by Sarah Michels, Carolina Public Press May 5, 2025
RALEIGH — Dave Boliek made history last week as the first North Carolina auditor to appoint members of an election board. He used his newfound power, granted by the N.C. Court of Appeals a day before, to transform the State Board of Elections into a more Republican body. The implications of those actions are still to come, but hold the potential to have far-reaching consequences not only for state politics, but in the lives of everyday North Carolinians.
It’s a long-fought victory for North Carolina Republican legislators, who have tried to shift election appointment power away from Democratic governors since 2016. Their most recent attempt gave that power to the state auditor after a Republican —Boliek — won the office for the first time in 16 years. It’s a Council of State job that normally goes unnoticed by most and the names of those who’ve held the position are typically unknown to the general public.
Even though Democratic Gov. Josh Stein quickly issued an appeal to the N.C. Supreme Court, it is unlikely to succeed with Republicans holding a 5-2 majority.
In contrast, newly-appointed State Board members clocked in for their first days of work last week. Three previous board members were reappointed: Democrats Siobhan Millen and Jeff Carmon as well as Republican Stacy Eggers.
Former Democratic chairman Alan Hirsch and Republican Kevin Lewis are out.
Replacing them are Republicans Bob Rucho and Francis De Luca.
Rucho is a former state senator who oversaw a redistricting process that ended up at the U.S. Supreme Court.
De Luca is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who helmed the Civitas Institute, a conservative advocacy and policy-making group, for 17 years. He ran unsuccessfully for a North Carolina congressional seat in 2019.
Later this month, the new state board will choose its executive director — who will most certainly be a Republican.
The result should be a more conservative state elections board, which will in turn create county boards across North Carolina in that same mold.
Should things remain unchanged, Republicans will have the final say on key election issues that emerge in the years to come.
A foregone conclusion for Boliek?
Last month, the Wake County Superior Court ruled that taking election appointment power from the governor would violate the state constitution by hindering that person’s ability to ensure the law is faithfully executed.
The court ruled in a 2-1 decision that the governor, and the governor only, is responsible for that executive power.
While the N.C. Court of Appeals did not include an explanation in its reversal of the Wake County court’s ruling, its panel of judges obviously disagreed.
Lawyers representing Republican legislative leaders and Boliek have argued that since the auditor is also a member of the executive branch, they can share in that duty if the General Assembly wishes. The legislature gets to assign duties to Council of State members, and elections appointment power is up for grabs, they testified.
Lawmakers haven’t explained why the auditor is better suited to the job than the secretary of state, who oversees elections in many states. In fact, a previous attempt to shift power from the governor did hand it over to the secretary of state.
But legislators shifted their approach after a Democrat won that office in the last election.
Last Wednesday’s order effectively allowed the challenged law to go into effect before May 1 — the date the law sets for the auditor, Boliek, to appoint new election board members.
That’s two years before their terms were originally scheduled to expire.
Andy Jackson, director of the Civitas Center for Public Integrity at the John Locke Foundation, saw the change coming.
“There is nothing sacrosanct about the governor being the one to appoint the board,” he said. “I know it’s happened for a long time, but for at least as long a time before that, the governor had nothing to do with the process.”
Katelin Kaiser, the policy director for Democracy North Carolina, was disappointed in the lack of explanation regarding the unsigned order. And she’s certainly not holding out hope that the N.C. Supreme Court reverses the appellate court’s order.
“This version of the court has shown us time and time again that it is not following the law for the people,” she said, “but for the political party and other special interests in North Carolina.”
The state Supreme Court could have stepped in immediately to stop the law from going into effect while it considered the case. That didn’t happen, and the silence seems to signal approval for Boliek, Kaiser said.
Furthermore, the fact that the appellate court allowed the law to go into effect in the first place may be a sign of its confidence that the state Supreme Court will back up their decision, Jackson said.
“If they didn’t have that confidence, maybe they would go ahead and let this get through the process, rather than issuing a stay right before that deadline,” he said.
It’s unclear, though, whether the newly-appointed board members would lose their positions if the state Supreme Court did rule in the governor’s favor.
What does a Republican elections board mean?
For the most part, North Carolina’s election boards unanimously agree on many issues. But there are some decisions where which party holds the deciding vote matters.
One is Sunday voting. Boards, particularly rural ones, have quibbled over whether early-voting days should include Sundays for years.
Democrats tend to approve of Sunday voting, partly because they see it as a way to boost Black voter turnout after church. Some Republicans, including current Republican State Board member Kevin Lewis, would prefer to not hold voting on Sundays.
“I would assume that (early voting) is going to be more repressive to voters, and take back the expansiveness of that opportunity for voters to use same-day registration and to have their ballot cast before Election Day,” Kaiser said.
In the coming months and years, election boards will determine where North Carolina stands in the balance between voter access and election security, what they spend money on and how cooperative they’ll be with the Trump administration’s election agenda.
But perhaps most timely is the ongoing contested state Supreme Court race between Democratic Justice Allison Riggs and Republican Judge Jefferson Griffin.
Griffin has challenged certain categories of voters with the goal of removing them from the count in his race and bridge the 734-vote gap currently between him and Riggs. The case is now in federal court.
The State Board of Elections could come into play. While the board likely can’t take back the lawsuit now, they can edit their planned “cure process” for impacted voters. Specifically, Kaiser could see the new board removing the opportunity for so-called “Never Residents” to prove that they actually have resided in North Carolina before being removed from the count.
Or, they could change their tune on which voters in particular they’re considering a part of Griffin’s protest, which has become a key issue in recent weeks.
“I don’t want to cast a dark cloud over the State Board, but I am concerned,” Kaiser said.
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Center-Right
The content presents a clear political leaning toward the Republican Party, as it details the actions of a Republican auditor, Dave Boliek, and the broader shift of election appointment power away from the Democratic governor in North Carolina. The article discusses the Republican legislative efforts to gain control of the election board and describes the newly appointed members of the board, most of whom are Republicans. While the piece highlights concerns from Democratic figures like Katelin Kaiser, the framing and focus on the Republican perspective, along with the mention of their long-standing attempts to shift election control, suggest a Center-Right bias in its coverage of the issue.
SUMMARY: In this episode of Disney’s *Magic of Storytelling* podcast, ABC11 meteorologist Don Schwener narrates a dramatic escape from Jabba the Hutt’s palace in *Star Wars: Return of the Jedi*. Han Solo, frozen in carbonite, is held captive by Jabba. Luke Skywalker, with help from Princess Leia, R2-D2, and C-3PO, devises a plan to rescue him. Leia, disguised as a bounty hunter, frees Han, but they are caught by Jabba. Luke confronts Jabba, battling a rancor and escaping the Sarlacc pit. Together, the group defeats Jabba and escapes, reuniting as a team.
Jabba holds Princess Leia and Han Solo captive in his fortified palace, but soon a rebel friend comes to stage a daring rescue…Jedi Master Luke Skywalker.
www.thecentersquare.com – By Alan Wooten | The Center Square – (The Center Square – ) 2025-05-05 07:31:00
(The Center Square) – Mandatory consent from parents for several medical treatments is poised to reach a floor vote in the North Carolina House of Representatives.
As lawmakers return from the weekend Monday evening, the Committee on Rules, Calendar and Operations has a 21-bill agenda awaiting. Parents’ Medical Bill of Rights, known also as House Bill 519, is included.
Rep. Jennifer Balkcom, R-Henderson
NCLeg.gov
The legislation would make it necessary for children to receive diagnosis, treatment or prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, substance abuse, emotional disturbances, and prevention of pregnancy. Access to medical records of minor children by parents is in the bill.
Rep. Jennifer Balkcom, R-Henderson, authored the proposal. In an introductory press conference, she spoke of the legal, moral and emotional responsibilities of parents running up against laws that exclude them from medical records, pharmacy reports and mental health information controlled by a consent of a minor.
Critics’ rebuttal is that children may not seek counsel and help if parents are involved.
North Carolina law says a child becomes a legal adult at age 18. Until then, responsibility including financial support is the law. At age 16 or older, a child can petition a court for emancipation.
Another reason cited by proponents is parents’ insurance paying for their children’s health care and knowing for what they are paying.
“The bill doesn’t take away a child’s right to care,” Balkcom said. “It restores the parents’ right to be involved in that care.”
In the last session of the Legislature, Democrats inclusive of then- Gov. Roy Cooper tried to stop Parents’ Bill of Rights – Senate Bill 49 – that involved K-12 education. Notification if health services were offered at school was included, as was language related to pronoun requests and an ability to know what books were checked out from the school library. Classroom instruction about sexual activity was in the new law that overcame a gubernatorial veto.
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Center-Right
The article primarily reports on the legislative process surrounding the “Parents’ Medical Bill of Rights” (House Bill 519) in North Carolina, offering a factual overview of the proposed bill. The piece presents both the bill’s proponents and critics but leans toward favoring the bill by emphasizing the perspectives of the lawmakers supporting it, particularly Rep. Jennifer Balkcom. The tone used to describe the bill’s provisions, including parental involvement in medical decisions for minors, is relatively neutral, but the framing subtly supports parental rights. The article includes an example of opposition from Democrats but focuses more on the legislative action from the bill’s supporters. Overall, it provides a balanced view without strongly endorsing either side, though it slightly leans towards supporting the right of parents to have more control over their children’s medical decisions, a perspective commonly associated with more conservative viewpoints.
At this point, six years after HCA’s purchase of Mission Health, I think we can all agree that HCA Mission is not exactly the most popular health care provider around here.
At Asheville Watchdog, investigative reporter Andrew R. Jones has spearheaded our coverage of many of Mission’s shortcomings under the ownership of HCA Healthcare, a for-profit company based in Nashville that bought then-nonprofit Mission in 2019 for $1.5 billion. Those issues range from an exodus of doctors and nurses, dirty patient rooms and inadequate patient care to lax oversight at the hospital’s morgue, an unattended patient dying in the emergency department’s bathroom and, in 2024, Mission being hit with “immediate jeopardy” by the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the most severe sanction a hospital can face.
Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer, along with a handful of other elected officials, has been critical of HCA and its actions since its takeover. The community at large has freely expressed its disappointment and anger with Mission, with many lamenting the demise of a once-great community hospital.
So when a 30-second ad popped up recently on WLOS-News 13 featuring Manheimer praising HCA Mission for its performance after Tropical Storm Helene devastated our area, it raised a lot of hackles.
Here’s a taste from a Facebook posting about the ad on Asheville Politics:
“We’ve known for a long time that our mayor is a corporate shill and yet she got voted in against Roney in the last election because (people) were afraid Roney wouldn’t be tough enough on homelessness,” Lauren Loiacono wrote in the comments, referring to Councilmember Kim Roney.
“She what? She obviously hasn’t had to sit in the ER for 12 hours to get seen. But it’s about the $$ they earn for the city. Makes me sick. Mission used to be a wonderful hospital,” Teryll Higgins wrote.
A post about the mayor’s appearance elicited blowback on the Facebook page of Asheville politics.
Folks on Reddit were way less restrained.
Here’s what Manheimer says in the ad:
“This storm tested any readiness you could possibly have, and that was critical that we all had strong partners, and HCA Healthcare was that strong partner, doing their part to help all the people of western North Carolina. Having HCA Healthcare continue to treat everybody who walked through their door was fundamental to not losing more lives in our community.”
A female announcer then intones, “In a disaster response and every day, our goal is the same: caring for western North Carolina. HCA Healthcare, your partner in health.”
So, how did this happen?
I texted and emailed with Manheimer about this last week, and she told me she’s “disappointed that HCA would leverage our devastating experience with Helene to run advertisements” and that she “had no idea they were going to make the documentary piece into an ad.”
“HCA gave me a heads-up last week that they are using footage of me in a promotional video,” Manheimer continued. “They advised me that they have the rights to the footage because it was taken from a documentary about Helene that I, along with many other people, consented to be interviewed for.”
You can find that 5-minute HCA documentary here. The 30-second ad does take Manheimer quotes from the longer piece.
Manheimer also said that over the past seven months she’s been interviewed by several different folks filming Helene documentaries.
“I assume HCA gave me a heads-up about this ad because I am on record as harshly criticizing HCA Healthcare and, among other instances, giving them a wakeup call last year when I called on HCA, which is an enormous for-profit hospital company, to put patient safety first or sell Mission Health System to a nonprofit entity,” Manheimer told me. She was referring to a February 2024 news conference, just days after the immediate jeopardy sanction, in which multiple local leaders and elected officials criticized HCA Mission and made the demand to improve or sell.
Manheimer said she agreed to do the longer “documentary” video “because it was important to me to recognize the work and sacrifice that the employees in HCA made in the days and weeks following the storm.”
“They truly went above and beyond, and in this dispute between HCA and the city, county and state (all three of which are suing HCA) I worry that the employees suffer as collateral damage and don’t get the recognition they deserve for their work,” Manheimer said.
Allow me to note, in full disclosure, that my wife has worked at HCA Mission for 25 years as a registered nurse. I’ll also note that HCA did bring in supplies and extra personnel to help after the storm, and in the immediate aftermath of Helene, The Watchdog’s Jones wrote about heroic efforts to provide care under harrowing conditions.
Trauma tents to provide additional care were set up in a parking lot of Mission Hospital following Tropical Storm Helene. // Photo provided to Asheville Watchdog
Mission Health spokesperson Nancy Lindell said via email that they were upfront with Manheimer about the video.
“Of course we have a release, and she understood that it would be used as a 30-second spot before we aired it,” Lindell said. “This TV spot is similar to others seen throughout our region sponsored by key organizations expressing the same gratitude and pride in their team efforts as HCA Healthcare is expressing.”
I asked for the release but did not receive it by deadline.
Lindell said Mission is “tremendously proud of the care our team provided during Hurricane Helene, and we are honored that the mayor was one of several community leaders who expressed their appreciation as part of a longer video developed to recognize these incredible efforts six months after the storm.
“That powerful video received such an overwhelmingly positive response from the thousands of HCA Healthcare colleagues who live here, were affected by the storm, and answered the call to serve our community, that we wanted to share a shorter version more broadly,” Lindell continued. “These videos are intended to celebrate the ingenuity, resilience and determination demonstrated by our team and our western North Carolina community. We have many amazing stories about the care provided within Mission Health that we have and will continue to share as an anchor institution in western North Carolina.”
‘It’s clearly bad politics’
Chris Cooper, a political scientist at Western Carolina University, says no matter how it came about, Manheimer appearing in an ad for HCA Mission is “clearly bad politics”.
“I think we can go ahead and dispose of that question,” Cooper said. “You’ve watched ‘Tom and Jerry’ (cartoons) when you’re a kid — it’d be like if Tom did an ad for Jerry.”
It’s for these keen analogies that Cooper makes the big bucks. Seriously, he dove a little deeper into this imbroglio.
You’ve watched ‘Tom and Jerry’ (cartoons) when you’re a kid — it’d be like if Tom did an ad for Jerry.”
POLITICAL SCIENTIST CHRIS COOPER
“I think it was a mistake, but one born out of good intentions,” Cooper said. “I believe her that she wanted to say thanks to the employees of HCA who did objectively do a great job, and do deserve some credit.
“At the same time, she’s a lawyer, and if she’s gonna sit down and give her name and likeness and quotations to HCA, she’s got to understand that they can do what they want to with it.”.
So it’s understandable that Manheimer, especially in the gut-wrenching weeks after Helene, felt like she was offering quotes for a documentary lauding employees. But it was also a little naive to think HCA Mission might not do something else with her comments.
“I think ‘naive’ is probably a good adjective,” Cooper said. “Certainly not evil, certainly not duplicitous, certainly not unethical, but just a little naive.”
Cooper also noted that Manheimer’s quotes used in both videos basically extol the larger institution, not employees. We don’t know what got edited out, though.
After the storm, we were all trying to unite, and by many accounts, Mission and HCA did step up. So Manheimer giving credit where it was due made sense, Cooper said.
“At the same time, this is still the same ‘big bad HCA’ that she and others have been fighting against for years,” Cooper said. “And the storm wasn’t going to change who HCA is, and the fact that, at the end of the day, they’re trying to make money.”
The documentary also included local leaders of United Way of Asheville and Buncombe County, the Mountain Community Health Partnership in Burnsville, the McDowell County Emergency Medical Services and the head of Mercy Chefs, which provided meals after the storm.
But Manheimer is the only elected official in the longer piece, and the only person in the shorter ad. Her appearance in the ad, whether she knew it was coming or not, “reads as an implicit endorsement from the city,” as she is the mayor, Cooper said.
“I don’t think that’s what she was trying to do, but that is how it looks,” Cooper said.
On the HCA Mission side, this is what corporations and their marketing people do — promote themselves.
“I think if they described this to the mayor as a documentary, that’s a little misleading, but I would expect nothing more or less from HCA or most any corporation,” Cooper said. “Unfortunately, there’s a lot of people trying to use the storm to their own benefit, and HCA is not the first or the last, unfortunately.”
Manheimer was pretty gushy about HCA in the longer documentary, too, at one point saying, “An event like this makes you realize that you’re all on the same team, and you’re partners in an effort to serve the people, and that was critical that we all had strong partners and HCA Healthcare was that strong partner, doing their part to help all the people of Western North Carolina.”
Cooper views this whole incident as a “one-off” — a mistake for Manheimer, for sure, but not one that’ll cause lasting damage.
“I think the fact that it was a mistake was implicit in what she wrote,” Cooper said, referring to Manheimer’s messages to me. “But no, I don’t see this as the kind of thing that would stop her political career. If she decides to run for the 11th Congressional District, this isn’t gonna matter one way or the other.”
For the record, I haven’t heard anything about Manheimer running for Congress, but if she does, I suspect an opponent might make some hay out of the ad. Politics get ugly, you know, and some folks have very long memories.
In the meantime, I suspect the mayor has learned a valuable lesson about who to give “documentary” interviews to.
Asheville Watchdog welcomes thoughtful reader comments about this story, which has been republished on our Facebook page. Please submit your comments there.
Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. John Boyle has been covering Asheville and surrounding communities since the 20th century. You can reach him at (828) 337-0941, or via email at jboyle@avlwatchdog.org. To show your support for this vital public service go to avlwatchdog.org/support-our-publication/.
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Center-Left
This content critiques for-profit healthcare management (HCA’s ownership of Mission Health) from a perspective that prioritizes public and patient welfare, emphasizing community concerns about healthcare quality and corporate practices. It highlights activism by local elected officials and citizen frustrations, while also recognizing positive efforts by healthcare workers. The focus on accountability for corporate healthcare aligns with themes common in center-left discourse, advocating for greater public good and cautioning against profit-driven motives in essential services.
