Lee out in New Hanover County.

He's pushing a study to explore new ways for students to earn their high school diplomas.

Well, none of us are experts on this bill.

We're waiting to see how it plays out, but I wanna talk about it.

- Woo.

- I know, right?

So if you're a student, remember you go to kindergarten through 12th grade, takes you 13 years to get a diploma.

13 years, not a day shorter.

Once you're in college, you earn your degree by completing course credit hours, which aren't determined by how long you sit in class.

You can go three years or seven years in some cases to get a bachelor's degree.

Senator Lee's ideas to create that study committee, Representative Crawford explore new ways of teaching our kids based on their ability and skills.

Maybe separate that from the need that you just sit in a classroom for 13 years.

If you need more time, you get it, it seems.

But if you're brilliant, you can get outta school early with a diploma and meet your course load, congratulations.

- Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

So thank you for mentioning that none of us are experts- - We're not experts.

- So I'm not gonna break down all the components to it, but I did, you know, I had a good conversation last night with Senator Lee about his bill and really innovative thinking here.

And I think this really just kind of shows that we are looking at education differently.

We're looking at how students can be college and career ready when they come out of high school at whatever point that might be.

And really putting students first, rather than just putting this like, "We have to have students in seats and, you know, make those marks and make those numbers."

It really is about putting the students first.

And I think it... You know, you've seen this from the governor as well with his workforce and apprenticeship council.

Just, you know, how can we make sure that students at every level of education are ready for work.

And so I think this is a really interesting idea.

It went through the Senate, Education... Higher Education Committee this week.

I do think that it's probably gonna come to the floor.

And a lot of the provisions in this bill were actually in the Senate's budget also.

- And Representative Pickett, it's an old school term, the Carnegie's came up with this idea and now the Carnegie Foundation is saying, "Hey, let's review what the Carnegie's promoted for public ed way back a hundred years ago.

Is it realistic to expect any study committee could come up with anything that would dislodge what we've been doing for so long?

K through 12 and then you go to four years of college- - I'm not sure if they can...

I'm not sure.

I hope that they do 'cause I have been talking about this for years, that I think we need to look at the way we teach our children, especially at the high school level.

We've been teaching the same way for a long time.

We have many lab schools that our universities have across the state that have tried some innovative new ways that have shown to work.

And I think we need to go to those schools and look at what they're doing and maybe start to implement some of it, I commend Senator Lee, for attempting to do this.

I look forward to working with him and look forward for it to coming over to the House.

- I do wanna say the committee that would be set up would be within the State Department of Public Instruction, but independent of that bureaucracy.

- I have that in my notes.

- Well, go to your cheat sheets and analyze for us.

- Well, I did think that that was interesting and you know, I wish, given that it was a bipartisan bill, and it had both Democratic and Republican sponsors, I'm not sure why they did that.

And if that was really necessary.

I feel like something that has to do with K-12 kids should be handled and overseen by the department that oversees K-12.

But in general, we have a tremendous community college system in North Carolina too.

It's really one of our gems and one of the best in the nation.

And anytime you can partner K-12 with our community college system and figure out how to get kids the skills they need, if that's the choice, and I think that's wonderful.

And I also thought it was interesting that they put a couple of million dollars in here.

So the Learning Collaboratory, is that what it's called?

- Could study.

- Collaboratory.

- Collaboratory could study it and oversee it, 'cause I think sometimes we have new ideas, but we don't do that research piece to make sure that it's working and if it works, how to expand it.

So that was a good sign too.

- Nick, most bills they get filed, they go through, I don't really pick 'em up till they get to the serious stage.

However, you know, this was a creative bill and when I was reading through it, and saw a few Democrats I would not think would wanna change public ed very much, they liked the structure of it.

They'd go, hey, we're at least listening.

This sounds like a good idea.

So is Mike Lee onto something?

- I think so.

And I mean, you look at all of the other innovations that we've dealt with over the last just 40 years.

Just pick an arbitrary number there.

It's amazing, with the advent of technology.

Fortunately a lot of that has come into the K through 12 public education system now, which is phenomenal for students.

But Kelly, going back to your point, the metric is you sit in classroom in kindergarten, you graduate in 12th grade.

That's the metric.

And with all of the advances that we've seen in learning and one thing that we have really picked up over the last couple of years with some of the changes to things like the Opportunity Scholarship Program has been a big push, that not every single child learns the same.

And education is not one size fits all.

And this, as you noted, as was noted with this study committee, simply looking at it and seeing if there's an alternative.

If so, then maybe the state invests some resources.

If not, then maybe we just keep the things the way they are right now.

- And like I said, no ideas are, we're just kind of postulating what might be some of these concepts.

But at least it's got everyone thinking.

It's interesting to see if this will go through.

It sounds like something that would be baked into a final budget resolution.

A couple million bucks on that.

Some stall, some state lawmakers believe productive farmland is under threat.

So a couple of bills are moving that bill supporters believe will address this threat.

First House Bill 729.

What it really does ends in 80% tax break enjoyed by solar panel, solar power companies who manage solar farms.

Supporters argued this week that solar farms are removing fields from food production.

Another bill would ban hostile foreign governments, think North Korea, China, Iran, from buying any additional farmland in the state and no properties within 25 miles of a military base.

That was a tongue twister, Representative Picket.

Let's talk about this solar bill.

I've read both sides of this.

Solar panels aren't eating up a huge percentage of, maybe not even 1% of farmland, but you got the Ag Commissioner, this dire threat of solar panels.

When I drive around these fast growing counties, I see a lot of town homes too.

So how do we, how should we see this debate over saving farmland and all the other things that go into development?

- Well, you're correct.

The number one thing is urban sprawl.

That's what's taken more farmland than anything else.

And this bill has changed a lot in the last couple of weeks, and I'm still not sure where I'm standing on it 'cause I also look at, we're second in the nation in solar.

I mean, we have a lot across the state.

I think it's a great supplement to our other energy producing ways.

But this would also be a big hit if we take this bill and go forward.

It will be a big hit to local governments.

They will be able to get more tax money on that, but on the other side, is it gonna take away the initiative of the energy companies to come in and install some of the solar panels to keep us moving towards some more alternative energies that I think do have a benefit.

So it's a very delicate balancing act between the two.

- What do your constituents want from your three counties?

What do you think, how would they vibe if you were to bring it up?

- Well, in my three counties, we don't have many places to put solar.

[all laughing] - [Female Panelist] You have Christmas trees.

- We have Christmas trees.

- Would you cut down Christmas trees and put in solar panels?

- Nah, because we have too many days that the sun doesn't shine in our area.

Solar doesn't work that well up there.

But in eastern North Carolina it does.

But there are still ways to farm and have solar panels.

There's many places that do it.

Their solar panels are up off the ground, there's cattle that graze underneath them.

So there is a balancing act to both.

So it's something that I've got to do some more thinking on exactly how and what to go forward with this bill is my own personal belief.

- Watch out for that windmill in the middle.

They put that on top of a mountain.

- Yes, they did.

- All right, Representative Crawford, what are we gonna do with solar panels?

Let's talk about, it's a tax bill, and the rhetoric was is it's taking away some farmland, which is absolutely true.

So ... - Some very small, very small.

- But it's taking away farmland and that makes it a noble cause, correct?

- No, it doesn't make it a noble cause.

So what we did back in 2008 to create this program to allow solar companies to really come in and make the investment here was great.

Like my colleague here, Representative Picket said it led to us being a leader in the solar industry.

And the truth is I want to add a number to the urban sprawl.

78% of the land that's lost in farmland is because of development, single family housing development.

So this is really not about protecting farmland.

This is about getting rid of solar, and that is my biggest worry with the bill.

So if you just look at it, if you look at what getting rid of that 80% tax abatement does is it's a 500% tax increase on these solar farms, and it doesn't, if these companies move out of these farms, if they don't renew their leases on this land or they don't renew their contracts, which a lot of them are coming up in the next three or five years, that land is gonna go back to present use value, and counties aren't actually gonna get any more money.

So you know, we're talking about thousands of jobs, billions of dollars in investment, and about a 1,600% increase on taxes that counties receive because these solar companies came in.

And we're keeping farmland in the families.

And so I just think this is a bad bill.

I think it sets a bad precedent for North Carolina.

And I also want to mention that, you know, as the point was made in committee that we have to stop subsidizing industry.

Well, North Carolina subsidizes a lot of industries.

I think I have a list of more than 50 industries that we subsidize, home builders, non-profits, churches, energy materials, recycling facilities, and the list goes on and on.

So I think this bill is a wolf in sheep's clothing.

- What do we do about solar, Nick?

If it takes up less than 1% of farmland, it's still 1% of farmland gone.

It also is an economic play.

Why not just leave solar alone?

- Well, I mean, there's been a lot of discussion over the last couple of years about the Carolina Carbon Plan, which there's been some movement on in the General Assembly this session as it relates to the 2030 midterm goals ahead of the 2050 eventuality of that plan.

When you look at solar, a lot of the question is subsidy, Kelly, and I think many folks on the more conservative side of the aisle would say solar, if it's a great technology, if there's a lot of great things with it, then let those companies come in and bankroll that themselves.

- But don't put it necessarily on a state like North Carolina to subsidize that industry.

And this is a national trend that you're seeing with everything from electric vehicles to solar panels and in offshore wind.

Does government need to be in the business of subsidizing those industries?

- Why can't they just say that then instead of calling it farmland protection?

- I think there's some discussion about, especially as you noted, more in the eastern half of North Carolina, I live in eastern North Carolina, and there are huge swaths of the eastern North Carolina that are now filled with solar panels.

So there is, there's obviously a real risk there that at least that's what lawmakers think in Raleigh and that's what they're calling the legislation.

- So I just wanna make a point though about this idea that the solar companies can bankroll.

So the rates are set by the utilities commission, which we could have a whole 'nother conversation about that.

But they can't just raise their cost and cover this, you know, they came in with this business plan that they were gonna have this abatement, and they are paying, you know, a hundred, you know, a hundred percent of the land tax and then 20% of what the, or a hundred percent of the materials, excuse me, a hundred percent of the installment and then 20% of the land.

And so the counties are getting this revenue and the solar companies can't just increase their cost to cover the cost.

And by the way, Duke Energy has said that if this bill goes through costs to rate payers are likely gonna go up.

- Do you wanna talk about the foreign hostile governments?

Are we, would a state law take care of the communist parties and all this buying up our farmland in North Carolina?

- I- - It sounds popular, you know.

- Well, I mean, I think it's something that we should be aware of.

And it wasn't until recently, I think there's a map out there that shows you the foreign entities that own land- - [Kelly] It does get your attention, doesn't it?

- And you're just like, wow, I did not consider that.

And I think that that should be on our radar, and I think it's something we should be talking about.

And I think we should, you know, take it into consideration and do it now.

The bill I saw was sponsored by Democrats, so we'll see how far that conversation goes.

- I got about 30 seconds.

This is an interesting bill.

All that farmland's already bought.

It's grandfathered in under the law.

How do you, how do we keep farmland in pro-US hands?

- Well, start with the bill that they can't be sold to.

And the house bill actually is 75 miles away.

- That's pretty much the whole state.

Well, thank you so much for being on the show.

Great panel.

Thank you so much.

Great debut, hope you'll come back and see us.

- I would love to.

- Hope you're willing to after this show.

- I, always, Kelly, always.

- Nick, always great to see you.

- Pleasure.

- Better to see you all you folks watching "State Lines".

Email me, statelines@pbsnc.org.

I'm Kelly McCullen, thanks for watching.

I'll see you next time.

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