Ellie Kinnaird

Via email ... the first of many depressing reports to come about the three-ring circus in Raleigh.

Received via email

In my continuing discussion of the budget, I will report on the impact of cuts to various departments. This week, the Director of the North Carolina Crime Lab reported that cuts to staff, along with an increase in evidence submitted for testing, has led to long wait times for local police and sheriff’s departments’ analysis. The staff has been cut from 130 to 124. This may not seem like a large cut, but prosecutors and defendants now have to wait sometimes a year or more for results. This situation also arose from a U.S. Supreme Court decision that requires the person who actually performed the test, the forensic toxicologist, to testify in court in person. They can no longer send the analysis by affidavit. The legislature will study whether to expand the western lab that could bring some relief.

Via email from Ellie Kinnaird:

To quote Andy Griffith, “This was the week that was.”

From fracking, to discovering that the Republicans gave away $336 million to wealthy law firms, doctors’ practices, and large businesses under the guise of helping small businesses (at a time when our education system was suffering cuts), to forbidding scientists from reporting on or using findings on sea level changes in policy development, North Carolina is losing its leadership reputation. In fact, if you want to find out what we have become, check out the Colbert Report on North Carolina’s rejection of the scientific reports, called “Sink or swim.” It would make your day, if it weren’t so tragically true.

Even though the overwhelming testimony at the public hearings throughout the state was against allowing fracking, the Senate Republicans voted to go ahead. Even though the State Geologist reported that there is only a twelve day national supply of natural gas in North Carolina, they plowed ahead. Even though the process will use millions of gallons of precious drinking water and could contaminate our water supply, they were undeterred.

Another anti-environmental bill that passed would add another layer of burdensome review to proposed rules and regulations over and above the two existing extensive reviews. The bill would also change the definition of ammonia and volatile organic chemicals as a pollutant that ends up in the water, such as from chicken processing plants, allowing the pollution to continue unabated.

Her latest update:

Dear Friends,

Last week the Legislature passed a bill to place a referendum on the March primary election ballot to approve or disapprove an amendment to the NC Constitution banning gay marriage. State law already outlaws gay marriage by declaring that marriage is only between a man and a woman and no marriage other than between a man and a woman from another state will be recognized in this state.

8-28-11

Dear Friends,

August 26th was the commemoration of the 1920 passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States granting women the right to vote. An interesting fact about North Carolina is that the legislature didn’t ratify the Amendment until 1970.

Definitely worth a close read, even if you're not in Orange County

Dear Friends,

This was quite a week. First, the legislature passed new districts for Congress and the Legislature that drastically changed the current districts. The new Congressional Districts if not struck down by the courts, would change the balance in our delegation from a fairly even split that matches our overall voting records and with several competitive districts, to a likely 10-3 Republican advantage with some very odd district boundaries.

But the Republicans didn’t stop there. While they were at it, they decided to draw new local county districts for Buncombe, Guilford and Mecklenburg counties, all without the input or a request from the local commissioners, or even letting the legislative delegations know the districts were being redrawn. In the case of Guilford, the map was sprung on the delegation without warning a month ago, but they were able to get an agreement from the President Pro-Tem to give Guilford Commissioners 60 days to hold public hearings and work out a redistricting locally. But on the last day, the day before the Guilford public hearing, the legislature redistricted the county commissioners’ districts in a final vote. To add salt to the wounds, they wrote into the bills that the local governments could not hold a referendum to change the districts for ten years. So much for local control.

Via email, from a steady voice of sanity amongst the crazies:

Dear Friends,

Two big pieces of news this week: the bills Governor Perdue has vetoed and the release of the Congressional maps. I’ll go through the vetoed bills in next week’s newsletter.

The pertinent story on the Congressional maps for Orange and Person counties are the changes to their districts. What is startling about David Price’s 4th District is that no longer is it tied to a common “community of interest” of the Triangle, which is one of the criteria in drawing the lines, but reaches from Hillsborough in Orange County to Fayetteville in Cumberland County! I’m not sure those military folks feel a common tie to the peaceniks in Orange County.

Senator Ellie Kinnaird runs down the sad state of the North Carolina General Assembly.

This is the year of the private sector in the legislature, with market fundamentalism on the ascent. One of the debates is whether North Carolina should take $400 + million dollars from the federal government to make a faster rail line between Charlotte and Raleigh. A Mecklenburg Representative from Charlotte says NC should not accept the money to upgrade the line as other states have done. (Even though Charlotte passed a tax twice to pay for their light rail line.) He and other opponents say the private sector should build the line, not taxpayers. However, that argument ignores the fact that the vast rail lines in our country were the product of both private investors (some called them robber barons) and the federal government that gave free land on which to build the railroads. According to a letter writer to the N & O, over a period of only 20 years in the 1800s, almost 130 million acres were given to various railroads. The chair of the House Transportation Committee says rail projects are a waste of money and the state should concentrate its resources on road work. Meantime, Orange County will add to the shoulders of its most popular country bike routes so that bicyclers can ride more safely.