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Voting Rights
On Thursday the NC Supreme Court heard a lawsuit that would determine whether people who wrongfully accuse others of voter fraud may be sued for defamation. The suit stems from the 2016 gubernatorial election, when supporters of Republican Pat McCrory, who narrowly lost to Democrat Roy Cooper, falsely accused many Democratic voters of committing voter fraud. While the voters seeking to sue these supporters for defamation have won in lower courts, the NC Supreme Court seems likely to rule instead in favor of the Republicans who made the false accusations, a decision that lawyers for the Democratic voters say could embolden political operatives to make false voter fraud accusations in future elections.
Education Policy
Republican leaders at the NCGA are planning to allocate additional funding for charter school vouchers during the next legislative session, potentially as much as $300 million. That figure was the shortfall in the so-called Opportunity Scholarship program this year as legislation opened the program to all families, including wealthier families and those with children already in private school, bringing in a record 72,000 applications. Critics of the voucher program, including Governor Cooper, have denounced the Republicans’ intention to spend hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money to help rich families attend private schools while public schools aren’t fully funded.
Immigration
A key Republican priority during the next legislative session beginning April 24 is passing legislation requiring North Carolina sheriffs to cooperate with US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This is the fourth year in a row the legislature has tried to pass such legislation. In 2019 and 2022, Governor Cooper overrode these bills with enough Democrats in the NCGA to sustain his veto, and in 2023, when Republicans would have been able to override his veto, the bill didn’t get through the NC Senate before the end of the session. The bill, HB 10, would require sheriffs to hold undocumented immigrants without a warrant at the request of ICE.
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