- [Kelly] Lawmakers approve full funding of school vouchers this school year.

Sheriffs could be required to cooperate with federal immigration officials.

And RFK Junior's name won't be on the state ballot after all.

This is "State Lines."

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[bright music] - Welcome back to "State Lines," everyone.

I'm Kelly McCullen.

Joining me today, some good friends of the show, Dawn Vaughan of the News and Observer, representative Allen Chesser from Nash County joins us.

Senator Mary Wills Bode of Granville and Wake Counties to Allen's right, and former North Carolina Supreme Court Associate Justice Bob Orr making a second appearance on the show.

And you are quite a popular man.

People said they love seeing Bob Orr on this TV show.

- Ratings through the roof.

What more could I ask for?

- Double ratings through the roof.

State legislators convened in Raleigh this week to pass bills that were previously stalled when budget negotiations collapsed this summer on a budget adjustment bill.

Yes, we have a budget in place for two years.

The House and Senate approved an expansion of those school voucher or opportunity scholarships.

It would clear a backlog of 55,000 voucher applications, covering families of every income level.

The bill would boost vouchers by about $463 million.

Lawmakers did agree to boost public education enrollment by $92 million.

But Dawn, they did not approve any additional teacher pay raises.

Speaker Tim Moore, who's heading to Congress in all likelihood, wanted the teacher pay raises, but he gave back to get the vouchers through.

- Yeah, so this was a House and Senate deal.

It's Republican controlled in both chambers.

And it was the return of the mini budget, which if people remember 2019, that was a method that Republicans used when they were dealing with Democratic Governor Roy Cooper.

But they didn't have the supermajorities.

So now that they have the supermajority, it's chamber versus chamber, which is just interesting in a different way.

And the big house priority this past session was the ICE cooperation bill, or at least it was for rules chair Dustin Hall, who is probably gonna be the next Speaker.

And then the Senate, Senate Republicans, wanted to fund that private school voucher backlog.

So those were the two big things in it.

There was money for public education, for K12 enrollment growth.

So Speaker Moore will point that out, but it wasn't the raises that he and other House Republicans wanted because the Senate wasn't on board.

And what Senate leader Berger told me was that it was really about getting together, having this mini budget bill that both chambers had something they'd already passed or a version of it.

And that's why the raises weren't included because the Senate didn't want it.

- Well, Senate didn't want it, but you're in the House of Representatives, Representative Chester, what do you make of this deal?

It does make intuitive sense that you would cover some of the criticism of public school funding by throwing teacher pay on top of the school vouchers and calling it a compromise.

Why couldn't that get done?

- It just seems like the votes weren't there in the Senate.

So rather than kill the entire bill and let the perfect get in the way of the good, we took what we had available that we knew we agreed on, and we moved forward with it.

And I think it sends the right message too.

I think it would be misinformation to assume that the Republicans in either chamber want to dismantle public schools.

The way I look at it is we're building a new ship, and so we're gonna pilot this ship over here and see how it works.

But say 90% of our students still exist on this other ship.

And whether or not you agree with the course it's on, or if it has holes in it, we're not abandoning that ship.

Every child on that ship is part of our future, right?

Children account for 25% of our population, 100% of our future.

We don't want to abandon it.

We're just trying to see if there's a different way, a newer way, a more effective way to get to the same destination.

- Senator Bode, I'll let Republicans and Democrats fight over school vouchers.

However, it's $463 million.

That is extra money, whether you like the way it's being spent on education or not for families.

But you also have a large rural contingency out there.

How does this flow out in the rural areas of North Carolina from your perspective?

- Sure, so we've talked a lot about public education and we talk a lot about private vouchers.

And what I think we miss in the conversation is what the purpose of public education is.

And the purpose of public education is to ensure that every child has the capacity to chase the American dream and to make that dream realized.

And what that looks like is, regardless of where you live or what kind of situation you are born into, here in North Carolina, we will get you to school, we will make sure you are fed.

And when you walk into that classroom, you have a well-resourced and staffed room to learn in.

And when I see the facts and figures about our public education system, one out of every nine teachers have left the public school system in North Carolina.

We had over 60,000 students walk into the classroom this year without a teacher because we have 3,000 teacher vacancies.

And North Carolina is in the top 10 worst states for teacher pay.

And so, you know, with all due respect, I completely respect your analogy about a ship, but I cannot understand for the life of me, with all of that information, why we would be diverting hundreds of millions of dollars away from our local public schools into the bank accounts of private, unaccountable schools in North Carolina.

This situation is serious, and children deserve an opportunity to chase that dream and make it a reality instead of an illusion.

And I just, it breaks my heart for children, not just in rural North Carolina, but across North Carolina that aren't going to have that chance.

- Do you see an opportunity where a marketplace could arise for private school, more private schools in rural areas, if you're using public funding, and teachers could gather together, create their own campuses?

Does that happen, or do you see it's just going to be have it, have nots?

If you're in the suburbs, you've got plenty of private schools.

If you're out in Eastern North Carolina, you have no options.

- Well, I think part of the problem is the fact that children have to get to school, and they have to be fed when they get to school.

And these private schools are not required to do that.

And so school systems work on economies of scale.

And so, when we're siphoning off resources, that does create holes in the ship.

And that, that does cause problems in terms of how we resource a school in terms of getting kids into a classroom every single day and making sure they're ready to learn.

- Judge, as a policy, 55,000 families were waiting and wanting those scholarships.

So, there is demand for it.

How do you, how do you do what the voters want and also call it bad policy in some ways?

- Well, one, I still think vouchers are unconstitutional because you're taking public funds and you're giving them to private entities.

And a number of these schools are religious schools, which discriminate based upon that particular faith, which is fine.

But if you're going to use public funds, the state constitution says you can't do that.

But if you're going to have a marketplace of ideas, you need to be on an equal footing.

And as Mary Will said, the standards that the private schools get to operate under is extraordinarily different and more favorable than the public school does.

I mean, the private school, if they need a six-foot nine power forward for their basketball team, they can provide vouchers that will allow that individual to go to the school.

On the other hand, if you have a child with disciplinary problems and poor academics, they'll say, no, he can't come to our school.

So, it's, it's an unfair comparison, and you really will never get a fair marketplace.

Well, they're beating up on you, Representative Chester.

What's the last word to you?

And we'll go, we'll come back and talk about this ice bill after this.

- Yeah, I think.

So, I mean, it's fair points on all sides, but the goal is here, what's hidden in all this is the admission that if you give people a choice, they're fleeing the public school system.

And the constitutional obligation that we are faced with is providing a quality education.

The truest definition of public education is a public, publicly funded education.

We are looking at if there's a different model by which we can fund that education and still provide a quality education and honor our obligation.

- All right, we're gonna stay with you.

Republicans also approve requirements this week that local sheriffs cooperate with federal immigration officers when those sheriffs are issued detainers on a person who's been arrested.

Republicans are addressing their issues with primarily Democratic sheriffs and Democratic counties choosing not to cooperate when federal immigration officers want an arrested person who is believed or is undocumented held.

These holds allow federal officials to pick up that immigrant for possible deportation processing.

Opponents say local sheriffs won't be trusted by the community, these certain parts of it, if they must cooperate with immigration officials.

Representative Chester, can both things be right?

- So, I think this is one of those scenarios that is ripe for political jargon.

But the reality is just not there.

This has been the law of the land without requiring it, but sheriffs have been expected to cooperate with law, especially federal law, for their entire tenure.

ICE detainers have existed for 50 years.

And all we're saying is if someone is arrested for a violent crime and an ICE detainer is issued for them, that they're held.

It's not gonna be any additional roundups.

It's not gonna be any additional targeting.

It's people who are already involved in the system.

As a former law enforcement officer, the safest place for me to interact with someone is in a controlled environment like a jail, or a Sally Port or something like that.

Going out into the uncontrolled environment makes it significantly more dangerous for me to interact with that person, to take away and remove their freedom.

If it's just a continuation of the detention that's already been, they're already in the jail, then that's significantly safer for our law enforcement community.

- Senator Bode, this is very, very much political, and the Democratic sheriffs will let you know that loud and clear.

Is it political, or do we need a state law to tell local sheriffs, why don't you do to what Representative Chester says?

Do what you've been doing for 50 years.

Why did you stop?

- It is political.

And I'll tell you the most profound data point around why it is political.

Earlier this year at the congressional level... - We had a bipartisan, extensive bipartisan Immigration and Border Security Funding Bill that was brokered by Republicans and Democrats, and it had momentum, until former President Donald Trump got on social media and signaled to Republicans they should not get it passed, and he did that for political reasons.

He would rather run on fear mongering than actually problem-solving for the American people, and we all want safer communities, we all wanna provide pathways to citizenships for people who wanna come here.

And we also all want our border to be secure, but it is incumbent upon our federal, elected officials to make that happen and listen to the American people, and not just a former president who's running to be the next president of the United States, - Dawn, and just like that, this local issue, which is what it is, goes national, - Yeah.

- and it's Donald Trump's fault that some of these counties don't work with ICE.

- It's interesting, the local, state and federal, right?

- Yep.

- So this is the state, in telling local government what to do.

And local government doesn't always like that, the same way the state doesn't like the Feds, and, you know, anyway, it's obviously a campaign issue, immigration is, and, you know, the timing of passing this bill, the voucher backlog, you've got a lot of voters who, you know, lawmakers this past year, promised that they would have the Opportunity Scholarship Program, and then they didn't deliver.

So that's a lot of, one reason that was in the bill, in addition to both chambers wanting it, and for Republican candidates also, they know immigration is a big deal, and the ICE Bill has been around for years in different versions, but the timing of this is that the House and Senate both liked it, candidates running on immigration, whether they want it for up-ballot or down-ballot, you know, wanted to get this accomplished, and that's why it happened this week.

- Judge, if the county sheriff won't work with the Feds, then why would they even listen to any state legislators?

- Well, I would point out two things.

One, sheriffs are Constitutional Officers in the State of North Carolina, and so they have a certain degree of independence.

And historically, Republicans have always said, "The local officials know best, we don't like having Washington or Raleigh dictate the local officials, how they should run their business."

And so, I would question in this context, aren't we sort of getting into the business of how an individual sheriff may make decisions on enforcing the laws in his or her particular county?

And, you know, sheriffs have to follow the law, whether it's federal or state, but trying to force them to do certain things that they're not necessarily required to do legally, I think is questionable.

- In your experience when you were in the public sector, have you ever seen bills where state legislators would go down on local about federal issues?

- I've been around about 20 years now, I don't recall very much of that, but it has become an issue recently.

- Well, I think we've seen a lot more over the last few years of where the legislature is sort of messing with local government, local decisions, whether it's school boards, you know, county commissions, sheriffs, of the like.

- Alright, back to you, Judge, I wanna ask you about this Robert F. Kennedy Jr. issue.

The campaign has sued several times in several courts to be removed from the ballots in these respective states, RFK one one in North Carolina this week, his lawsuit travel from Wake County Court all the way to the State Supreme Court in just a few days, with the Supreme Court ruling that Kennedy's name be removed from the 2024 ballot, and those ballots be reprinted before getting mailed to absentee voters.

This was a 4-3 majority, So one Republican did dissent says, "An accurate ballot," the majority says, having an accurate ballot, much more important, Judge, than the printing cost, mailing delays, and inconvenience of the State Board of Elections.

- Well, Justice Dietz, who was the lone Republican who joined the two Democrats on the court, Justice Allison Riggs and Justice Earls, really wrote a very effective and powerful dissent to the majority saying, "There are statutes in place that allow Kennedy's name to, or allows Kennedy to withdraw as a candidate, but it doesn't necessarily guarantee that the name comes off the ballot, that the State Board has the ability to determine whether it's practical."

The State Board said, "It wasn't because of the extraordinary cost of reprinting ballots, and also the delay in getting absentee ballots to Military people overseas, to college students away.?

So the interesting thing is that really didn't get a lot of attention, is the whole context of presidential candidates is really, and this isn't a very legal term, squirrelly, I mean, you know, presidential candidates don't file in North Carolina, you're actually voting for the electors, you know, you're not really voting for the individual.

And one of the troubling things about Kennedy's situation was, when he announced, he said, "He was simply suspending his campaign and that he was gonna stay on the ballot in certain states that weren't battleground states."

And then you go to the We the People Party, which was the entity that arguably.

- Nominated him for the office and they had to scramble around, find somebody to say, oh yeah, well, yeah, he's no longer the nominee.

It was a mess.

- Senator Bode on this ballot issue, you know, I get it.

Last second delays, Board of Elections way inconvenienced, absentee voters delayed by a couple of weeks, at least at this point, however, it's a clean ballot.

It would now be an accurate ballot by definition.

So how do we interpret this if say, we're not a Republican or a Democrat necessarily wanting the partisan victories?

- Sure, totally, politically, you know, I think it's a good thing he's off the ballot, right?

I get it, people, he's no longer running.

That totally makes sense to me.

Practically speaking though, you know, deadlines matter, and they really matter in the case of elections.

As Justice Orr mentioned, we have state and federal laws that dictate how and when we do things to ensure the fair administration of an election.

And I think that one of the things that people don't really understand is that there are a lot of different ballots in North Carolina because elections are run at the county level.

And so there could be municipal, countywide, district attorney, all different types of elections that are gonna be administered this November.

And so all of those ballots have to be reformatted and then reprinted, which is a very time consuming process.

And it's also very expensive.

And so the counties, and I was reading about smaller counties that have to pick up the bill to reprint these ballots.

It's very chaotic and very time consuming.

And you know, we have a lot of overseas military folks that wanna exercise the right to vote.

And the timing of that is gonna be put into a lot of uncertainty.

And to think that the people who are on the front lines defending our right to vote may not be able to exercise the right to vote because one person couldn't make up their mind if they wanted to be on the ballot or didn't wanna be on the ballot, is so incredibly undemocratic to me.

- You know, Representative Chester, I saw an article online where, you know, the headline was RFK JR. sabotages the North Carolina election by asking to be removed from the ballot.

That's a strong term.

However, he is not running and he let North Carolina know, and it was still in August at that time, right?

So what do you make of this issue?

Can the counties handle this printing?

And we're gonna have to deal with it whether we like it or not, Supreme Court says.

- So I agree with the majority ruling where this having an accurate ballot is far more important than the convenience to the board whose job is to provide an accurate ballot.

As one of those who served overseas during an election cycle, if a ballot makes it to me, I want it to be an accurate ballot.

I wanna know that if I bubble in next to somebody's name and mail it back, that that person is actually on the ballot for that election cycle, don't wanna throw away my right to vote on an inaccurate ballot.

So I think the accuracy of the ballot is primary here.

Deadlines do matter and he met the legal requirement to be withdrawn from the ballot.

It was that some ballots had been printed with him on it.

And so do we reprint the ballots and at an additional cost?

I think what is paramount here and what should be focused on is making sure that voters have accurate information and are provided accurate ballot, and therefore, they're not canceling out their vote by voting for someone who's not running for that office anymore.

- Yeah, I would note, and that's an important point, Justice Dietz in his dissent said that there are other ways other than destroying the current ballots and reprinting new ones to inform voters.

Whether it's posting notices at precincts or on an absentee military ballot, putting a slip of paper in saying that Kennedy is no longer a candidate.

So it's a valid concern, but Justice Dietz felt like there was, there were other ways to deal with that.

- Either way, I mean ,the taxpayers are the ones footing the bill for this.

- What struck me, Dawn, is when it comes to election management, Elaine Marshall tweeted this week, "Hey, here's a friendly reminder.

secretaries of state in North Carolina do not run elections."

- Yeah.

- Who would wanna be on that board of, I mean, everything's got heat on?

- Yeah, for sure, and I think there's been some evidence that on local board of elections, election workers, it's yeah, it's a stressful job.

And how do you recruit someone for something where, you know, you're constantly be under attack?

But you could say the same thing for a lot of jobs, including ours.

- I mean the administration, the administration of the administration of elections, it's a very delicate ecosystem.

And so I think this has just caused a lot of chaos.

And like I said, it's been very costly and so, you know, we just, we have to hope that it's gonna go off without any more hitches 'cause it's gonna be tough.

- Knock on wood.

- Knock on wood.

WRAL TV in Raleigh released a new poll this week on some statewide races.

It partnered with the company Survey USA to poll 900, I hope I'm reading this correctly, 900 registered voters.

About two thirds of them were believed to be likely voters carrying a 4.9% margin of error.

And then the WRAL race for this week, the governor's race, Democrat Josh Stein, is carrying a 14 point lead over Republican Mark Robinson.

Down ballot in the Attorney General's race, Jeff Jackson leads Dan Bishop by seven points 43-36 with 21% of the voters not sure.

Not sure is a pretty powerful candidate right now.

In that Superintendent's race, Democrat Mo Green.

Leads Republican, Michele Morrow, by two points, 40% to 38%, Dawn.

22% in that race are undecided.

Are they undecided or are they not telling the pollsters who they're voting for?

- They may not, council of state is a big deal for those of us that have jobs in politics, but a lot of people don't even know what the jobs are.

And my takeaway from the poll results of Superintendent of Public Instruction is people probably haven't even paid attention to it yet.

And AG, beginning of the election season, I thought that the Dan Bishop-Jeff Jackson race was gonna almost eclipse the Josh Stein-Mark Robinson, which it has not.

So I think some of it is people paying attention.

Everyone's got a new poll about every week, and it looks like Stein has pulled ahead of Robinson, depending on the poll.

And I think the rest of the ballot is still really up in the air, because the presidential race is getting a lot of the attention and the governor's race.

- I wanna be clear, Representative Chester, we followed the polls 'cause folks just love looking at a poll.

And every week we have a new one from High Point and Elon, ECU, now WREL, Carolina Journal, they all say slightly different things.

One thing does seem consistent, Josh Stein leads Mark Robinson by either a little or a lot, and everyone else could be tied.

- Yeah, so it's definitely, North Carolina is retaking its claim at a battleground state for sure.

We're gonna see what a lot of what I believe are called ping-pong voters down the ballot, I think.

Just because we tend to vote for the candidate over the party.

We've seen it, we've seen it in the past where the same electorate elects a Republican at the top of the ticket with president and a Democrat in Roy Cooper for governor.

And that's what makes politics in North Carolina fun.

It's important to remember though, that it's just a snapshot in time.

A poll holds no one accountable.

It's just a snapshot at those who choose to participate and choose to answer honestly, we're hoping.

- Do candidates owe it to voters to debate even if they don't want to?

Because in the absence of an AG race, it's not elevated because there's not any debate.

There's been no debate, it's all ad driven.

And even Jeff Jackson told me, "I've raised about $10 million.

I'm on TikTok, and 37% of North Carolinians know who I am."

So there's a awareness issue.

Debates matter or are we in an era where it's gonna be media and social media all the way home?

- So I think there's a ton of information out there available to the voters.

There's no obligation for a candidate to debate, but I also think that the voters might hold you accountable if you choose not to.

Ultimately, everything that we do on the campaign trail is going to be judged and measured by the voters in the end.

- I think Representative Chester has a really good point, and I watched last week's episode where you had Morgan Jackson and Pat Ryan on talking about debates and they talked about what's the best for the candidate.

It's also best for the people and the voters.

And they would like to hear the two candidates talk to each other.

At the superintendent race we were just talking about, Mo Green, Michele Morrow, I think have like three or maybe four debates scheduled.

We don't know if Stein and Robinson are gonna debate, or there'll be an LG debate, so.

- Yeah, you do.

[everybody laughing] Yeah, you do.

- But people need to see how they interact.

And when you're watching someone on video talk to somebody else with a different opinion, you learn a lot more than just what you read and media and campaign ads and everything else.

- I'm almost out of time, Mary Wills.

- That's okay.

- Give us 30 seconds and we'll finish up with the judge.

- Oh my gosh, well, I will say, at this point, even though we are in mid-September, we still have a lifetime to go in campaign time.

So I think that anything could happen.

And if I were managing any of these campaigns, I would tell, what I say often, there are only two ways to run a race, scared and unopposed.

- [laughing] That's right.

And all of them are contested so they better keep running scared.

- 10 seconds, tie a big ribbon on this one, Judge.

- The Jackson-Bishop race is fascinating because both have a lot of money, but we're not seeing a lot from them.

And I'm waiting to see whether there's a huge, huge push right at the end of the campaign.

- The old Richard Burr campaign, don't start til October 1 and push hard and go ahead.

Well, thank you so much for being on, it's a very fast half hour and been very informative.

Thank you, folks, for watching.

Email me, statelines@pbsnc.org.

I'll share the emails with this crowd.

Thanks for watching.

I'm Kelly McCullen.

We'll see ya next time.

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