Jeff Tiberii

Results are in for special congressional elections in North Carolina’s 3rd and 9th Districts. In the closely-watched 9th District race, Republican Dan Bishop slipped past Democrat Dan McCready with a 2-point lead.

On Tuesday, a three-judge panel in Raleigh ruled that North Carolina's legislative maps are unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders that favor Republicans. The court ordered state legislators to draw up new maps within two weeks, ahead of the primaries for the 2020 election. Republican Senate leader Phil Berger announced that he will not appeal the decision, despite many earlier pledges to do so from Republican lawmakers and staff.

More than 40 days have gone by since the North Carolina budget was supposed to be enacted. Since the start of the new fiscal year on July 1, negotiations between Republican legislative leaders and Gov. Roy Cooper have barely budged. Cooper vetoed the latest Republican House budget citing low pay increases for teachers and the absence of Medicaid expansion.

A conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that federal courts have no role to play in deciding partisan gerrymandering cases.

Many cities across the country are dealing with a housing crisis. The problems are a complex intersection of, among many issues, affordability, capacity, poverty, wage growth and eviction. In a reporting collaborative, NPR member station WFDD (Winston-Salem) recently produced three stories about the challenges facing urban centers.

Lawmakers in the North Carolina House and Senate are negotiating the state budget. The primary differences in the spending plans approved by each chamber include the amounts allocated for teacher and state employee raises, cost of living adjustments for state retirees and education.

State Sen. Dan Bishop of Mecklenburg County won Tuesday’s Republican primary election for the 9th Congressional District. Bishop beat out nine other candidates with 47.7 percent of the vote.

Republicans in the House are moving forward with their version of the state budget. Teachers and supporters who took to the streets in protest over funding were disappointed that the proposal did not meet their demands. Gov. Roy Cooper was also left wanting; now questions have arisen over whether he would veto a budget that does not provide for Medicaid expansion. 

This week on the podcast, our focus turns to two special congressional elections underway in the state. North Carolina's Ninth District was marred in an absentee election fraud scandal and November's apparent winner was never certified.

North Carolina politics is the focus of a federal investigation into corruption. Four men, including the chair of the state Republican Party, were arrested this week for conspiring to bribe the state insurance commissioner.

North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark Martin announced that he will step down at the end of February to become the dean of Regent University law school in Virginia. Martin was one of two Republican justices remaining on the state Supreme Court, and Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper will choose his replacement. 

A fresh batch of state lawmakers were sworn in last week bringing with them sweeping changes to some North Carolina districts. Both Wake and Mecklenburg County now have no Republican representatives in the House and only two Republican senators between them. Nearly 40 new representatives will officially start work for the long session in two weeks. 

The North Carolina Republican Party is rallying behind congressional candidate Mark Harris in the 9th district despite an ongoing investigation into potential fraud that could invalidate his victory. Republicans are calling on the State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement to certify the election results unless the alleged irregularities would have changed the outcome. The state elections board will hold a hearing on the fraud allegations early next year. 

North Carolina Republicans lost their supermajority in the General Assembly but declared victory in three competitive U.S. House seats. Meanwhile state voters approved four of six constitutional amendments including photo voter ID, but they repudiated the Republican plan to give the legislature more control over judicial and state board appointments.

The race for North Carolina’s 2nd Congressional District is one of the most competitive and expensive in the state. As of Oct. 22, more than $2.8 million had been spent on ads for the contest between Wake County Commissioner and Democrat Linda Coleman and Republican incumbent George Holding. 

The North Carolina General Assembly is in a last-minute special session, called yesterday, to rewrite two proposed constitutional amendments to appear on the November ballot.

A three-judge panel met Wednesday to discuss two challenges to constitutional amendments proposed by the Republican-led General Assembly.

Some U.S. House races that were once considered reliably Republican are becoming more competitive, and three of these districts are in North Carolina. 

Stateline’s annual legislative review analyzes how political trends affect policy questions in legislatures around the country. This year’s findings examine decisions about Medicaid expansion, the impact of the #MeToo movement on policy and behavior, the changing power of unions, gun control legislation in the wake of the Las Vegas and Parkland shootings, and the ongoing fight over sanctuary cities and immigration policy. 

Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed the latest state budget Wednesday, claiming the spending plan does not do enough to support teachers. But is Cooper’s budget plan fiscally sound? The legislature’s nonpartisan Fiscal Research Division says his proposed budget would rack up a nearly $500 million deficit by 2020.

Facebook’s stock plummeted at the news that 50 million user accounts had been breached and used to create profiles of prospective voters. Since then the company behind the breach, Cambridge Analytica, has been suspended from Facebook. The damage in North Carolina has already been done.

North Carolina Rep. Duane Hall (D-Wake) was met with harsh criticism from other Democratic lawmakers, including Gov. Roy Cooper, when he refused to step down amid claims of sexual harassment by multiple women.

Democratic leaders in Raleigh are calling for one of their own to step down. According to reporting from left-leaning publication NC Policy Watch, five women say North Carolina Rep. Duane Hall (D-Wake) engaged in inappropriate sexual conduct. Hall denies the allegations, But Governor Cooper and other Democratic leaders say he must resign from his post.

The U.S. Supreme Court has temporarily blocked new voting maps for Wake and Mecklenburg counties. The districts are in the state’s two most populous counties, and the decision comes just days before candidates are set to start filing for office.

Revelations of sexual misconduct at the federal level have opened up inquiries into the culture in state houses around the country. At the North Carolina General Assembly, WUNC Capitol Bureau Chief Jeff Tiberii uncovered two incidents of reported misconduct: one from 2007 involving former Representative David Almond (R-Stanly), who allegedly exposed himself to a legislative assistant and then masturbated on an office chair.

Judge Roy Moore is facing new allegations of sexual misconduct from multiple women who say he tried to date them when they were teenagers and he was in his 30s. 

Democrats claimed big wins across the country in this week’s elections. Meanwhile, a series of mayoral races took place in North Carolina. 

The NCAA infractions committee issued a verdict today and concluded it could not find evidence the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill violated academic rules with the use of fake classes. 

The North Carolina House and Senate have approved new plans for dozens of district boundaries. 

Protesters toppled a confederate monument in Durham last night. The statue came down during a demonstration against the violence that erupted in Charlottesville, Virginia this past weekend.