March 24, 2023

- [Donna] This week, lawmakers vote to ban Covid 19 vaccine mandates for state employees and students, a fresh look at how we fund roads and state infrastructure.

Plus the banking crisis has some North Carolina ties and a legislative committee votes to ban Critical Race Theory based lessons in public schools.

This is State Lines.

- [Narrator] Quality public television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you who invite you to join them in supporting PBS NC.

[upbeat orchestral music] ♪ - [Donna] Welcome back.

I'm Donna King.

Joining me today is political strategist Morgan Jackson.

Senator Vicki Sawyer, Senator Mike Woodard and radio host Nick Craig.

Let's talk to the first topic right now.

So, state and local governments in North Carolina would be barred from requiring the COVID 19 vaccine for employees or students under a bill that passed a house health committee this week.

That measure would prohibit public school systems from requiring the vaccine for K-12 students or for students enrolled in public colleges and universities.

Now, the bill would not stop private businesses from setting their own vaccine requirements.

- This is a medical freedom act for parents, for people of all different reasons why sometimes the Covid vaccine is not the right fit.

- So if we do have the medical and religious exemption in place is any of this necessary if people can get the exemption relatively easily?

- [Bryan] Well, I would stand to say they can't in all cases.

And I can say you want examples and I can use my son goes to a private college and the religious exemption was not accepted and I am the one that had it drafted by an attorney.

- So this is an issue that we've been talking about for a couple years now, right.

Senator Sawyer, tell me what your thoughts are on this house bill.

- Well, I think I have PTSD every time I hear Covid 19 vaccination and all of us went through it.

We did go through a dark time where we were scared as a nation about what was happening with our public health.

Some decisions were made good and bad.

Some folks think that the bad decision is to mandate a Covid 19 vaccination.

We have seen some things coming out recently, some side effects that are hurting people.

Like one in 33,000. who've got the Covid 19 vaccine, are having some kind of cardiac inflammation incidents.

Those are concerning numbers, so this is just saying it's a choice.

If you choose to get vaccinated, you can but you don't have to be vaccinated in order to go to school.

- It is interesting, so Morgan, tell me, you know what are your thoughts and what is the governor thinking about something like this?

- I think this is just silly.

I'm sorry, guys.

Is that at the end of the day, 11 vaccinations, every public child, every kid that goes to public school is required by state law to have 11 vaccinations.

At no time has it been required for kids to get a Covid 19 vaccine.

That is not, that is not in place and nor has been in place.

But yet somehow, if you listen to some of the sponsors of this bill, the Covid 19 vaccine infringe.

Somehow that vaccine that is not required of your children infringes upon your rights, but the 11 other vaccines that you have to get don't.

At the end of the day, the reason Covid is finally in our rear view mirror is because of the vaccinations.

It is not because of people saying I didn't want to get vaccinated.

If everybody would've stay not vaccinated we would still be in the middle of it.

The reason we moved past it is because vaccinations work.

- Sure, sure.

So what about government employees though?

There have been some lawsuits because state government employees were required.

- Government employees were required to have the vaccination, especially when it was new, but they were also given the opt-out.

If you do not want to, for whatever reason, religious, personal exemption, medical exemption, you just have to be tested frequently, to make sure if you're gonna work for the government, come in and interact with the public on a daily basis as well as a lot of these large institutions, you need to make sure you're being safe.

And the hundreds of state government employees were getting tested every week, rather than getting vaccinations, people didn't lose their jobs.

- Interesting, Nick, what are you hearing from, you know your listeners on the radio?

- I think it's interesting.

I mean, I don't think that the Covid 19 vaccine was necessarily the end all, be all solution to it, nut I do notice something interesting in here.

It also blocks public schools, colleges, and universities from even asking if you've got the Covid 19 vaccine.

That's part of that bill as well, which I think is pretty important.

Overall, yes, while it hasn't necessarily been pushed into the school system, I don't know what will stop it from doing that, unless you have a bill like this.

We've seen it get pushed into private institutions, public institutions.

At this point in time I'm not sure that any sort of mandate on anything two plus years down the road makes sense.

- Interesting.

Senator, what's the appetite over in the Senate?

What are they saying?

- Well, I can only speak for two thirds of the senate.

- Sure.

- But I would agree with Morgan.

I think we would've a lot of concerns about this, because if you look, the bill specifically mentions those vaccinations that are required by law.

It says these will still be required.

So hopefully that will ease people's minds.

I think the bigger concern for me is what's gonna happen to the local level.

How are our local health boards, health departments, health directors gonna deal with this?

And if you just look at the media for the last just few weeks on this, they're struggling with how they're gonna move forward with this.

- Do you think that that exemption would work in this case?

- I don't know.

I mean, they're gonna be mandated, obviously, if this passes and survives a gubernatorial veto.

If that comes, they're gonna be mandated to do this.

But I think they're gonna have real problems, they're struggling as communities with this.

We know that the risk of dying from Covid, depending on your age, is three to six times higher if you're unvaccinated.

Why would we open the door on this one?

- Very interesting.

Alright.

Well, we're gonna move on to another topic.

I appreciate it.

Republicans in the North Carolina House passed a bill this week that would prohibit the teaching of critical race theory, lessons based on critical race theory, in North Carolina public school classrooms.

Specifically, that perspective that racism and sexism are foundational to American history, culture, and government.

Democrats have countered that the bill could have a chilling effect on the ability of teachers to share some lessons or parts of Americans history.

So this is an issue we've also been talking about for a really long time.

Nick, tell me what your thoughts are on this.

- The idea that this is gonna block teaching of history, I think, is nonsense.

I don't believe there's any evidence that history is gonna be blocked in teaching.

Here's one of the 13 topics that are banned in this bill, that one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex.

I don't know how that's a controversial topic.

We're dealing with two plus, maybe even three or four years worth of learning loss that students in public schools are dealing with right now.

And the idea that we're gonna be teaching some of these topics, just by themselves.

If you wanna roll it into a conversation, if it's part of a lesson plan, I don't know that any of that is being banned or blocked.

It's when you're specifically nailing these topics into students' heads where I think is where you run into a serious problem, Donna.

- Sure.

Senator Woodard, in the Senate I know Democrats, there was no support for this in the house.

What are your thoughts?

- There won't be any support from the Democrats in the Senate either.

And I gotta disagree with Nick a little bit about this.

I think this is causing a problem for our teachers.

Just this week we learned in Florida that an educational publisher revised its lesson plan about Rosa Park's arrest by removing any discussion of race as the reason she was asked to change her seat.

Now, what if the observant student in that classroom says, "Wait a minute, teacher.

Why was she asked to move?"

Would the teacher be banned from talking about that?

Now, that was since corrected in the lesson plan.

There was a lot of media attention and everybody's pointing the fingers, blaming somebody else.

But it shows that teachers, principals, textbook publishers don't know how to react when bills like this are passed everywhere else.

- So it's about application.

- Sure.

How are you gonna handle it, and who's going to determine what those criteria are that are in the bill?

That's a question I still haven't gotten an answer to.

We did this two years ago, déjà vu all over again.

Who determines this?

- Sure.

Senator Sawyer, do you think this is part of that ongoing demand from parents to have more say about what's going on in the classroom?

- I don't know.

This topic always baffles me because it's the same thing that happens with a lot of bills in this space.

The bill says one thing, but it's reported to say something else.

And so to piggyback on what Nick said, another one of those 13 areas that it specifically says is that, "An individual should not be discriminated against or receive adverse treatments solely or partly because of his or her race or sex."

I think those are common foundational things that we all agree upon, and this bill is just laying those out.

And I don't even think CRT is mentioned in the bill language anywhere at all, and yet it's being labeled as the anti-CRT bill.

It's basically just saying that these are rights that we should have, and that you should not make a presumption on someone's behavior based on the melatonin in their skin.

- Interesting.

So one of the things it also says is, it can't teach a meritocracy that is inherently racist or sexist.

What do you think?

- I think this is yet another bill that is a solution in search of a problem.

I don't think any of this is happening in the public schools.

And I think the challenge is, how do you talk about slavery?

How do you talk about millions of Jews being exterminated in World War II without the proper context?

You know, one of the bill sponsors said, "History needs to be fun and exciting."

History is fun and exciting, but history, also, you have to teach real history.

You can't whitewash history.

I mean, what are we gonna say about the Civil War?

Are we gonna call it a territorial dispute?

Are we gonna call it the War of Northern Aggression again?

I mean, the Civil War was fought because of slavery.

My point is, to Mike's point, how do teachers, when they say you can't talk about things that involve race, or make things that appear racist, how do you talk about slavery?

- [Donna] Sure - I don't know that that's in the bill at all though.

It doesn't mention anything about talking about race.

It clearly states that I can't, as a teacher, tell a child, "Based on your skin color, your sex, or your religion that you're either inferior or superior than somebody else."

And I think we absolutely should teach history.

It's dark, it's disturbing, it's disgusting in some periods of time.

But we don't have to guilt trip a child in class because of something that happened 300 years ago.

- Your allegation, which is the craziest part, is that this is actually happening.

- Oh, it absolutely is.

- You're crazy.

Our kids are not being taught they're racist in the public schools.

They're being taught history.

- Our educators work very hard every day of how they teach all the subjects.

Whether they're teaching history or math or science and what are the best ways to teach it.

We've seen crazy applications of teaching race where kids had privilege bingo.

That's not a way to teach this at all.

- Correct.

- To the point that I've heard some folks raise.

Instead of the legislature sent out on Jones Street, 170 of us, we're not necessarily great teachers or instruction designers, you know, we oughta let our teachers, principals, families and students sit there and start to figure out how best to teach.

You know, whether it's biology or quantum physics or American history and include race and racism in that.

- Sure, sure.

We'll move on to another one but I do have one quick question.

What do you think, do you think this is about parents, a response to parents saying, "I wanna know more about what's going on?"

- Yeah, I mean, that's our job as legislators is to respond to folks who are our stakeholders and those are parents in the education system.

- Sure, sure.

- And there's nothing to stop parents from doing that now.

- Okay, all right.

Well, we're looking forward to talking more about this.

I'm sure it is gonna be coming for a long time.

So North Carolina is the second largest banking state in the nation.

Now, one of our state's oldest banks is actually in the running to purchase California's failed Silicon Valley Bank.

It comes after SVB had a run of withdrawals that triggered the second largest banking collapse in American history, the largest since 2008.

It's gonna be a big issue for the state's new banking commissioner confirmed by the state legislature this week.

Okay.

So let's talk a little bit about that.

You know, the State's Banking Commission will be part of that executive branch.

It's a challenge.

Should we be worried?

- So here's what I'll tell you.

I think we've seen a lot of consolidation over bank failures.

I mean, if you think back in the last 20 years, especially, I mean, go back to the big ones in 2008, Bank of America, Wachovia, Wells Fargo, First Union, all of those things.

What we have seen is some good and some bad come to that.

So I think in a state regulated bank they need to be paying very close attention to that.

But I will say First Citizens has been a good actor in this space.

I was reading about this and I guess that they have taken over 20 banks or bid to buy 20 different banks that have failed in the last, excuse me, 10 or 12 years.

And I think generally they've made really smart decisions about it.

They seem to, in most of those cases, have done really good due diligence.

And I think they've probably done it this way.

Obviously, it will be up for the banking commissioner and the banking commission at the end of the day.

But generally they've made good moves here.

- Sure and we've been all been watching this issue throughout the week, kind of unfold and seeing that North Carolina tie.

Do you think some of these failures might be a regulatory issue, a management issue?

What are your thoughts?

- Well, I'm gonna give a shout out to our own congressman, Patrick McHenry, my congressman.

And he's been all over this.

And in speaking with his office this morning they are taking a watch, very careful look, at how this happened.

It's also interesting to note, they had mentioned that it seems like folks are already pointing fingers and blame, but based on what their own, like, banking religion is.

So if you don't like cryptocurrency, you think it was because they were heavily in crypto.

Or if you don't like this banking practice or ESG, it's because of that.

They really don't know what happened.

So he's taking a very close look to make sure that this doesn't happen in the future.

And if there isn't need of regulation at all.

- Sure.

Banking religion, I gotta remember that, that's a good one.

So banking religion.

So tell me, what are your thoughts and what are you hearing from some of your constituents?

- Let me say this, I think as we wade into this and deal with the post failure of SVB and Signal and what's happening in Europe even today, I have great confidence in Commissioner Bosken.

She has done a remarkable job.

We heard great praise for her as her nomination moved through the legislature over the last two weeks and in our commission.

We have had solid, one of the reasons we're the number two banking state in the country is because we've had solid regulation and support of our banking industry over the years.

Morgan touched on First Citizens, they're the number 30 bank in the country with a hundred billion assets.

They're a conservative, closely held and well-run bank.

They have taken over those 20 banks in the last decade or so and done a great job of repositioning and using those assets.

So I think they would be a great partner to take over the SVB assets.

It would be great for North Carolina too because it would boost our state's growing reputation for entrepreneurship.

SVB made its reputation out in Silicon Valley with those kinds of depositors and just, they needed better management.

I think First Citizens might be the bank to do that.

And we might know this weekend, bids are due on Friday and the FDC is in a position to make their announcements Sunday night or Monday.

- We'll be looking forward to that.

Tell me what your thoughts are.

I know people are worried, you know, I'm hearing it from readers and listeners saying, "Should I be worried?

Should I be pulling my money out?"

What are you hearing?

- As the senator said, well-run bank and SVB was not a well-run bank.

They were way over leveraged.

They seemingly didn't care that they were well over leveraged.

They didn't put any stop gaps or any firewalls in place to stop that.

Then you had $50 billion worth of assets pulled out and then all of a sudden there was nothing left.

And that's where we look at it.

So I'm curious to see what First Citizens does.

I know there was a lot of other banks early on that tried to get into this and I guess something in due diligence spooked them all off 'cause they all dropped out.

So I guess we'll see what First Citizen comes up with.

- Sure, sure.

And I'm gonna come back to you actually for a minute.

Banking, huge industry.

And I know that that's something that the governors focused on.

- Absolutely incredible industry.

I mean, you talked about it in the lead on is that we're number two banking state in the country.

We like the idea and I think I agree with what everybody said, we like the idea of getting bigger in banking.

It means more jobs.

And it's not just banking jobs, it's all the ancillary jobs that come in.

- [Host] The technology.

- You look at Charlotte, Charlotte is a banking town but it's not just the two big banks.

It's everything that comes with that.

And so, I agree with everybody else.

First Citizens is a well run bank, family held, I think it's the largest family held bank in the country, which is pretty impressive.

And they've done a good job.

And I agree with Nick.

I think you know, SVP and that's their problem.

It was a badly run bank and First Citizens could shape that up in a good way.

- Very interesting.

All right, well, we're gonna be watching.

Something's supposed to come out maybe this weekend, perhaps next week.

But we'll certainly keep everybody updated.

We're also gonna talk about transportation today.

As cars become more fuel efficient, the push continues to get more electric vehicles on the road.

North Carolina's gas tax based transportation funding model may need a revamp.

How did we get here?

What does it look like?

And who would pay?

A bill filed in the state's senate this week is aimed at increasing revenue for the state's transportation infrastructure.

Senator Sawyer, I'm actually gonna come to you a little bit.

How did we get here?

- Well, we got here by a couple of people like Senator Mike Woodard here to my right, and a bipartisan group got together.

We named it NC10 because you see a lot of things that are publicized in transportation space, they have a 10 year forecast.

And the DOT has a 10 year forecast.

It's pretty scary.

And they're saying that they have a $7.6 billion in unmet maintenance needs, and 77.4 billion in unmet construction needs.

That's a big number.

And how are we gonna make sure that we can best build roads and continue to maintain roads when we have a decrease in gas tax?

This isn't anti-EV.

This is not I do not like hybrid vehicles.

I actually think they're cool and fun.

And I have one on order.

So this isn't picking on one industry over the other, but it is talking about how do we all make those investments into the transportation system so North Carolina continued to grow?

and we did a lot through this NC10 group.

We put folks in a room, set it up Montessori style.

Senator Woodard was one of our leaders in that group.

We came together and we found out what we could get consensus on on these areas.

So it's not just EV fees, we have other portions in this bill that hits different areas like Uber and Lyft fees, and some other things.

so we can help try to plug these gaps that are coming.

- Sure, Senator Woodard fill in.

There's some real challenges to the current system.

- Oh, no question.

I mean, at a time when our state's infrastructure needs are going up, our revenue picture is going down because we've relied for a century now on the gas tax to fund roads and transportation in this state.

That's gotta change.

And I just feel like leaders in this state have been kicking this can down the road.

So I appreciate the partnership, Senator Sawyer and some of our colleagues in a bipartisan bicameral way, we've agreed to tackle this.

We started back in 2020 when DOT was in a $740 million hole.

I was there for that one to dig DOT out of it and said, we've gotta start fixing this now.

So we're gonna have a whole range of options to modernize our revenue stream for North Carolina transportation.

We took the first bite at the apple last year with the transfer of the sales tax.

You're gonna see two, four, and 6% over three years sales tax transfer into DOT, into the highway fund, because that's roughly what we think is when you buy oil, windshield wipers, tires, those taxes ought to go help to fund the roads.

- So it's more of a consumer based?

- That one is, yes.

And so, and the bill that Senator Sawyer and I put in with our colleague Senator McInnis this week is the second stab at this.

And it's going to be an iterative process for us to modernize revenue.

And people are gonna grouse a little bit.

But as Senator Sawer said, everybody's gotta make an investment.

That's the independent and individual drivers, it's businesses, it's car manufacturers, it's car automobile dealers.

We've all gotta invest in our future transportation needs.

- Investment always seems, sometimes seems like a red flag to me.

Investment can also be taxes, tell me what you think.

- The way the DOT does their stuff, I don't know if most people are aware of, it's called STIP.

It's the State Transportation Improvement Program.

And everything is on about a 10 year plot.

So you've got 100 counties across the state, plus hundreds of municipalities that are all vying for the same money.

And the state has to take all, everybody comes forward and says, here's what I need, and this is how important it is.

And then the state comes up with their determination based off of all these factors and looking at everything.

That program's in a pretty rough shape right now.

It's continually falling behind.

There's big projects like down on the coast, the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge, which isn't even on the 10 year plan.

That bridge is aging out in years to come.

So that's gonna be very interesting to see.

And Donna, I guess I'll use the word equitable here.

If we're talking about electric cars and people paying their fair share, there should be some equity there.

Since I'm filling my car up with gas, I guess the EV drivers should be filling up the fund in an equitable manner as well.

- Interesting, good.

So tell me what your thoughts are.

Where would the governor be on this?

- Well, I think the governor strongly believes that our economy is evolving.

And as our economy evolves we have to change the way we find revenue streams.

That's just a fact.

I mean, as everybody has said, that's just a fact.

I think the governor is a strong supporter of the clean energy economy in North Carolina, and wants to be sure that we're not doing anything to dampen that.

So we need to be thoughtful about it.

Look at VinFast, the EV maker that's coming to bring jobs to North Carolina, Toyota's building a huge battery plant.

And we, knock on wood, are hopeful that that ultimately leads to another manufacturer.

But look at, I mean, look at where we're going nationally.

GM is saying by 2035 they're not producing any cars, their entire car line in 2035 and beyond will all be EV.

It's happening.

And so what we have to do is we have to adjust for it, we have to plan for it.

I appreciate what you all are doing and thinking about it.

And I think the governor's point is, let's make sure we are measured.

It's, we measure twice and cut once to make sure that we are not doing anything to stifle the clean energy economy that's really booming in North Carolina.

- Very interesting.

- Is that kind of like the cut when he did in his proposed budget to cut out the sales tax transfer?

Is that the kind of cut [group laughs] you're talking about there, Morgan?

I'm just curious.

- You gotta measure twice and cut once.

- I was wondering.

[laughs] - So that's it.

- I didn't like that cut too much to be honest with you.

[laughs] - Interesting.

So now, you're talking about Governor Cooper puts a budget proposal together.

- Yes.

- Certainly, the budget process is underway.

The legislature is actually the budget that he would then sign.

- Right.

But in his proposal, in the transportation space, it was to cap that sales tax transfer.

But basically, would hamstring the department.

And we've already had, in that step, we had put some projects back in based on that sales tax transfer.

And so projects were gonna have to be taken off again if that were to hold in tight.

So Senator Woodard and I, won't put you on the spot here, but are definitely gonna be advocates for keeping that sales tax transfer in the budget.

- Yeah, it just makes sense.

And we've talked about a lot of options here, as I said earlier.

To me, DOT funding has always been, if you know the game Jenga, where you put the wood slats together, and you pull one out, and you have to move it somewhere.

And you have to be careful that if you pull the wrong one, [snaps] the whole thing collapses.

That's what I worry about a little bit, as we modernize this funding, is we've gotta be careful not to pull the wrong one, and watch the whole thing collapse.

Or we'll be back where we were in 2020, 740 million in the hole.

- Well said.

- Sure, sure.

So we're gonna go around the table real quick, talk about what else caught your attention this week.

For me, it was seeing a bill to fund the little renovation down at the the Lost Colony Amphitheater, something that I've always remembered as a kid growing up.

It's a must do, I think, as you go through North Carolina, if you're just visiting or moving here.

Something that I'm looking forward to seeing.

It's a great play, if you ever get a chance to get out there this summer.

So, Morgan, tell me what you noticed.

[Morgan] It's incredible.

- [Speaker 1] Yes.

I'm glad you brought that up.

So, I'd say a couple things, and I'll be quick about it.

First of all, we talked a lot about Medicaid last week, officially done this week.

The bill has gone to the governor.

The governor will be signing it next week, and in a fashion with legislative leaders, which is a big deal.

But sports betting, for those who are folks on the NCAA tournament right now.

Sports betting cleared two committees this week.

I don't know, you may be like me, and your bracket is completely busted.

But at the same time, [group laughs] I will tell you that it feels like sports betting is gonna become a reality in North Carolina this session.

It fell last year.

I guess it passed the Senate last year and failed in the house.

But now the house is moving it forward.

- All right.

Senator Sawyer, tell me what you've noticed.

- Budget.

Budget, budget.

- [Donna] Sure, sure.

- So I do know that there's a lot of folks who are very excited about Medicaid expansion bill, and I appreciate that excitement 'cause I am a supporter.

But it is hindering on the budget, and we're hearing that from the house that they may be ready to present theirs or send it over to the Senate, where we can do some really good work - All right.

- Looking forward to it.

- and see what happens.

Good!

Senator Woodard, as quick as you can.

Tell me what you got.

- On Monday, Governor Cooper and I had a chance to go to a Top Chef competition with eight of our high schools' culinary programs.

- [Donna] That's exciting.

- It was amazing seeing these kids become part of our state's hospitality industries that bounces back after Covid.

- Sure.

And we definitely need that.

- Absolutely.

- We need need as much labor as we can get in those restaurants.

- You can tell I like food, [host laughs] so I had a great time there.

- Yes, it's a great opportunity.

Tell me what you noticed.

- The Healthy H2O Act, Congressman David Rouzer proposed that.

It's coming off the EPA's recent clean water drinking standards in the last couple of weeks, so we'll follow that through the US House.

- [Donna] Of course.

Where is it now?

- It's in the US House.

- Okay.

All right.

- Mhm, so that was proposed.

- [Donna] Great.

- It's coming off of some of the stuff that Michael Regan and the EPA announced.

- Yeah, this is a big deal.

Because that was down your way.

- Yep.

GenX, PFAS, clean drinking water.

It's a hot topic down the coast, for sure.

- Tons of news going on this week.

Thank you all so much for being here.

I appreciate you joining us, and it's been great talking to you.

What a good discussion this week.

I really appreciate it.

And thank you for joining us too here on State Lines.

See you next week.

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