- [Announcer] Election day across North Carolina test drives new elections laws, and the state Board of Education passes new rules for parents hoping to enforce the parents' Bill of Rights.

This is "State Lines."

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[uplifting music] - Hello, everyone.

Welcome to "State Lines."

I'm Kelly McCullen.

We've got a great panel today.

Joining me to my right, Mitch Coka of the John Locke Foundation, democratic Senator Mike Woodard of Durham County.

To his right, Republican representative Matthew Winslow of Franklin and Grandville Counties.

And in seat four, NC Free, Anna Bevin Graveley joins us.

Hello, everyone.

It's been a busy week.

- Good morning.

- It's election week.

I know not many people voted, but it was local races statewide this week.

Ballots were cast over in Charlotte.

The mayor was reelected chapel here in Hill and Durham filled mayoral seats.

Elections were held in 86 North Carolina Countys.

New photo ID requirements were in effect for voters.

The October 2023 local elections were reportedly smooth in terms of voter having ID cards.

So last month went well.

Voters, you'll next engage in the March, 2024 primary, and then lo and behold, Mitch, the 2024 general elections, test drive, warm up, or was turnout so low.

We really don't know if we have a problem with these new state elections laws.

- Well, we really don't.

I mean, it's a very different animal.

The municipal elections versus the big elections, especially big presidential election, which is even bigger than what we saw in 2022.

The big things that stand out to me from the elections this week, if you look at the biggest city, Charlotte, which was the biggest city that had an election by Lyles the mayor, not much problem getting reelected.

Huge school bond passes despite the fact there was some opposition from some people saying, hey, you know, we like the schools, but maybe this is too big and you ought to bite off a little bit smaller chunk.

That really didn't come into play.

It ended up being about two to one in favor of the bond.

The one Republican who had a major contested race had to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to barely win his seat in what was otherwise a good night for Democrats.

Voter ID seems to have worked out pretty well, although to the critic's argument, it's very different in this type of year than it will be when less engaged voters are going to be involved in 2024.

And then the other thing that really struck me is North Carolina had a much quieter night than you saw in many other states, and that's largely because we don't have citizen initiatives and things that are on the ballots like we had in other states that really drew people out there.

- Senator, what's the difference in a local race when you're running on a ballot with presidential contenders?

- Well, you sort of get lost, I think.

And, you know, you're gonna be the last thing on there because you're nonpartisan.

With the exception, notable exception of Charlotte, all of our local races are nonpartisan.

So, you know, we've seen this, I guess a couple of times now where some of our bigger cities, Raleigh, for instance, has moved to presidential years to even numbered years.

So, we're still, I think, trying to feel our way through that.

But yeah, putting those municipal races in the even numbered years gets, I think they get a little bit lost and it's gonna cost a lot more because you're trying to compete for media attention and having to pay those rates that TV, commercial TV stations charge.

- You were telling us beforehand - That it was pretty good night for Democrats.

- Yeah, I, you know, I think, you know, the Democratic Party has really made an effort through the party's new chairman, Anderson Clayton, to really compete in these local races, even though they are non-partisan.

And so Democrats had good results across the state.

Big cities flipping the high point mayor's seat.

Now all of the 10 biggest cities in North Carolina are led by democratic mayors.

No surprise in Durham and Raleigh, places like that.

But now high point, when you move out to some of the suburbs like Huntersville, Clayton, Lewisburg, more Democrats either now are full control like Huntersville or elected more Democrats to these suburban towns.

And even in rural communities like Marsh Hill, Kulimi, Marshall, Winterville, now have all democratic city and town councils.

- Great night for Democrats, representative Winslow.

I'm sure you have a different opinion on that.

A lot of small town races out there.

How do you analyze statewide the local races?

- Well, I think Mike had it right.

I mean, it's engagement.

It's who's participating in the elections.

We did have in, I guess in our local races, we had a mixed bag.

We had some areas that were like Lewisburg that you had Democrats that traditionally have won those areas.

And we have some other areas where you had some seats that flipped or stayed pretty much you knew who was gonna win.

We did have an exciting race in our Frankton mayor's race separated by three votes.

So everybody's looking for the final count on that to make sure.

But that tells you when you go to vote, you know, every vote matters when you get down to three, so.

- Anna Beavon.

- Yeah, I mean, without a doubt.

I think one thing that you said, Senator, that stood out to me is the challenge of being in an even year and those races being more expensive, further down the ballot.

But I wonder if the trade off is there in some way if for a higher turnout, 'cause I think many people woke up the next day and were like, 'oh, we had elections."

- And that's unfortunate, but we're all like geared toward the 2024 election or the even year election.

And so I'm wondering if turnout would probably be a nice trade-off despite the price.

- Well, I was on a ballot this fall, as most of you probably know.

What I did with my summer vacation was tried to run for mayor.

And so we were working very hard to get the turnout because that's, you know, where we thought our path to victory was to get more voters out, and we really struggled to get people interested in the race and to come out and vote.

- Even in a place like Durham that has these odd year elections all the time.

I'm guessing you ran into some people who just said, oh, there's an election this year?

- Oh yeah.

- I thought it's all in 2024.

- Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

- Is, on a local race, is it more about getting voters to turn out with low turnout percentages to support you or do candidates generate that anti candidate response and that generates turnout in a local race?

I think Donald Trump brought lots of people out for presidential race that supported him and more that didn't.

How does it work locally?

Is it just more about getting your base to turn out for you?

- Yeah, I think it's trying to get the voters you target or you think are gonna resonate with your issues.

Because remember, these are, at the end, Tip O'Neill was right.

All politics is local and these come down to local issues, hyper-local issues, even.

I mean, one of the big issues in the Durham race was annexation, development, growth, the environment in Southeast Durham, next to RTP, that was a pretty big issue.

Very hyper-local and that was one of the battleground areas in this election.

So it's still comes down to local issues.

- Does this get down to momentum for 2024, Representative Winslow, or did you say this was the local races of this year, we'll worry about next year, next year?

Much less the primary in a few months.

- Yeah, I wouldn't call it momentum for much.

I mean, I saw some elections in towns that were, had 10 people show up for the to vote, you know?

So it's not a whole lot of momentum when you're getting less than 5 and 10% of the population to show up, so.

- Senator, you can't laugh at the remark and not come back- - No, no, no.

- With the last word.

- Well, I think what this does is, and this has been part of the Democratic party strategy, is you build a base, you build your bench.

So when, yeah, and look at a race I was watching in the town of Milton where it was 32 to 20, was the mayor's race.

Okay.

Yeah, you're not gonna build a lot of momentum there, but when you see races in counties like New Hanover, Northern Mecklenburg, Caberas, when you start to see those counties that are traditional battlegrounds in the partisan races, you know, the idea, I think of the Democratic party Chairwoman Anderson Clayton has been saying is, let's build our bench.

And we build our bench by electing city council members, school board members, county commissioners.

- One more... Go ahead.

- I was gonna say, I think there's also something to the point of the practice of campaigning.

Many people are first, that are first time candidates, it's very eye-opening for them in a lot of ways.

And they learn things about the process and how to make the ask and how to assemble a team.

What should I have spent money on that I didn't?

Should I have gotten more yard signs?

Should I have gotten fewer yard signs?

And so I think that is, that speaks to the bench statement that you were talking about.

- Yeah.

It's learning the nuts and bolts in these odd number years in smaller races, that prepares the candidate, the party, your supporters to, for these folks to move.

- And it also builds the resume.

So if you're running for a higher office, you can say, I'm not just the person who suddenly got interested in politics.

I was a mayor, I was a council member, I was a school board member.

We have a US senator who only a few short years before being a senator was on a school board.

- That's right.

- And he basically went from there to the house to speaker to senator.

- That's right.

- Do you lose the ability to blame it on the other person once you grab that mayoral seat?

You run as you're gonna go, stick it to 'em, then you get in that position of power.

What does that do to your dynamic as a person who wins in office, you ran against someone, now you're in that position.

So how does that play once you get into a power, whether you're a senator or a representative or even a mayor?

- Well, mayor's very different in that- - You're the chief executive - For, well, for almost all of our communities, maybe even all, you're in the council manager form of government where the manager is the person who really runs the local government.

And the mayor in most respects is one vote on a council.

And so that's a little bit different than say, being the governor where you are the chief executive.

- Got it.

Well, the State Board of Education is establishing some new rules for parents who wish to challenge their kids' schools under this new Parent's Bill of Rights bill or law, schools will be charged, according to the state, $200 an hour for legal representation at every state hearing called to address claims under the Parent's Bill of Rights.

The state law will require parents to first notify their local school board if they believe their rights are being compromised.

And should a local board not address the matter, ultimately the parent can ask for an appeals hearing at the state board level.

It's very clear this policy will not include challenges to library books or fighting the bans or in favor of the bans, Senator Woodard.

So emergency decree comes out, this is how we're gonna do this.

Parents can, I guess, engage now.

- Sure, sure.

- How's this gonna work?

- I don't think we know yet.

My grandmother was famous in Eastern Wilson County for making a great poundcake.

And even some days her poundcake would come out and it hadn't quite baked all the way through, and there'd be a little bit of batter that didn't quite get done and grandma called that a sad streak in her cake.

Well, Senate Bill 49, which was, which introduced the parents' Bill of Rights, has some sad streaks in there I think.

They weren't quite, the bill wasn't quite fully baked and we're seeing it now.

Superintendent Truitt had to come back and said, delay this till January 1st.

She and the state board have expressed frustration with how this is being implemented.

That one of board members call it a frustrating exercise in futility for all involved.

And now local boards are under the gun to meet this January 1st deadline.

So what we've seen, even as recently as last night in Carter Red County, Monday night in Transylvania County is school boards are struggling with how they're gonna implement this parent's Bill of Rights.

And it's really putting a lot of pressure and I think is a frustrating exercise for these local school boards.

- Representative Winslow, many parents, a lot of your constituents support the parents' Bill of Rights.

They're, - Absolutely, I mean, there's two sides of this debate, but parents are frustrated with local school boards.

You've seen it, whether it's genned up or not.

I don't know.

I don't go to the school board meetings.

Your take on this, do you feel pity or empathy for school boards and for superintendents and principals who face a January 1st deadline?

- Well, frankly, I like the little batter that's not cooked in the pancake.

So when my grandmother, I would sneak in the house and I would slam the door and make it fall.

That was my favorite part.

- So you get a little bit of that?

That was my favorite part.

I gotcha.

I gotcha.

- So, you know, the friction always helps us make us better, right?

There's no question about it.

If we all agreed on everything, what a boring world this would be.

You know what, being on this side as an elected official, I have empathy for the school board members because they are having to implement a lot of things.

They are juggling a lot of issues, social issues, along with trying to teach our children.

And so, but parents as a whole are reengaging and they need a process to say, what are my rights?

And that's what the Parents' Bill of Rights does.

And so we're gonna have a little friction getting there and everyone understanding what does it mean and what are my rights, but putting ultimately, our children have, our parents have the right to know what their children are being taught or what the, what is coming down the line in the future, you know?

And then are there any social issues that are dealing with, that our kids are dealing with in school?

And so having this process in place, and there are, and lemme get this across board, most school boards are in favor of giving information to parents, right?

The school boards that want to collect data and keep the data and keep the parents out because we know it's better for them is not what, is not the school district or the school districts that we're trying to address and make sure that those schools are providing information to parents.

- Yeah, I, you say parents re-engage.

I think this is, I view this as an avenue for parents to just engage differently or new pathways to be able to be more involved in their kids' lives.

And ultimately, that's, we're a huge trend across the board since Covid.

We've said that phrase a ton since Covid, blah, blah, blah, but in this case, I have many, many mom friends that lots and lots of conversations about are about schools and picking the right school and the administration of the school counts as part of that decision.

The overall environment matters.

And so this, yes, I agree there'll be, there'll definitely be friction in trying to figure out how to do this right.

But ultimately I think it's gonna be really beneficial for parents and for schools.

- This is one of those cases where you have, and this happens from folks on both sides of the aisle, kind of the slogan versus the reality.

So parents' Bill of Rights, almost everyone should support the notion that parents should know what's going on in the schools, know what's going on with their kids, but then the devil's in the details.

And we found that some of these details people weren't really expecting or they don't exactly know how they're supposed to deal with it, and that's why we got this friction that we've been talking about.

- But Kelly's lead in touched on this, I think is that the procedures for the hearing, if a parent feels they've, their rights have not been met by their local school board, their principal, whoever the procedures for the hearing are, I think confusing.

They're open to interpretation.

That's what, remember we have 115 school boards in North Carolina.

This isn't five or 10 or 50, this is 115 different local elected boards who've gotta sort through this.

But the procedures are confusing for a lot of folks.

I don't think the language in the law was clear.

It gets back to my half-baked idea.

It doesn't define what sexual activity or sexuality is one of the issues that's in this bill.

And with the hearing officer, these school boards are gonna be on the hook to pay a hearing officer $200 an hour to listen to the grievance.

- The hearing officer.

- Yeah, the hearing officer has to be a licensed attorney, a member of the state bar, but they get $200 an hour.

I think parents are concerned about curriculum and what's going on in their kids' school, but they're also concerned about getting the school bus running on time and the leaky roof in my kids' classroom and the athletic equipment or the playground that my kids are playing on too.

- How many challenges or claims do you think are gonna come out as soon as this opens.

Like open the gates, how many do you think is gonna happen?

- I think that's a good question because we've heard from some advocacy groups who said they're gonna be paying attention to this on both sides of this issue.

We've heard that there's likely to be Title IX challenges on this under the federal Title IX statutes.

So I think these school boards are gonna be facing a whole lot of litigation and these hearings where they're paying 200 bucks an hour.

- But, the truth is, I mean, why even have to go down the avenue?

Why not just have fair and openness in what we provide as education to our children.

We're teaching them math, science, reading, literature.

Why should it be so difficult to have to have, here's the information we're providing and we're educating your child?

- But most schools are doing that now.

I mean, most of the things-- - Most.

See, you touched on it.

Most.

You're right.

- But no, most of the things I think that were in Senate Bill 49 are already being provided to parents now.

And so just to me it gets back to a lot of the procedural things and what are we gonna require these school boards, principals, teachers to do.

- For those that support the law and those who voted for it, which expectation should be placed on the parent to trust this process from the local school board level to the state board.

You could see a group getting a group of parents together and it's overwhelming, the system.

These are hearings, it's not easy to drive into Raleigh if you're not from Raleigh.

So what can we expect from parents and what would you ask of parents who feel they've been wronged versus they were just giving a contrary opinion at the local school board level?

- Well, growing up I was raised by a single mother.

I oldest of all the kids and my mother, her engagement was, did you do your homework?

How'd you do on your test?

And then when a report card came in at the end of the semester, did you do good or not?

Is it time to get a whooping and get grounded and do better for next time?

That was the cycle.

And so that was long before the internet or you posted your grades online and all that kind of stuff.

So my mother who worked very hard, worked three jobs taking care of all the kids, always was trying to be engaged, but could only be engaged at a certain level.

Now, you should be able to dial in, you know what your kids are getting taught, you know what the grades are.

My son, he was struggling over his math test coming up and I knew within 30 minutes after the test I could log online and see exactly what he made.

So I think the engagement is there and just making sure the information's available, easily available to our parents.

- All right.

- That is so stressful as a kid.

- I know.

- Oh my gosh!

[laughs] - Your mama, my mama were engaged parents who did that.

And I think we would all agree it is hard to legislate mandate good parenting one, but two, there's some provisions of this that are a little scary to me.

I tutor in an elementary school in Durham and one of the kids that I tutor's name is Antonio, but he wants to be called Bubba.

All of his friends call him Bubba.

I call him Bubba.

The teacher calls him Bubba.

But under this law, does the teacher have to let the parent know that he wants a different name?

We don't know.

You see?

Because sometimes it's the gender questions but it says if the kid wants to go by another name, is it the responsibility of that teacher to pick up and call Bubba's mom and say he wants to be Bubba at school?

- Are you asking that question?

Huh?

- I am asking that question.

I want an answer.

- Well, we gotta see how the law plays out.

Right now it's a process.

- Yeah, I think that's right.

- And it's an emergency.

They have put emergency rules in so parents can get started should they wanna charge the school board.

- But I suspect, I think Matthew and I would probably agree.

I would hope when the legislature comes back for the short session, that we will have had at least a semester's worth of anecdotes.

I don't know what kind of data we'd collect, but that we can take a look at this.

'Cause like I said, back to grandma's pound cake, I think there's some sad streaks that we need to take a look at.

It's a little half baked and we need to do a little more work on this.

- And I'm guessing mama wants to know that he wants to be Bubba.

[group chuckling] - Well, let's pivot.

It's for coming up on primary season.

The winter is upon us.

Governor Roy Cooper's out there giving speeches and he's saying recent Republican enacted laws could hurt North Carolina's business climate.

The governor spoke to an audience seven, eight days ago at a sustainable energy conference.

Mr. Cooper will argue the scale back abortion limits, other social legislation and education funding are sending the wrong messages to businesses and families who might choose to relocate here.

Senate Republicans were quick to fire back with a poll showing, Anna Beavon, 57% of employees want their companies to stay out of politics.

Leave that in the rear view mirror.

So, we're getting into political speeches now.

- Yeah, it's starting up.

Hearing this and hearing Governor Cooper's speech, I am really struck by, I feel like he's describing two different states.

North Carolina has gotten top list, top listing for CNBC, business climate, Alec, "Site Selection" magazine.

We continue to top lists talking about our business climate and talking about how great and how friendly it is.

And so I think at one level, yes, we wanna stay at the top, but eventually we're not gonna be at the top 'cause we want other states to continue to grow.

But for now, I don't see that as a huge crisis.

In raising the red flag, in talking about how there's concerns that he has, I think it's a little premature.

- Representative Winslow.

Speechifying now, so.

He's calling you out, in at least one one twentieth.

- Well, I think the Republicans have done a very good job with the state, and getting us in the business climate we're in now.

Low taxes, low regulations, quick to market when new businesses come here to the state, and I think it's odd that when Cooper's out flying to Japan, and trying to bring new business to North Carolina but comes home and bad mouths his very state that he wants to try to promote.

It's like, you know, when you have fights with your family, you keep it inside the house.

You don't come outside and start, you know, sharing all your dirty business.

And so, I think with business climate as well as we're doing here, I don't think he should be out, you know, touting it's gonna hurt businesses.

- [Kelly] Who was Governor Cooper speaking to at that speech?

- I hope he was talking to some of the business leaders who have spoken up and heard this.

Look, I was there for HB2, and then the following HB142, and we tried to repair some of the damage.

We lost things because of HB2, and I do think it is a red flag of sorts.

You can go back and look at the CNBC rankings and, you know, tax policy regulation.

We're always at the top.

But when it comes to those social issues, which is one of the factors that figures into that, we're somewhere down in the thirties, so when we fall outta that top spot, that's gonna be one of the drag anchors that's gonna pull us outta that top ranking.

And it matters to a number of these businesses, particularly the new economy kinds of businesses, I think we would all like to attract, not just in the urban areas, but all across the state.

- [Kelly] Mitch?

- You asked about his audience, part of the audience is probably also the National Democratic Party.

We know that Governor Cooper's gonna be governor for another year, and then he'll have to find something else to do, and if he wants to be a continued political player, that means he has to appeal to people who are Democrats, who are not just North Carolina Democrats, so I'm guessing that's at least part of his audit.

- I wanna come right back to you, Mitch, Beth Wood indictment, the state auditor, grand jury, eight month investigation, changing topics completely, for alleged misuse of a state vehicle.

I've got about 90 seconds.

What's your take on this, this issue between the Wake County DA grand juries and the state auditor, who is not seeking reelection?

- Yeah, to me, the most interesting thing was the timing, because this came out right after we learned that Beth Wood was not going to run for reelection.

I'm not a prosecutor, so I don't know if it would normally take this long to come up with that sort of charge.

Also, many of the people who have been talking about this issue have said, "They can't do that?

They can't drive their car, to take care of normal business?"

And certainly other people are doing this and not getting charged with it.

So I think that's one of the questions about this.

- Senator Woodard.

- This is a hard one because I'm good friends with the auditor.

I think she has been a great public servant for this state, I'm not sure how the investigation came about.

I think Mitch is right.

I think a lot of folks are driving state cars, or thinking twice about going to the barbershop or the dentist, but I just wanna thank the auditor- - In general?

In general, thinking twice about it, or with their cars?

- You got 15 seconds, Representative.

- It's unfortunate, you know, as soon as I got in legislature, Beth Wood is somebody that's nonpartisan across, you know, Democrats, Republicans, was well respected for the job she did, worked very well in the LGC, and so it is unfortunate that we're having to go through this now.

- Anna Bev, in 10 seconds.

- Yeah, I'm one of the people who learned that you can't really do that in your car.

- There you go.

- Yeah.

- Thank you panelists for a great conversation.

- Absolutely.

- A lot of topics we've touched on this week.

Thank you for watching.

If you have thoughts or opinions about "State Lines", many of you do, email us, statelines@pbsnc.org.

I'm Kelly McCullen, thanks for watching, see you next time.

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