Education Cuts Concern Citizens
Rep. Michael Wray and I held a town hall meeting last Thursday in Henderson. Approximately 55 people showed up to voice their concerns about cuts in the education budget. As I told the crowd, cuts will have to be made somewhere in the state budget, so it’s a question of where they will be. Most citizens stated that they were willing to continue paying a 1-cent sales tax scheduled to expire July 1 in order to provide more funding to our public schools. I’ve advocated retaining the sales tax so that teachers and teachers’ assistants can keep their jobs. Putting more people on the unemployment line won’t be good for North Carolina or our children.
Voting Rights Eroding
A bill cutting early voting in North Carolina by a week has passed the House and is headed to the Senate floor. This, like the Voter ID bill, is part of a political agenda by the new majority to limit the rights of voters in the state. In particular, this targets Democrats because they are more likely to take part in early voting. In the last election, 60 percent of all votes cast were in the early voting period.
Earlier this week, a Senate committee began discussing a bill that would require voters to show a photo ID before being allowed to vote at the polls. The House has been reviewing Voter ID for several months now, and bill in the Senate is a companion to those efforts.
Voter ID is a solution in search of a problem. Voter fraud in the state is about as common as getting struck and killed by lightning. Voter ID will intimidate and disenfranchise seniors, minorities, students and the poor—all of whom tend to vote Democratic. An estimated 1 million voters in North Carolina don’t have the proper identification, and 508,000 of them are Democrats. Seniors are 20 percent of active voters, but are 32 percent of those without proper ID. African Americans are 22 percent of active voters, but are 32 percent of those without proper ID.
In addition, Voter ID will cost North Carolina millions to provide promised voter identification cards to those who can’t afford them while we face a $2 billion budget shortfall. As it is written the bill represents a potentially huge unfunded mandate to counties, requiring them to spend unknown millions to provide free IDs to thousands of voters.
Click here to read an article in USA Today Forum about Republican efforts to undermine voting rights across the country.
Unemployment Stalemate Continues
Today marks the 45th day that thousands of unemployed North Carolinians have gone without extended benefits due to a political stalemate in Raleigh. When the General Assembly leadership moved on April 16 to tie the extension of federal benefits to an unrelated resolution on the state budget, 37,000 people stopped getting checks. That number has since swelled to what could be as many 45,000 today, and 2,000 more join the ranks every week that the legislature fails to act.
The extension of benefits would all come from federal money and would cost the state of North Carolina nothing, but in order to keep the money flowing to the state’s long-term unemployed, the legislature has to pass a bill to recalculate the unemployment formula and allow the state to accept the federal money. It was expected to pass in one day, until it was tied to a provision that would limit the governor’s ability to negotiate the state budget, which has to be passed by June 30 to avoid a government shutdown. In order to pass the unemployment benefits extension, the governor had to sign off on a resolution that would cut her proposed budget by 13 percent for a year if a budget compromise was not reached June 30. The cuts would have put thousands more North Carolinians out of work. She vetoed the bill, and minority members have been fighting to get a “free-standing” version passed ever since.
All 19 Senate Democrats, including myself, have signed a discharge petition to force consideration of a bill that would resume the unemployment payouts without the state budget provision, but in order for it to have any effect, 15 Republicans have to join us. So far none of them have.
Yesterday Sen. Martin Nesbitt and Rep. Joe Hackney held a joint press conference on the unemployment issue with members from both houses. They were joined by Greg Smith, an unemployed single father of two from Castalia who is one of the 45,000 people affected by the impasse. Despite having applied for hundreds of jobs, Mr. Smith has been out of work since August 2009, and without the federal benefits, he and his family face the loss of their home. He has since been interviewed by WRAL, ABC 11, and NBC 17 about his plight.
After the press conference and on the Senate floor, Sen. Nesbitt attempted to add an amendment reinstating the benefits to a bill making changes to the State Health Plan, but it was blocked by Senate rules requiring that floor amendments be related directly to the bill. The governor’s office also has investigated the possibility of reinstating the benefits by executive order, but is prohibited by law from doing so.
Meanwhile, the lives of over 45,000 NC families hang in the balance, as they continue to be used as pawns in a political game. Greg Smith’s children and those of 44,999 parents like him go to school in the morning wondering if they’re going to have electricity, food, or a home when they come back. A fix to these problems could be passed in a single day at the legislature at zero cost to the state. Forty-five days have passed with no action. There shouldn’t be a day 46.
State Health Plan Deal Struck
The Senate on Wednesday adopted additions to the State Health Plan that would provide a zero-payment option for the Basic 70/30 Plan for teachers and state employees. The measure, a compromise between the new majority and Gov. Perdue, still requires a monthly payment on premiums for the 80/20 plan ($21 per month for the upcoming year). I am thankful that the Governor successfully negotiated this option for teachers and state employees.
While the plan provides retirees with a zero-payment option on the Basic 70/30 Plan, it still requires a premium payment for the 80/20 plan. I voted against the plan because I feel strongly that retirees should NOT have to make any premium payments. Retirees gave much of their lives to the state of North Carolina with the promise that they would receive certain benefits, and premium-free health care coverage is one of those benefits. It is wrong to break this promise with our retirees.
Click here to read News and Observer coverage of the vote.
VA uranium mining and NC water
Nationwide conservation group American Rivers announced Tuesday its annual list of the top 10 most endangered rivers in the United States. Our own Roanoke River earned the dubious honor of being named Number 3 on that list. The designation comes due to the fact that our neighboring state of Virginia appears poised to lift its 30-year ban on uranium mining within the state, which shares the Roanoke River with North Carolina.
One of the first sites to be mined if the ban is lifted is in southern Virginia near the river at Danville. Conservation and public health advocates have expressed concern that radioactive sediment, or tailings, from mining and processing could contaminate not only the river itself, but Kerr Lake and Lake Gaston, posing a threat to drinking water sources for several cities and towns in both states.
Opponents of the ban maintain that the uranium can be mined and processed safely and that the new mining and milling facilities will bring much-needed jobs to an economically depressed area. However, those benefits would go to our neighbors in Virginia, potentially leaving North Carolina to face the negative environmental impacts downstream. The issue has been getting increasing attention in the news lately because of the American Rivers study, and WRAL recently interviewed Gene Addesso of the Roanoke River Basin Association about the potential threat mining could pose to the river. A link to the interview is here.
The City of Virginia Beach commissioned a study on the potential impacts uranium production would have on its drinking water supply, which includes Lake Gaston. While no such study has yet been conducted in North Carolina, the Virginia Beach study led the city council to pass a resolution opposing the removal of the mining ban. Several municipalities in North Carolina have followed suit, including Henderson, Franklinton, and Warrenton. Because of these concerns, Sen. Ed Jones, an Enfield Democrat, and I have introduced Senate Joint Resolution 430, which would establish a commission to study the potential impact on our state. You can read and track the bill on the General Assembly website here.
Cancer Center Provides Care for Rural Areas
Earlier this month Dr. Robert McLaurin and his staff learned that his Franklin County Cancer Center in Louisburg could continue to operate. The treatment center was threatened with being shut down after someone questioned when the facility came into operation. The controversy had to do with rule changes in 2005 that would have denied Dr. McLaurin use of the equipment that treats cancer patients.
Both former representative May and I spoke directly with the Governor’s office on behalf of the Cancer Center not only because I believed that Dr. McLaurin tried in good faith to follow the rules, but also because the facility is so important to the district. Dr. McLaurin echoed that sentiment.
“Access to equipment is important,” he said. “One big issue in cancer care is that it requires daily treatment for two to nine weeks. Transportation is a big issue for a lot of patients in Franklin County.” For many it’s a burden to travel to Raleigh, Durham or Chapel Hill for treatment each day. For those in Warren and Vance counties, the travel time is farther.
Dr. McLaurin said that the standard of care for breast cancer now is removal of the cancerous lump along with radiation treatment, which can save the breast. The standard of care used to be a complete mastectomy for all types of breast cancer. These days, even with the new standard some breast cancer patients far from treatment centers have to opt for mastectomy when a lumpectomy and radiation could treat their cancer because they can’t access a treatment center each day. That is wrong. People in rural areas should not have to compromise on their health care because of a lack of treatment centers. Dr. McLaurin should be commended for opening a facility in an underserved area.
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As always I welcome your comments on this newsletter or anything else that concerns you. My office is here to help in whatever manner we can. It is an honor to serve as your Senator, and I will do everything in my power to live up to that honor.
Sincerely,
Doug Berger