[gentle music] - [Kelly] The Gaza protests sparked legislation and debate in both legislative chambers, as the state superintendent warns us that public education is being politicized.

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.

[uplifting music] ♪ - Welcome to "State Lines," I'm Kelly McCullen.

We have a great panel here.

Joining me today, right to my right, public relations consultant Pat Ryan.

Representative Sarah Crawford of Wake County is on the panel, as is Senator Amy Galey, who covers Alamance and Randolph counties in the General Assembly.

And our dear friend editor-in-Chief of "Carolina Journal" and leader of "The Debrief" on YouTube.

Watch that every Thursday?

- Yes, Thursdays.

- I knew it.

That's with the John Locke Foundation or with the "Carolina Journal," I should say.

- "Carolina Journal," sure.

- Well, thanks a lot, first of all, making time to come out to see us today.

News breaks heading into the weekend, Senator Galey, we were expecting over a billion dollars in state surplus and now two offices come together, sit you leaders down and say, it's not gonna be that much.

What's the situation on the, I won't say lack of, I guess, lowered expectations for surplus in the state budget?

- Right.

Yeah, so the expectations did come in, or the hopes did come in lower than had been anticipated, but there still is a budget surplus, and there will be some funds available to do some important things for the state of North Carolina.

I think it continues to reflect positively on what we've been doing for the last decade for the economy in North Carolina and the conservative and restrained way that the leadership has gone about budgeting.

But we will have less revenue to play with and a lot of important things competing for resources.

- Well, the state is very competitive across sectors, but does your team, as the caucus of the GOP side, see this as a slowing down of economic activity in the state?

Or has state government grown?

It's gonna be easy for conservatives to blame state government, but state government seems to be running fairly, leaning on budget every other year, besides maybe now.

What is your take, is our economy slowing?

- I think we're all cautious about the economy and have been for quite some time.

We were anticipating more of a recession maybe, you know, two years, 18 months ago, which did not quite materialize.

I think that there was a lot of discussion in the national press about a soft landing.

I think people are still concerned and wondering about the election, wondering about the events in the Middle East and how that's gonna impact our economy, and energy prices and other things that are giant drivers of the economy across the United States and across the world.

- Representative Crawford, the next point for you.

Well, you know what, the economy no longer, I guess, is booming, if you will.

We're still in some surplus expectation, but it does give the Democrats something now to point at economically.

Well, this is so late breaking, I guess your opinion would be as a individual rep, not as the caucus just yet.

- Yeah, that's correct.

We haven't even had a chance to caucus about this late breaking news.

You know, what I think we really have to be cautious about is about talking about any kind of surplus, right?

Whether it's a billion dollars or 700 million we're thinking might be the difference.

We're still getting all the final news on this.

But you don't really have a surplus when you have unpaid bills.

And our unpaid bills in North Carolina are unpaid bills particularly around education, particularly around supporting people with developmental disabilities.

We have to pay the bills on those.

And now with the squeezing of what we expect now, with what the surplus is going to be, instead of what it was, we're gonna have to make some really tough decisions.

And we have a lot coming up in the summer and the fall, with cliffs approaching around childcare, around education, we're gonna have to make some tough decisions about what the priorities of the state are.

- What do you mean by cliff?

Because not every...

These are folks at home watching and listening.

- [Sarah] Yeah.

- Cliff means what for them?

- Yeah, so in July there's been a federal childcare subsidy in place, and in July that childcare subsidy ends, which means childcare centers who've been benefiting from that are gonna face some big shortfalls in their own budgeting, to the tune of about $300 million across the state.

And so with this kind of squeezing of what the surplus is going to be, we're gonna have to make some tough decisions about where that money goes.

And I hope that we can save childcare centers here in North Carolina.

- Donna, set the tone for us.

This is hard money, but we're not into operations budget.

That's when you cut things and people lose jobs.

- Sure.

- We're talking about things that we wanted, that the state may not get.

Is that accurate?

- Sure, sure.

I mean, well, absolutely.

And back in 2007, we were furloughing teachers.

So what we're talking about really, the cliffs that Senator Crawford was referring to, a ton of Covid money came into North Carolina.

The education system alone got 6 billion.

40% of it, or so, went to salaries and benefits.

Well, now that money's going away.

It's going away to supplement the childcare industry.

It's going away for some of the Covid money to recover from schools.

And the state government could be asked to step in and fund the difference.

And we knew that this was gonna come.

When those federal taxpayer coffers opened up after Covid and all the states got all this money, what were we gonna do when it ran out?

Well, now we're gonna have to find out, because those cliffs are coming in education.

All of these school districts have hired lots of folks to come in and help with bringing kids up to speed.

What are they gonna do with all these people when that money runs out?

The issue though is that North Carolina taxpayers have really seen the administration level balloon over the last several years.

So what do North Carolina taxpayers want us to do?

Well, we polled that this past weekend and they said, hey, look, 40%, a plurality of respondents, said that if there's a surplus we should have a law in place that sends it back to taxpayers.

- All right.

Well, that's politics.

On this, Pat, big deal here.

Democrats can use this to say the Republican budgets are no longer matching up with economic expectations.

You know how this game is played.

How should viewers.

How should they treat this?

We expected a billion and a half, you might have a hundred million at the end of the of the day, which is nothing compared to $28 billion in spending.

- Well, sure, so I think a couple of things.

One, the issue here is that the surplus that was predicted just a couple of weeks ago has been revised to be less of a surplus, but it's still a surplus.

Why was the prediction off?

I read somewhere, I think it was in some of the news overnight, that some of the economists had put together the numbers before all of the April figures had come in.

A question for them is why the rush?

Was it to accommodate the governor's budget proposal?

What have you, there are a lot of, a couple of questions there.

But I think the important takeaway is there is still a surplus, the past 13 years.

You can say what you want about Republican governance and spending too little or taxing too little, et cetera, but I don't think it's reasonable to deny that Republican budgeting policies have been prudent, reasonable, responsible.

And for the last, I think six years have resulted in annual surpluses.

- And Republican budgets helped elect a Democratic governor twice.

Let's be honest about it.

The campus protests over Israel's military action in Gaza sparked some fast moving legislation in Raleigh this very week.

The state Senate is considering legislation to reinstate a mask ban at public protests.

Masks at protests were banned between the early 1950s and the recent COVID pandemic when masks were legalized for health and safety reasons and to not interfere with free speech.

The original law was passed back then to fight the Ku Klux Klan's activities.

In the same legislation, the Senate would also create a felony charge for people who decide to block highway traffic and protest.

Back to you, Senator Galey.

This is a fast mover.

It pops, it's huge, great.

Great citizen feedback on this, but it seems like a bipartisan effort for now, right?

- It should be a bipartisan effort.

Law and order, maintaining order, protecting, allowing people to exercise their legitimate First Amendment rights, using reasonable time, manner, place constraints.

People support that.

They also support ambulances being able to get through, people being able to pick up their children from their activities and not having their own personal lives disrupted by people who've decided to hijack our public roads, for example.

Or reasonable time, manner, place constraints, allowing people to protest.

But you need to show your face.

You need to have the guts.

If you're gonna go out there and you're gonna protest, you need to show people who you are.

People can see our faces right now.

I put my name down on a ballot every two years and run.

People know who I am.

People know who Representative Crawford are.

If you're gonna go out and you're gonna protest, you should have the guts to tell the public who you are as well as what you believe in.

- Donna, in fairness on this issue, it was 70 years that the state.

- Sure.

- For good reasons, didn't want protestors wearing masks or hoods.

So we're going back to where state law was prior to COVID.

This is not really a new bill.

And let's face it, you can say they're hijacking college graduations, they're blocking roads.

These are mainly young people, it seems, and they're being a nuisance more than they're being a danger, at least health wise.

But am I wrong about that?

- Well.

- You think the thing is turning into violence?

- Absolutely.

Some of the Jewish community centers there on campus.

- [Kelly] That's right.

- At UNC were threatened with firebombing, breaking windows, breaking into buildings, all of this was happening.

So I think when we see people who are masked in a protest, it's not reveal yourself because you're giving your opinion.

It's reveal yourself because in many cases it's turning into crimes.

And we're also seeing that there's a large number of folks who are in these protests on campus who aren't UNC students.

And so it really has become a nationwide movement.

We saw students for Justice in Palestine would distribute a toolkit within days after the October 7th attacks in Israel, the terror attacks in Israel.

And it appeared to be a well thought out planned how-to guide to do exactly what we're seeing right now.

So I think that when you are on campus, their right to demonstrate stops where my right to enter that classroom and my right to get my grades at the end of the year and my right to be educated.

All of those things, their right to protest ends where my rights begin.

- Pat, this is very important, on the TV media, people watch local news.

All the cameras are outside where the tents are and it's where they lock arms, the police lock arms, and they walk in and stomp the tent for verbal threat.

For people saying this, you read about it in print, but you don't, is it not being shown that side of it?

We're hearing about the darkness behind all this, alleged darkness.

What do you think?

I can't get my mind, it's hard to get your mind around the nuances of this.

- Sure, yeah, look, I have the same feeling.

I actually thought about going over to UNC and walking around for myself because all that usually you can get is some short clips on Twitter or firsthand accounts in print media.

- Hey.

- But aside from that.

[Kelly laughing] Aside from that, the fact remains that whether these protests are violent or nonviolent, and people can have different definitions of what that even means, you have groups that are breaking well-established rules.

And it's the breaking of those rules that should yield consequences.

Not some other standard that, well, they weren't that violent or they could have been worse.

That's not, in my opinion, what really matters.

What matters is they're breaking rules.

They're doing it under masks to shield their identities and create anonymity.

And for the last 75 years in North Carolina, but for a few years during the pandemic, that wasn't allowed and for a good reason.

And so I think it's perfectly reasonable to go back to that standard.

- Representative Crawford, when it comes to debates.

[Kelly sighing] The conservatives sure have their groups that like to wear a mask and do their thing, but this one's, they've written off conservatives on the campus.

They're gonna look at you and go, why aren't you?

Or maybe why are you not with us as much as we think you should be?

It seems to go right at Joe Biden and all the Democrats on this.

How do you feel about that?

How does that guide you as an elected leader?

Because Chapel Hill is a renowned institution and it's not getting good press.

- Yeah, absolutely.

Well, I do wanna go back to some of the things in this bill.

I really think that in some ways there are some problems here.

- Sure.

- Or solutions looking for problems rather.

- [Kelly] Yeah.

- The things that are being talked about, breaking the rules, breaking the law, infringing on other people's rights, all of those things are already against the law.

And what I really see when it comes to these bills is just a lot of specifics in here that wanna discourage protesting.

Just because somebody's not protesting the way that you want them to necessarily protest.

These are people who are living and dying by the Second Amendment, but wanna shut down the First Amendment rights to free speech and discourage protest because they don't like how you're doing it.

So I have some concerns that I think are pretty valid about this bill, particularly around the masking.

I think people should not be concealing their identity, but if you've got a cancer patient who is protesting the cost of high healthcare, then are you gonna arrest them because they're wearing a mask to protect their health and safety?

I have some real concerns about that.

- All right.

- Can I say something about that?

So I saw that the students, the demonstrators at Carolina this weekend are planning some kind of alternative commencement or something like that.

And in the advertising for this commencement activity, it's a protest activity, they say wear a BLOC, B-L-O-C, which I understand is, you Google it and it's a type of mask.

Which is intended to protect from tear gas.

It is intended to protect from the particulates that might be used to control protestors, if they get out of hand.

So I don't think that we, cancer patients, whatever, they're not gonna get in trouble.

If you're really that sick, you probably shouldn't be at a protest.

You know, I don't think that if we're talking about peaceful people wearing masks who are legitimately trying to make their voices known, we're talking about people who are actually have intentions to be violent.

And the purpose for the bill is the same as it was in the old days when it first came up.

You know, we don't want people going around terrorizing the public, wearing a mask.

And also back to the thing about the protestors having, they occupy the common space.

And by their being there, they are preventing other people from exercising their First Amendment rights.

We have, you have to get a permit if you're gonna do a march on a street, you should have to get a permit to have a protest on Polk Place.

And the administration is 100% correct, making sure that everybody has the equal access to the public spaces for their free speech rights.

- Representative Crawford back to you, where the State House easily passed legislation that would place a written definition of antisemitism in state law.

Supporters say this written legal definition will help prosecutors clarify that hate crimes charges could apply in a potential case.

That said, we had some sound from citizens who spoke for and against regulating this area of speech this week.

- We talk about Israel all the time in our home, and I am scared if my child repeats what we share in the privacy of our home, that they will be disciplined for antisemitic speech or worse.

I plead with you not to pass this bill.

It does not make me feel safer as a Jew or as a Jewish parent, or safer for my Jewish child.

- I was also there for the fight that the flag pulled that the speaker mentioned earlier.

And I saw how prevalent antisemitism is.

There were chance in support of the Houthis who have on their flag, and I quote, "A curse upon the Jews."

There were also calls for political violence against Jews and Intifada.

Someone flew the flag of the PFLP, a designated foreign terrorist organization, which massacred a synagogue less than a decade ago, on the steps of south building this Sunday.

- Speaking before Republicans and Democrats, a bill that passed with over 100 votes in support.

So here we are when it comes to speech, no matter how vile, it does bring out a serious debate about First Amendment.

So how do you parse this from your side?

- Yeah, absolutely.

So this bill, just to recap, puts in the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition, codifies that into North Carolina law.

And the bill does some other things.

Puts some funding into education around antisemitism and around this definition.

You know, what is happening, you know, just even prior to October 7th with increased antisemitic remarks and hate crimes is atrocious and we cannot stand for it.

And I see this definition as a step in the right direction.

I don't think it's a perfect definition.

I think that there have been some valid concerns that folks have raised in the debate around this, but I think it's a good step in the right direction to help open the door to hopefully have more conversations around other discriminatory acts.

My hope is that we can put the same attention that we're giving to this, to the people, the Jewish community, we can give the same attention to other communities that are facing racism and bigotry.

There was a great bill last session, the Hate Crimes Prevention Act that was proposed by Representative Majeed and Rudow and others that really does expand the definition, expands the groups of protected people under the hate crimes, under what's defined as a hate crime.

And I'd like to see some of those pieces of legislation come forward so that we can keep moving the ball on this.

- Senator Galey, at the end of the day, it's politicians passing laws that will restrict someone's speech, whether it needs to be restricted or not.

How do you feel about expanding, adding definitions?

Because someone's gonna say, what about our group, 'cause they don't have a definition in state law.

I thought about that when I saw this bill come through.

How do you handle the growth of this?

- My understanding is that hate crimes are linked to an actual crime.

We're not criminalizing the speech.

It's addressing the motivation for a crime.

So that, say for example of, like Matthew Shepherd who was murdered in, was it Wyoming?

And that was a hate crime because he was targeted because of his sexual orientation.

And that was very clear from the facts surrounding that case.

And so I think that, you know, if somebody wants to say something that's racist or anti-Semitic or whatever, or sexist, as much as much as any of us would disagree with the content of their speech, that's their first amendment right.

It's when you link that speech to a motivation behind the underlying crime, that's what the hate speech is about.

And I think that's kind of what gets lost in the shuffle.

- And I've heard that take on, if you're committing a crime and your words as you commit it or leads to it is what triggers this, not this sort of layer, extra layer of criminal charges.

Donna, how do you parse this as a writer, as a journalist with, you know, different areas of expertise?

Could an article that leads someone to do something, is there any fear there at all?

Do you think this is a well-crafted bill?

- Well, I think that one of the things that is positive about it is that it leans on an existing definition that's been been in place for almost a decade.

And 31 other states in District of Columbia have passed very similar using that same definition.

So North Carolina's not alone in this, but it's also important to note that for Majeed, Representative Majeed is one of the ones that voted against the hate crimes, voted against this, but was a sponsor of the Hate Crimes Act last year.

So there's only four Democrats, really, that voted against it.

This was really a bipartisan effort.

And I think it shows that everybody can get on the same page when it comes to certain issues like this one.

- Do you think those Jewish families that have spoken, if we're going public, we'll talk about what they said.

They don't feel any safer 'cause it's just words, it doesn't stop a crime.

It's just, it's a political statement, they say, and I guess in so many words, it is this week, right now, a political statement.

- I suppose you could frame it that way.

I mean, the bill doesn't add any new crimes to state criminal statutes, right?

I actually share some of the general concerns from organizations like Fire about bills, not this one, but general legislation that may impact people's speech.

But the text of this bill itself describes the definition as quote, "A tool and guide for things like training, "education, and tracking antisemitic incidents."

- And also the definition itself in the IHRA standard says, "Criticism of Israel, similar to that leveled against any other country, cannot be regarded as anti-Semitic."

So I really don't see what all the fuss is about on this bill here.

I think it's perfectly reasonable.

- Any bill that has over a hundred votes, what 99 votes to the positive, it's a non-controversial bill for political purposes.

Well, let's get a little more political.

How about this?

Outgoing state school superintendent, Catherine Truitt says, "Our public education is too politicized right now.

It's not focusing on what's important."

Superintendent Truitt told educators, "The focus should be on our students' improvements and parents should be demanding data to back up teachers' progress with their children."

She's now blaming the media for focusing on buzzwords and the political climate for relying on rhetoric about public education policy.

And she cited terms like, "critical race theory" and "indoctrination" as two such buzzwords.

Donna, we'll go to you on this one.

- Sure.

- What do you think of her points here?

She's outgoing.

She certainly has nothing to lose.

- Sure, sure.

- And rhetoric, and this kind of debate took her out of office - Absolutely.

- in the GOP primary.

- No doubt about it.

- No question.

And I think, you know, one of the biggest issues that we have is that we have a school system, and in many cases, that is really focused on some, you know, racial and social justice issues rather than reading and writing.

And that's one of the challenges that I think a lot of parents, and why you're seeing parents leave the public school system in search of other options is because that they have a very limited window, sometimes even just months to impact their children's future and their education.

Our kids are not keeping up, and we had this huge cliff fall off in learning during COVID and they're not graduating with the reading, writing, and even workforce ready skills that they really need to have.

So that hard data is needed.

And that's really what we should be focused on.

- Senator Gale, we'll go to you next on this topic.

It's her word.

People kinda say, well, we see between the lines here.

She's really talking about her fellow GOP colleagues and prior opponent.

What do you make?

- I would say, if we're gonna talk about buzzwords, I would add fully fund Leandro and fully fund public education as being buzzwords as well.

Because fully fund public education is essentially meaningless.

You know, it would be giving the people who write the budget, the proposed budget, everything that they want.

And that obviously is not tenable.

So I think that we have to listen to parents.

- Sure.

- You know?

- As a Republican, as a senator, I don't make stuff up.

People come to me with their problems, with their issues and their concerns.

And there are huge concerns for our children about what they're being taught.

You cannot say that, "Oh, well, we're gonna have a biological male in a locker room with the girl's volleyball team."

And if a girl complains about it, then she's the one who's gonna get in trouble.

And we're gonna discipline her, have her go home to her parents and then her family be told, "Oh, well, that's just a social issue."

You need to be worried more about the math scores.

That's dismissive.

- Okay.

- And it feels kinda like gaslighting.

- Representative Crawford, the comments here, playing politics with the schools.

Even if the Democrats has super majority, Could you fully fund education?

I remember when Democrats couldn't even do it either.

- Well, we have all this money sitting in the rainy day fund that we could absolutely use.

And I would say fully funding education is a great use of the rainy day fund to get us back on where we need.

And just one thing about, you know, saying fully funding Leandro as a buzzword.

We're not using buzzwords.

We're using facts.

A judge said we have been underfunding public education for decades.

That is a fact.

And it's been going on for longer than the Republicans have been in charge.

So I will make that consent, but that's a fact.

And it wasn't fully fund education tomorrow.

We have a plan that actually lays out the roadmap for how we're gonna get there.

Now, I do wanna say Superintendent Truitt, I applaud what she said this week because I think that we do need to stop politicizing education.

We do need to put what is important.

And I love it when Republican leaders say words like indoctrination or critical race theory or buzzwords.

I say, welcome, come, I will welcome you to the party of the big tent.

But I think it's really concerning that we have a superintendent candidate that is calling our public schools indoctrination centers.

That is the last thing our public schools need.

They are doing amazing work in our public schools.

I've got two daughters in public schools, and they're amazing, and they're doing great work.

We need to treat teachers like the professionals they are.

- Pat, we love buzzword, people love it.

It makes social media so much fun.

And then, but it's killing us too.

- Well, so I might get in trouble for- - You got a minute by the way, I gotta go out.

This show is about over.

- Okay, well I might get in trouble for this take then I'm glad I have only one minute.

- You have 30 seconds.

- I think you could repackage Superintendent Truitt's speech and title it, "How to Lose a Primary."

For better or worse, the superintendent is an elected position and a lot of primary voters care a great deal about the buzzwords that were included in that speech.

Yes, indoctrination, critical race theory, but also school choice.

opportunities, scholarships, social emotional learning.

These are major issues that primary voters or a good subset of them care a lot about.

And the outlook contained in that is maybe why she lost.

- And we're no buzzword here.

We're out of time.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you.

And email us at statelines@pbsnc.org, I'll read it.

We'll see you next week, bye.

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