News from the South - North Carolina News Feed

Redistricting reform in NC has a long history of failed attempts

Published

6 months ago

February 26, 2025

Staff Editor

carolinapublicpress.org – Sarah Michels – 2025-02-26 14:33:00

Why redistricting reform fails. Why NC lawmakers keep trying. And trying.

by Sarah Michels, Carolina Public Press
February 26, 2025

In June 1993, Democratic state senator Clark Plexico filed a bill that would remove lawmakers’ ability to draw their own electoral maps. Instead, Plexico proposed a nonpartisan method: selecting five regular people to help draw maps during the redistricting process.

Majority and minority legislative leaders would each appoint two members. Those four would vote on their fifth and final member.

The goal was to remove politics from the decennial redrawing of maps to adjust for population shifts identified by the U.S. Census Bureau.

But the bill was never assigned a committee, and no other lawmaker signed onto it.

Three decades and 16 similar bills later, North Carolina appears no closer to a non-political redistricting process.

But that hasn’t stopped 39 House Democrats from signing onto House Bill 20 — the Fair Maps Act — this session. Upon approval by a majority of North Carolina voters, it would amend the state constitution to establish an independent redistricting commission made up of five Democrats, five Republicans and five unaffiliated voters to draw the state’s next electoral maps after the U.S. Census.

Per usual, the bill has not been assigned to a committee, meaning Republican leadership has effectively ended its run before it began.

It’s a lesson Plexico learned a long time ago: Nobody gives up power unless they’re forced. And redistricting holds the power to control a legislature, and therefore, state policy for a decade at a time.

“I was naive,” he admitted. “I thought of politics and being in elective office as public service. So I thought I was there to do the right thing, which meant: What’s the best thing for the majority of people?”

The history of redistricting reform

Plexico filed his bill when Democrats held power in both legislative chambers and the governor’s office. He was friends with leadership, too. But that didn’t stop them from asking Plexico if he was “out of his mind.”

While this type of legislation has been continuously proposed since the 1993-94 session, only four sessions saw it filed by a lawmaker who belonged to the party in power. Plexico was the first.

In the 2005-06 session, Democrat Eleanor Kinnaird tried her hand. Unsuccessfully.

Most recently, in the 2011-12 and 2013-14 sessions, Republican John Blust failed to move independent redistricting commission legislation forward even though his party held legislative control.

Nobody can successfully change the system alone, Plexico said, and they have to be willing to pay politically for the attempt.

“You can make a point, but that’s about all you’re going to do,” he said.

If passed, the Fair Maps Act would be placed on the ballot for North Carolina voters to decide whether they want an independent redistricting commission.

If they did, the process would include at least 25 public meetings of the commission. Commission applicants would have to go through the state auditor, State Ethics Commission and General Assembly before being selected. Those with political connections, including lobbyists, political donors and relatives of legislators, would be barred.

To help them draw maps, members would be trained on the guidelines and laws that inform the redistricting process, like the Voting Rights Act.

For a map to pass muster, at least nine of 15 members, and three from each party subgroup, would have to agree. If they couldn’t agree, they could hire a special master to draw districts.

So, could this be the year?

Or is this all a pipe dream?

‘Not just an ugly map’

Eight years ago, on an October morning in Asheville, runners raced along the boundary between North Carolina’s 10th and 11th Congressional Districts. They zigzagged between yards in a seemingly random route to the finish line.

They were participating in the Gerrymander 5K, a visual experiment conducted by the League of Women Voters to demonstrate how precisely lawmakers could draw maps to include — or exclude — specific streets or homes in a district for political gain.

State Rep. Lindsey Prather, D-Buncombe, said lawmakers in favor of redistricting reform need creative methods like this to educate the populace about gerrymandering and its impact if they ever want things to change.

“It’s not just an ugly map,” said Prather, who is a primary sponsor of the Fair Maps Act. “It’s not just an insider term that people like to throw around. It really changes who it is that’s representing you and how representative of a government we have.”

North Carolina has a long history of redistricting drama, going back to the late 1970s and 1980s. More recently, maps drawn by the legislature have faced a seemingly endless series of court battles for being partisan gerrymanders.

For example, there have been four maps drawn for the state since the 2020 census, and there very well could be more by the time 2030 arrives.

Independent redistricting commissions, though, might just reverse that trend. When the group creating the voting map is nonpartisan, the best ideas usually win, explained Democrat Zack Hawkins, a state senator who represents Durham.

Gerrymandered maps allow for more “extreme” ideas to see the light of day, he added. Representatives who are no longer in competitive districts don’t have to work with members of both parties to secure reelection and maintain political power.

To Hawkins, the most egregious example of gerrymandering is North Carolina’s congressional maps. Republican lawmakers took a map that had seven Democratic districts and seven Republican ones and redrew it. The new version featured 10 solid Republican districts and just four Democratic ones.

“Now, that should never be on the table for any legislature, no matter who’s in the majority, to do that because it’s not reflective of the state,” Hawkins said.

Getting closer

State Rep. Allen Buansi, a cosponsor of the Fair Maps Act, is in the business of hope.

He remembers being in law school and discussing how dangerous the redistricting process was in the hands of partisan lawmakers.

“Talking with other young people at that time, other law school students, I see the hunger for a different approach on many levels in different aspects of our society,” Buansi said.

But according to Prather, it’s an “open secret” that passing any legislation requires the support of Republican leadership. Democrats don’t have it this year, so they’re thinking more long term.

“I’m not naive,” Prather said. “I don’t think that this is necessarily going to pass this term, but I think we’re going to get closer and closer every term that we file it.”

The more lawmakers discuss the issue, Prather hopes constituents will talk to their representatives about support for the legislation.

Speaking of support, polls consistently show where the public stands on independent redistricting commissions.

“Poll after poll after poll shows that if it were on the ballot, it would pass,” said Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University. “People tend to like the idea of independent redistricting reform. Democrats like it a little bit more than Republicans, but both parties tend to support it.”

Ten states have some form of nonpartisan redistricting commissions. But Cooper said they have something North Carolina doesn’t: The ability of citizens to directly present an idea to the people through a ballot initiative.

“Every time it’s passed, it’s passed because the people brought it to the ballot, the people got enough signatures, and we don’t have that mechanism in our state,” Cooper said.

But Democrats aren’t giving up. And although they’ve rejected Republican attempts at redistricting reform while they were the party in power, they insist that if they’re in charge in the future, they’re committed to change.

“My party hopefully will be in the majority of the House in 2030,” Hawkins said. “And if they are, then our goal is to pass this bill.”

This article first appeared on Carolina Public Press and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

The post Redistricting reform in NC has a long history of failed attempts appeared first on carolinapublicpress.org

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Updated COVID vaccine approval adds restrictions for some patients

Published

16 hours ago

August 29, 2025

Staff Editor

www.youtube.com – ABC11 – 2025-08-29 23:25:04

SUMMARY: As fall approaches, updated FDA guidelines restrict COVID-19 vaccine eligibility primarily to those 65 and older or younger high-risk individuals with underlying conditions like asthma, diabetes, or heart issues. Raleigh pharmacy manager Santa Rita Christian notes customers must meet these criteria or have a prescription. The CDC will review these updates next month, influencing insurance coverage. CVS now requires prescriptions for vaccines in North Carolina and 12 other states due to unclear ACIP guidance, causing pharmacy confusion. Health experts urge parents to consult healthcare providers about risks, especially for young children and high-risk contacts.

The vaccines are approved for use in people 65 and older, as well as those younger with at least one health condition that makes them high-risk.

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News from the South - North Carolina News Feed

BRIC program cuts leave NC communities in limbo

Published

1 day ago

August 29, 2025

Staff Editor

carolinapublicpress.org – Lucas Thomae – 2025-08-29 05:00:00

by Lucas Thomae, Carolina Public Press
August 29, 2025

Dozens of North Carolina communities are in limbo after FEMA canceled more than $200 million worth of grants for flood-mitigation projects earlier this year in the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities Grant program, also known as BRIC.

For Forest City in Rutherford County, the now defunct grant program was meant to be a safety net. Flooding along the Second Broad River exposed the area’s vulnerability to heavy rainfall five years ago, when rising water smashed debris into a main line and cut off running water to Forest City and the nearby towns of Ellenboro and Bostic.

Repair work following the storm revealed more problems.

Erosion along the river left Forest City’s sewer system and raw water intake at risk of flood damage, but the town didn’t have the money to fix it. Federal emergency management officials told town officials that they would be a good fit for a new grant program aimed at pre-disaster mitigation.

Through its Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities Grant program, FEMA awarded Forest City $2.6 million for improvements to the town’s water and sewer systems. The project was well into the planning and design process when the federal government revoked the grant.

FEMA announced the end of the BRIC program and canceled all applications from fiscal years 2020 through 2023 on April 4, calling the program created during President Donald Trump’s first term “wasteful and ineffective” in press releases.

In total, 72 North Carolina communities with active BRIC-funded projects worth about $225 million were affected.

Town officials across the state told Carolina Public Press that the mitigation projects they view as essential to keeping their communities safe are now caught in a federal political battle in Washington.

“I don’t consider water and sewer projects to be political or woke,” Town Manager Janet Mason said.

Neither did a bipartisan group of 80 members of Congress, which released a letter addressed to Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and acting FEMA Administrator David Richardson shortly after the grant program’s termination, urging them to reverse the decision.

“BRIC funds are spurring communities across the country to strengthen their resilience to extreme weather, and forgoing these critical investments will only make it harder and more expensive for communities to recover from the next storm,” the letter read.

Instead, the legislators suggested that FEMA and Congress work together to improve the grant program’s application review and funding distribution processes.

Sen. Thom Tillis and Rep. Chuck Edwards, both North Carolina Republicans, helped craft the letter. Rep. Don Davis, a Democrat representing the northeastern part of the state, and Rep. Alma Adams, a Democrat representing Charlotte, were the other two members of North Carolina’s Congressional delegation to add their signatures.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to CPP’s request for a comment on pushback from lawmakers and local governments over the ending of the BRIC program.

Meanwhile, the communities with active BRIC-funded projects have been left to wait as the future of those funds is litigated in court. North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson joined 19 other U.S. states in suing Noem and Richardson last month, arguing that FEMA’s termination of the grant program was illegal.

The lawsuit has three components.

First, it argues that a 2006 federal law protecting FEMA from being dissolved also prevents the government from “substantially reducing FEMA’s mitigation functions.”

Secondly, the complaint states that FEMA’s refusal to spend funds directed towards the BRIC grant program by Congress violates the legislature’s power of the purse, as granted by the Constitution.

Lastly, it claims that Richardson and his predecessor Cameron Hamilton, who was removed from his position as acting FEMA administrator on May 8, did not have legal authority to end the BRIC program because neither were ever confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

Those plaintiff states won a small victory on Aug. 5 when a United States District Judge placed an injunction on preventing the federal government from spending the BRIC funds until the court gives a final decision.

As noted in the lawsuit, FEMA had planned to return about $882 million of the BRIC funds to the U.S. Treasury and another $4 billion to its Disaster Relief Fund, which is reserved for post-disaster spending.

While many BRIC-funded projects in North Carolina have been put on pause as the federal money is withheld, some projects which have begun construction using already-obligated funds continue to advance.

Such is the case with Princeville, a low-lying community in Edgecombe County which was awarded $11 million to develop a 53-acre plot of land outside of the floodplain which encompasses much of the town.

Princeville Mayor Bobby Jones told CPP that the town continues to draw BRIC funds to work on the project.

Other communities, like Salisbury in Rowan County, are actively searching for alternative funding sources to complete their BRIC projects.

Salisbury was previously awarded $22.5 million through BRIC to relocate its existing water treatment facilities to a location more resilient to flooding. Utilities director Jason Wilson told CPP that the site of the new facilities is shovel-ready, which the city hopes makes it an attractive candidate for other grant programs.

The city intends to apply for FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, which unlike BRIC is a post-disaster relief program. Salisbury is eligible to apply since Rowan County was included in the federally declared disaster area following Hurricane Helene.

The City of Lumberton is also searching for a new source of funding for stream restoration, wetland preservation and trail construction projects, which it received a $1.9 million BRIC grant for several years ago.

The Robeson County city, which sits on the Lumber River, has been working since 2016 to develop land it bought from property owners following Hurricane Matthew into an expansive public trails system.

Deputy City Manager Brandon Love told CPP that he’s optimistic that the city will find an alternate source of funding to keep the project moving forward, but it’s nonetheless a disappointing development after years of planning.

“Getting caught up in the politics of things going on in Washington is hitting home here at the local level,” Love said, “and that’s unfortunate.”

This article first appeared on Carolina Public Press and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post BRIC program cuts leave NC communities in limbo appeared first on carolinapublicpress.org

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

The content presents a critical view of the cancellation of a federal grant program initiated under the Trump administration, highlighting bipartisan concern and legal challenges against the decision. It emphasizes the negative local impacts and frames the termination as a politically motivated action that harms community safety and resilience efforts. The article leans slightly left by focusing on government responsibility in disaster mitigation and portraying the current administration’s actions as detrimental, while also acknowledging bipartisan opposition and including voices from both Republican and Democratic officials.

News from the South - North Carolina News Feed

Inside NC’s tourism push: Tracking Helene’s impact, ‘playing heartstrings’ & wrangling social media

Published

1 day ago

August 29, 2025

Staff Editor

ncnewsline.com – Galen Bacharier – 2025-08-29 04:30:00

SUMMARY: After Hurricane Helene caused flooding and damage to western North Carolina’s Biltmore Estate and surrounding areas, Visit NC launched marketing campaigns to revive tourism. Initially urging in-state residents and visitors to cautiously return, they shifted to the “Rediscover the Unforgettable” campaign, promoting outdoor activities and local attractions. Despite sluggish tourism in 2025, spending remained near 2024 levels. Visit NC invested nearly $14 million in targeted advertising, leveraging social media influencers to counter negative online flood imagery impacting visitor sentiment. Support from Governor Josh Stein, a vocal advocate for the region’s recovery, has been crucial in maintaining positive momentum and encouraging travel.

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The post Inside NC’s tourism push: Tracking Helene’s impact, ‘playing heartstrings’ & wrangling social media appeared first on ncnewsline.com