Civitas ReviewThe Blog of the Civitas Institute

Mar

21

---

Tweet Share Email

As I promised yesterday, I would do my best to present some “good” bills offered by the 2013 Legislature and HB 185, The Ballot Reform Act of 2013 meets the requirements of a good election reform bill.

HB 185 would eliminate straight party voting and change the way parties are placed on General Election Ballots. The Primary Sponsors of the bill are Representatives Bert Jones (R-Rockingham), Susan Martin (R-Wilson), Debra Conrad (R-Forsyth) and Bob Steinburg (R-Chowan).

If this bill is enacted, official ballots in North Carolina would no longer contain any place that allows a voter to vote for the candidates of a party for more than one office with only one mark of the ballot. At this time only 15 states employ some form of straight party voting.  At present, North Carolina provides for a straight party choice, but as is the case with most North Carolina election law, there is an exception to this rule. In North Carolina, a straight party vote does not include a vote for the President and Vice President of the United States, thus requiring voters to make separate selections for the President and Vice President and the straight party option.  Even the very liberal Brennan Center for Justice called our straight party option a “ballot flaw” in 2008 and said it was “very confusing.” In North Carolina the Democratically controlled legislature instituted the this option when it became obvious that the state’s voters were voting for Republican presidential candidates.

This bill also changes the way candidates are placed on a ballot. HB 185 would have candidates of the same political party as the Governor take the top spot in all contests on the ballot instead of the Democratic candidate. They would be followed by the the candidates of the other parties (alphabetical order by party) and then the unaffiliated candidates.

In North Carolina, Democrats have always been placed first in the list of candidates in a contest on a General Election Ballot. Study after study has found that the first position in a contest is most advantageous. Click here to see a list of summaries of Ballot Placement Journal Articles. In the past, the Democrats in the legislature could point to the alphabet and call it luck that D came before L and R in the alphabet. But, they have been the majority in the legislature since 1898 and they took advantage of their majority and wrote and passed election laws that benefited their party. It would be refreshing to see future changes in election law benefit the voters of North Carolina and not just one political party.

Mar

20

---

Tweet Share Email

We know you read Civitas’ “Bad Bills of the Week,” so I thought it would be nice to look at a few good bills introduced by the House and Senate for a change.

Today’s good bill is: HB 65 / “SB39 - Restore Partisan Judicial Elections”. The bill’s primary sponsors are Representatives Frank Iler (R-Brunswick), Rayne Brown (R-Davidson), Dennis Riddell (R-Alamance), Bert Jones (R-Rockingham), Senators Jerry Tillman (R-Randolph) and Thom Goolsby (R-New Hanover).

While the bill makes some changes to residency requirements for judicial candidates, the focus is to put the party designation back on the ballot for judicial candidates.

You may remember that in 2002 the Democratic legislature passed legislation that removed party affiliation from judicial candidates on all ballots in North Carolina. This is a key piece of information that helps voters make their decisions when voting for judges. The 2002 legislation hurt voter participation, in the 2010 General Election, there were 2,700,383 total votes cast, only 2,012,869 voters voted in the first judicial race on the ballot – a 25 percent drop.

1

Mar

20

---

Tweet Share Email

Gov. McCrory released his first budget today which covers FY 2013-2014 and 2014-15. One of the major expenditures in the budget is an effort to ensure a sustainable future for Medicaid in North Carolina. The budget would end accounting tricks that previous administrations have played to hide the true cost of Medicaid and increases funding to the Division of Medical Assistance for Medicaid by $575 million. The budget also establishes a Medicaid Risk Reserve with the amount of $180 million in order to help defray any future cost over runs.

These additions will increase the State Medicaid budget by over $755 million on top of the already $3 billion the State spends on Medicaid. While the proposals will not fix the myriad of problems identified with the State Medicaid system, they will provide an accurate accounting of what the Medicaid system is costing us now. The increasing growth in the cost of Medicare in North Carolina is clearly unsustainable and was a major factor behind Gov. McCrory’s decision to not expand the system as allowed by Obamacare. The budget also notes the Governor will “propose separate legislation for fundamental Medicaid reform.”

Mar

20

---

Tweet Share Email

Gov. McCrory is releasing his two-year budget at 10:30 am today. You can follow along live here.

Mar

20

---

Tweet Share Email

Yesterday Senator Phil Berger (R-Rockingham) introduced major school reform legislation (S 361). A closer look reveals even though the bill is a follow up on many of the topics included in a similar bill introduced last year, there is still much to like. The bill links teacher performance and student progress, improves teacher quality and assigns letter grades to schools to help parents assess school performance.

The bill also includes significant provisions regarding the removal of teachers and administrators  and allows local school boards to offer teachers contracts of varying lengths.  Specifically, a local board of education could offer teachers with less than three years a one year contract. Local boards of education would have the option of offering teachers with three or more years of experience contracts that which vary in length from one to four years.  The bill would end the status of offering teachers (and others) life-time jobs.  Teachers, administrators and others with tenure could only be removed for violating any one of the existing criteria spelled out in  (G.S.115C.325(e)(1).   Since current law offers no definition of inadequate performance  –the first stated criteria in the statutes -  S. 361  provides a badly needed definition; “the failure to perform at a proficient level on any standard of the evaluation instrument or otherwise performing in a manner that is below standard.”

I applaud Sen. Berger for including the clarifying language. It’s fair and useful and helps to balance the interests of teachers, administrators, parents and taxpayers.

A similar provision to end teacher tenure was also in the original version of the education reform bill (SB 795) bill. As the legislation proceeded, the provisions to remove teacher tenure were removed, no doubt in an effort to improve its chances for passage and also to sidestep a major fight with the Governor and teacher unions.  With a Republican Governor and veto-proof majorities in each chamber, the chances for significant education reform are as strong as they have ever been. But still expect a fight, a big fight.