- [Narrator] The State Supreme Court is poised to determine the fate of those thousands of ballots in the stalled State Supreme Court race, and some Republican lawmakers don't want Attorney General Jeff Jackson suing President Trump over his executive orders.

This is "State Lines."

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

I'm Kelly McCullen.

Joining me today, Colin Campbell from WUNC Radio, Paul Shoemaker of Capital Communications, Maggie Barlow of Maven Strategies in C3, and good friend and former North Carolina Supreme Court associate justice, Robert Orr.

Judge!

- Yes, sir.

- We're gonna start with you.

- Sure - Have a lot of topics, so we're gonna say hello everyone first of all, and hello to you.

Let's start where a U.S. Appeals Court has ruled this week that Republican Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin's challenge of those mail-in ballots should in fact be heard within North Carolina's court system.

Ultimately, this means the North Carolina Supreme Court will likely determine if up to 60,000 ballots were cast by people with incomplete voter registration.

That could mean those ballots are disqualified for the Supreme Court race.

Allison Riggs is a sitting justice on that court who has recused herself.

Judge, we've talked about this three or four or five weeks in a row.

So now the Appeals Court says, "Let's see the state court play out."

What's the difference politically in a federal court action and a state court action?

- Well, it's not as simple as "What's the difference" frankly.

The Fourth Circuit said that the state court should decide the state issues, but also said that if federal issues are still in play after the state court determines the merits of the case, then jurisdiction was still in the federal courts.

And it's my understanding that the State Board of Elections and Justice Riggs, as an intervener in the litigation, has given notice to the Wake County Superior Court that if you rule against us, then we're going back to federal court to decide the federal issues at play.

And there's one caveat that people need to understand.

This really isn't litigation of Griffin versus Riggs, it's Griffin versus the State Board of Elections where they're questioning the decision of the State Board of Elections to let these three different pools of voters, including the 60,000 plus that you referenced, go forward and vote.

And so if even if it goes to the State Supreme Court and they rule for Griffin, then the state board is going to go back to federal court and say, what we're being ordered to do violates federal law.

This is going on forever.

- Maggie, you're on Team Riggs as matter of full disclosure working on that campaign.

Is this a campaign issue at this point?

How does that work when it becomes legal and there's really no more ads, no more, you're going for judges' opinions.

- Right.

Well, it's more of a democracy issue.

You know, it's a case where Griffin has decided that he wants to pick and choose which voters, which votes, legally-cast votes, are gonna count.

You know, the press conference we saw this week about the service members.

I mean, it's allowing service members vote to be counted in Onslow County, but not in Durham County.

And I think that's a real concern.

- Paul, in disclosure, you're working with Jefferson Griffin's team.

Same question to you.

When do the politics end?

When does a guy like you, who helped craft the campaign, step back, let the lawyers do their thing?

Do you guys stay engaged or is it just more of a, you're watching and seeing like the rest of us?

- Well, we take a step back obviously, but quite frankly a couple things are playing out here right now.

The Riggs folks, and Maggie, I appreciate you being here, they have consist in a public opinion campaign since day one post the election.

What's at heart here is that do we want the State Board of Elections to be a sovereign board, and not have the accountability with our appointed board, majority is appointed by the governor, same governor that appointed Alison Riggs to the Supreme Court by the way.

Or do we want the court to review the process?

The Riggs, I mean the Griffin campaign's challenge on law limited.

There's actually more than 5500 absentee ballots out there without voter ID.

The State Board of Elections, and this is what calls into question their actions, the Griffin campaign had a 48 hour window to file their protest.

The State Board of Elections said, "We will deal with you on normal business hours, "and enjoy your weekend."

So, the Griffin campaign had to contact county boards directly.

And so the challenges of protests you see are by those counties we were able to contact and able to get filed.

So, that whole process itself rings of the need for judicial review here.

- So I understand correctly, elections officials had delayed Mr. Griffin's effort to appeal, over a weekend, it exhausted the 48 hour grace period, and then they told him sorry about it.

- Absolutely.

- Okay, that's what- - Not sorry about it, they actually said, "We will address this during normal business hours, "enjoy your weekend."

Because we- - Oh, literally that was the quote?

- Absolutely.

Enjoy your weekend.

That'll be part of the record that you go through, as you go through this judicial review process.

So, the Griffin campaign had no choice but to bow.

There's more than 5500 ballots.

And I understand also, and Bob, you would appreciate this, in 2005, there's a unanimous opinion, by the North Carolina Supreme Court, that said you have to count all ballots equally.

It has to be applied across the board, or you have reverse disenfranchised by other voters.

So that means that if you want to allow for the 5500, that are in question right now, that did not provide their voter ID, you're basically disenfranchising all the others who use their voter ID.

- Can Justice Riggs' campaign get in on this?

To Bob Oars credit, it's the state versus Jefferson Griffin, and then there's a lot of wash in there.

How does this work out for your team?

- Well, it's meant that there had to be a lot of attorneys engaged to play this out.

That obviously creates lots of legal bills that the campaign's gonna have to pay for, same thing on Griffin's side.

But I do think that this is an issue that it's like the nation is watching, right?

This is kind of picking after the fact, which votes get counted and which don't.

- Colin, let's keep with the next topic with you.

I want to ask ya about the Helene oversight hearings, all these funding discussions in Raleigh that is the top business of the early days of the 2025 legislative session.

Governor Josh Stein's wanting $1 billion to be released in the next round of recovery.

He wants that money released quickly.

The House Republican leaders offered a $500 million plan.

State officials say Helene recovery costs could run $26 billion.

The FEDs have only promised about $15.7 billion.

We've got $10 billion that this state needs to find and is not the legislature, it's we the people.

So, what's with this billion versus 500, is this just Democrat/Republican policy creation and we're starting that negotiation?

- Yeah, I think this is tarting the process, and the bill we saw come out of the house this week was definitely built as, this is sorta the preliminary shot, they're gonna make some changes to it next week.

The Senate's gonna do their own bill at some point.

And obviously Stein's got his proposal out there.

So, there's gonna be a lot of back and forth, some of this a question of, what do you fund?

Everyone seems to be in agreement, the state should fund the start of the housing rebuilding process, because we've had so much trouble waiting on federal money for that in the past, that it's taken years to get people back in their homes after a hurricane.

I think both parties seem to be in agreement that the state needs to play a bigger role in getting that program off the ground and starting to get homes rebuilt.

Where there's some disagreement is whether there should be government support for small business grants, obviously a lot of businesses up in the mountains have lost the tourism season, some have lost their facilities, and there's a question of, you know, where does the government play a role in keeping those folks afloat?

The governor wants to do that with a pretty good chunk of money.

The legislature so far has not been okay with that.

And again, the whole backdrop here is most of this is gonna have to be federal money.

The state doesn't have 17, $16 billion sitting around to throw at this.

This is a state with a 30 billion roughly annual budget, and so the question is, how does the state get things moving?

Recognizing we're gonna get the federal money, we're gonna get the federal money we need, or at least most of it, but it's gonna take forever because the federal government is slow as Christmas and getting these checks issued and getting these programs stood up.

And then, so that's sort of the challenge with, you know, what's the state's role in the short term?

And that that's what we'll see played out in the next few weeks.

- Judge, what do you make of the tone in Raleigh as Republicans and the Democrats get together?

I've watched several of those hearings and it seems it's business focused and it's very cordial.

The Stein team's done a great job promoting Josh Stein's positioning on it, and I haven't seen Republicans start barking and biting at Team Stein just yet.

Is this a co-ownership deal if this policy doesn't come through the way the people want?

- Well, most of the legislators that are representing the impacted counties in the West are Republicans.

And so they have a vested interest in seeing that a collaborative effort from the governor's office, from the legislature takes place because it's their constituents whose lives have been in many instances destroyed.

And I'm actually a voting resident of Yancey County, one of the hardest hit counties up there.

And I would say, wow, ultimately it's about all of the money, federal and state, the logistics of doing it, and there's a degree of accountability.

If you're gonna spend billions of dollars, government officials wanna make sure that being spent correctly in a timely fashion.

But you've gotta have workers, you've gotta have materials, all of these things.

And I'm really interested in seeing how the Stein administration focus.

I think they've got a team put together to try and do the logistics.

But even if you had a hundred billion dollars or a hundred million dollars, whatever it is, you can't spend it tomorrow.

You gotta have people doing the work on a coordinated effort.

But so far, I think they're working together the way they should be.

- Maggie, when it comes to releasing money through the government very quickly, can come with some inefficiency issues, corruption issues, frankly, at the end of the day, as people start looking back years from now.

What's the proper balance?

If you were looking at a candidate or working with an elected official, what would you tell them about releasing money quickly versus in the Republicans case, pausing, making sure the money is spent as best it can be?

- Yeah.

Well I do think, you know, as Justice Orr said that it is important that there is a collaborative process because both Democrats and Republicans need to be involved in this.

The other thing that is different between what Stein has proposed and what the House Republicans have proposed is money for local governments and that money from local governments, obviously that's needed, I mean, that's what helps fund our teachers, that's what helps fund first responders.

So I think that is something that does need to take a closer look at.

- Paul, I'm looking at our US Senators, so you know quite well they've been out there, they've beaten the bully pulpit, I've seen them testify in front of the Senate.

What's the DC vibe about keeping North Carolina front and center?

Competition is those wildfires out in California.

It's lot of money there too.

- You've got that competition, but quite frankly, if you wanna look at the makeup of the United States Senate, is that you're not gonna keep Republican majorities without keeping Republican senators from North Carolina.

But here's the bottom line is, is that we have a major crisis.

I mean the devastation in the mountains of North Carolina is, unless you go see it yourself, you cannot imagine the magnitude of that.

And the one good thing about a crisis is that if you ever gonna have bipartisanship, if you're ever gonna have cooperation of multiple government indices, have a good crisis.

A crisis brings everybody together.

So what you're seeing right now is you're seeing everybody sort of putting down where their markers are and they're gonna work together to find the common.

Funding local governments, a lot of those local governments, they got Republican county commissioners.

It's like Bob's point with the representation there in the mountains.

It's just not Republican versus Democrats.

There's real economic impact, Overall, the health of North Carolina, the economy, we've gotta find a good resolution here.

- Harnett County Senator Jim Burgin, Senator Benton Sawrey, I think Senator Amy Galey have filed legislation in Raleigh that would repeal the cost of state government-imposed healthcare mandates.

There are separate House and Senate bills in the system, if you will.

They carry slightly different proposals, but generally any new state healthcare mandate would be offset by the removal of an existing healthcare mandate as well.

It would ensure also that these new mandates could be fully funded.

North Carolina, according to some major magazines, Forbes, I think, Paul, says North Carolina has the highest healthcare costs in America.

These kinds of bills are big and they often come early in the session and then you don't hear much about them because maybe they're too big or does healthcare have that good of a lobby?

I don't know which.

- Well, here's the thing.

Forbes Magazine's wrong.

North Carolina has the highest healthcare costs in the world because healthcare costs in the United States is the highest in the world.

So if we're number one, North Carolina's number one in the world, not just the nation.

And what Burgin, Senator Burgin, is attempting to do here, he's saying, "hey, we have to start looking at cost control measures here.

This is going to come outta hand."

Healthcare is going to be an issue that is going to probably come back to the forefront here in the next few years.

We're looking at major deficit with the state health plan that's on the horizon here.

And what Senator Burgin is saying is if you're going to add, if you're gonna add a mandate, then, one, you gotta take a mandate off and also you have to fund that new mandate.

And you're not talking about funding the difference between the one you're taking off.

You have to provide the funding for all of it.

- This is for a government-imposed mandate.

The Government should pay for it.

- That's right, but this becomes part of a cost control measure.

Legislature's gonna have to address transparency with the hospitals, they're gonna have to address drug companies, particularly at the federal level when you look at pricing of drugs.

But we're headed towards a healthcare crisis in America today, and it's driven by the cost and it's gonna be at a much greater magnitude than what we've seen in the past.

- Maggie, I'm seeing Republicans and Democrats come together on this cost issue.

I remember during the Obama days, that was a big fight, there was a huge philosophical difference, but now things seem a little bit different.

- Well, I think that this legislation probably does have some merit.

We do need to look at costs, but the rising cost of the state health plan is not on the horizon, it's been there.

Republicans have known that the state health plan was underfunded for years and they've done nothing about it.

And that is going to mean higher prices and less benefits for our teachers and our state employees.

- Colin, the vibe in Raleigh off a bill like this, there's some high powered rising senators behind this piece of legislation.

Over in the House, it's Keith Kidwell, who's famous in his own right.

Very interesting dynamic at play.

- Yeah, I think this sort of shows in the fact that this is one of the first bills to get a committee hearing this session.

Healthcare is gonna be the big hot topic of how do you reduce prices?

The challenge for the legislature is there's not so much a partisan fight over this, it's sort of a fight among lobbyists.

You've got insurance companies, you've got the lobbies for doctors, you've got the lobbies for hospitals, and they're all sort of at odds on these things because all of them are looking at their bottom line of, if you make some kind of healthcare policy reform to cut costs, who's bearing the burden of that?

Which of these healthcare entities sees their profits shrink a little bit?

And so that's sort of the fight you tend to have and that's why a lot of these bills, sometimes they sort of die a quiet death somewhere along the process because too many lobbyists got involved and felt like their clients were going to be shafted by what was perhaps a well-intentioned effort to cut cost on healthcare overall.

- Bob, people do blame the lobbyists for ruining good bills.

But these are very complex topics, so we don't paint lobbyists as bad guys or good guys and all that.

But this issue sounds straightforward, but it's never straightforward.

The former treasurer was in many ways attacked and hurt his political career for governor because he went after the healthcare industry.

- Well, there's no question that the public generally, and elected officials are concerned about, you know, extraordinarily high healthcare costs just in North Carolina.

So the question is, why?

Why do we, why is that happening?

And I'm not convinced that mandates are the driving force behind it.

And remember, mandates, at least as I understand them, are primarily for the benefit of the people being covered.

Is there a mandate that policies have to have some sort of mental health provisions or drug counseling provisions?

And those are policy choices, but I think that a broader look at healthcare cost is warranted other than just focusing on mandates.

- Let's move back to the courtroom.

Some Republican lawmakers are hoping to stop State Attorney General Jeff Jackson from joining these lawsuits that are challenging Donald Trump's executive orders.

Attorney General Jackson is challenging President Trump's order to end birthright citizenship.

A law was passed late in 2024 to prevent him from joining lawsuits that may eventually overturn North Carolina law.

And he can't sue in contradiction of any newly passed state laws, Maggie.

It gets more and more so the law didn't stop him from challenging executive orders.

Now there, some Republicans wanna close that loop too.

- Well, I think this legislation is gonna have some obvious constitutional issues.

You know, the North Carolina State Constitution very clearly lays out the three branches of government.

And this is yet one more attempt by the legislative branch trying to take the power of the executive branch.

And it's ironic that this is on, you know, Trump's executive orders, executive orders that are doing the exact opposite thing where, you know, Trump's trying to tell Congress that the legislation you passed, the budget you passed does not work.

So, you know, maybe this energy should be, Republicans should focus more on winning the Attorney General's race, which they haven't done in over a century.

- There's a bar about you, Paul, maybe a Republican should actually try to win an Attorney General's race.

- Well, we've actually had Republicans try to win Attorney general races in the past.

And the fact of the matter is, is that if you look at the history of this state, I would say the Democratic establishment, the democratic party cares more about the Attorney General than Republican establishment does.

And Bob, you and I have seen that in our judicial race time and time again and how that played out.

But the reality is, is that if you look at this legislation, and I'll just go ahead and make this comment.

You know, this is about politicians playing politics.

That's the bottom line here.

And if you want to keep it, if you wanna try to take it off the table, try to take it off the table.

There is gonna be, there will be a judicial review to this.

There will be constitutional challenges.

I actually think, I mean, Jeff Jackson, he's Attorney general, AG stands for almost governor, okay?

And look at the history.

Look where Roy Cooper AG became governor.

Josh Stein AG became governor.

Jeff Jackson AG wants to be governor.

Maybe he wants to be Senator.

- Yeah.

- All right.

And so he's playing politics here.

And quite frankly is that, let's play it out in the political, you know, I actually think him filing the suits, giving him the freedom, let him do what he wants to do, that builds a record that holds him accountable.

And quite frankly, on some of the challenges he may want to do, may open the door for Republican to win the AG's race.

- Did Republican voters in North Carolina, even the Democratic voters, think that that would be a core part of the early days of the Attorney General's office?

Was that we're hearing more about going after federal lawsuits out of state than anything in the state.

The he, Jeff Jackson is going after the rent, rent collusion allegations against big landlords.

- Well look that, but look, Jeff Jackson is an elected official, who is also a politician, who is also ambitious.

I've worked for Patrick Morrisey, the current governor of West Virginia, former AG.

He led the effort in doing national challenges to Barack Obama and Joe Biden, particularly, the Biden administration.

And so this is about the national, this is about the politics of elected office.

And voters are not thinking that way.

They are not thinking about that at all.

When it comes to the AG race, what voters care about, law and order issues.

- I was, we'll give Colin a try-- - Okay.

- No, no, no, go judge.

- One of the very interesting legal and constitutional questions is there are no constitutional duties for the Attorney General or any other member of the Council of State.

In the provision of the state constitution, the duties shall be as prescribed by law.

Now what does that mean?

I'm not aware of any interpretation by the courts on that, but can the legislature limit the duties or expand the duties as the case might be?

And then you throw in the doctrine of inherent powers.

The Attorney General is a constitutionally elected officer and has certain institutional powers, but those have never been defined.

So, while the Riggs Griffin case is rolling along, we'll have another one headed in the pipeline quickly.

- Colin, any comment on this?

You wanna go to early voting?

- We can go to early voting.

[all laughing] - Representative Wyatt Gable files legislation this week that would shorten North Carolina's early voting period down to six days.

That's a bill, it's a discussion point at this time.

It's interesting to see it pop up early in the session.

It still needs the inter committee process.

Gable Colin defeated a long-time Oslo County representative George Cleveland in the 24 Republican primary out there for that Eastern North Carolina house seat.

So he was the youngest elected legislator, maybe ever.

I, yeah-- - At least a century or something like that, yeah.

- 20, 22 years old.

Well, you know what?

He got our attention in this early part of the session.

Why not pick a few bills and say what if?

- Yeah, that's an interesting one.

I mean, I think the fact that he's spearheading it may not have that much momentum because he's a first term lawmaker, obviously the youngest person in the building.

But I think this does speak to Republicans for some time now, have sought to reduce early voting, in part, I think because historically, that's been the favored voting method of Democrats.

What's interesting to me is to see whether they continue that push, given Republicans actually did pretty well in early voting this past election cycle.

So it's growing in popularity among Republicans as a way to make voting more convenient.

And so the question is whether Republican leaders want to cut back on that.

And if they do that, do the courts jump in?

That's been something that they've tried in the past, have struggled to get court approval for.

And so I think that's diminished some of the momentum behind shortening the early voting period as what's proposed in this bill.

- You run the highest races on the GOP side in this state for the most part.

Would you want early voting restricted if you're running a big campaign, or Republicans liking it now?

- That that bill's dead on arrival.

We're liking it.

We're liking it.

It, and quite frankly, I mean, having that period, having those operational side, I'll make the case that in 2020, Donald Trump would not had won North Carolina if it had not been for early voting.

- That's not an opinion you hear, you hear quite the opposite in the common culture.

- It's in the numbers, it's in the data.

I can send you the slide deck.

- Why did Democrats embrace it, in your opinion, so early and so enthusiastically?

And why did it take 10 years or so for the Republicans to come along?

- Well, you go back to the, every election's different.

You learn from every election.

And what I'll say, and Maggie, you and I are meeting each other for the first time, but in our business, operatives are good at doing what they do as long as it works.

And when it no longer works, they look to do something different.

Now here's, with that said, in 2000, the 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama put an emphasis on early voting.

Republicans had a 48-hour turnout program, which worked well in 2004, on Bush's reelect.

But we really showed up with a 48-hour turnout program.

The Obama campaign very smart.

- This is the business side of politics that is driven by the marketplace.

They were very smart in the process.

They took advantage of the structure.

They took advantage of the law, and they maximized that.

Republicans, historically, have done very, very well with absentee ballots.

We usually maximize the absentee ballots to the extent that Tony Rand, when he was senate pro tem, tried to change the rules because we were beating them in the absentee ballots.

That's the political process here.

Early voting now, both sides have dialed it in.

Both sides have the technology.

Both sides are able to maximize it, and to be able to win early voting, you still have to have the voters with you.

You don't go out there and win early voting when they're opposed to you.

You still have to convince the voters.

So it's an opportunity, and it's here to stay.

- Maggie, with early voting on a presidential year, is it the campaigns of each party at the top of the ticket that drive the early voting, or does it come down to judge races, gubernatorial races in the light that inspire people to at least go before election day and cast a ballot?

- I think it's all races.

Whatever the connection is to the voter, you know, and hey, music to my ears.

I mean, we work in this business and we are trying to put our candidates out there, let voters decide, and in protection of our democracy, which I think everybody should be a little concerned about right now.

We need to make sure that people have the opportunity to vote and that votes are counted.

- One thing that's added new to the marketplace in the 2024 presidential race, third party groups on early voting.

A lot of that was shopped out.

It was a way for the party.

So they're playing into that process now.

It's here to stay.

- So you expect the Democrats to do some of what Trump did?

- Absolutely, that is about the competitive nature of the business side of this.

So you're gonna see that come into play, which means more people voting, greater voter participation.

So who can have an argument with more people showing up to vote?

- I love it.

- I don't wanna give us four years.

We'll figure something out.

Judge Orr.

- I just finished working on an election commission, sponsored by the Carter Center in Catawba College, and in the study, the early voting system was, or practice, was the most popular of anything in the North Carolina system.

We do need greater standardization of the process on days and sites and how many sites per population.

- Great show.

Great conversation.

Colin, Paul, always good to have you.

Maggie, always a pleasure to have you on.

And of course, the judge, providing levity.

Thank you so much, folks, for joining us.

You're our most important group in this room.

Email your thoughts and opinions, to StateLines@PBSNC.org.

I'm Kelly McCullen.

I'll see you next time.

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