Opinion Roundup: Redistricting examined; opioid settlement nears; legislative session nears end; and more

Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2019 -- A round up of opinion, commentary and analysis on: redistricting bills will get an airing and analysis; education and Medicaid on the agenda; Berger's district loses jobs and gets teacher ed grant; an opioid settlement is near; inmate is convicted of murder; dealing with race in a local school; Medicare enrollment; and more.

COLIN CAMPBELL: Redistricting bills (The Insider reports) -- For the first time in years, redistricting reform bills will get a hearing in the legislature. The House Redistricting Committee issued a notice for a Wednesday meeting to discuss "existing redistricting bills." Rep. Chuck McGrady, R-Henderson, said on Twitter that the committee's chairman, Rep. David Lewis, R-Harnett, has agreed to hold hearings on H-69 and H-140, both have bipartisan support. H-69 would create a nonpartisan redistricting commission to draw maps, while H-140 calls for a constitutional amendment to establish nonpartisan criteria for redistricting.

TYLER DUKES: Latest redistricting process led to more balanced maps, analysis shows (WRAL-TV reports) -- The General Assembly's mad scramble last month to redraw nearly half of the state's House and Senate districts under a tight court deadline appears to have produced something new to N.C. - more balanced maps.

How NC's new legislative maps measure up (WRAL-TV reports) -- Explore the findings from a new analysis examining whether the latest redistricting process in the General Assembly produced less gerrymandered maps.

How we analyzed the NC legislature's latest redistricting effort (WRAL-TV reports) -- We used Census data, 2016 election results and the findings published by a team of mathematicians at Duke University in the Common Cause v. Lewis case to analyze newly drawn districts approved by the N.C. General Assembly following a court order in September 2019.

MELISSA BOUGHTON: Using citizenship data in redistricting will whitewash representation (N.C. Policy Watch reports) -- Common Cause released a report showings electoral boundaries drawn using only data for citizens over the age of 18 relies on fundamentally faulty data and is part of a partisan plot to shift representation away from communities of color to areas where white populations live.

JANNETTE PIPPIN: Cooper talks teacher pay during Dixon Elementary visit (Jacksonville Daily News reports) -- Teacher pay and investment in school construction were topics of discussion during Gov. Roy Cooper's visit to Onslow County's Dixon Elementary School Monday afternoon. Cooper held a short roundtable discussion with teachers and administrators, stopped by the classroom of former North Carolina Teacher of the Year Lisa Godwin, and took a look at the new cafeteria that replaced the one damaged during Hurricane Florence.

NC lawmakers ready to end session, leaving Medicaid expansion on table (Fayetteville Observer) -- State lawmakers returned to Raleigh this week after a 10-day break. They will not be there long. Republican Sen. Phil Berger, head of the state Senate, intends for his chamber to wrap up the session by Halloween, and the state House is expected to follow suit around the same time frame. This session was supposed to end in July. But despite stretching nine months, it is one that will leave many North Carolinians deeply disappointed — and as vulnerable as ever.

NEAL CHARNOFF: Counties in Phil Berger's Senate District land $6.1 million federal education grant (WFDD-FM reports) -- UNC Greensboro will use a $6.1 million federal grant to attract and place new teachers in two rural counties represented by GOP state Senate Leader Phil Berger.

RICHARD CRAVER: Manufacturing plant closing in Berger's district, 110 jobs lost (Winston-Salem Journal reports) -- ITG Brands LLC has made official plans to end production at its Reidsville cigarette manufacturing plant by Dec. 31, effectively eliminating 110 jobs.

LINDSAY WISE: Senate Ukraine Probe Takes Narrow Approach (Wall Street Journal reports) -- Unlike its House counterpart, the Senate Intelligence Committee is focused on the process, not the substance of the Ukraine controversy.

After 35 minutes, jury finds Pasquotank prison inmate guilty of murder (Norfolk Virginian-Pilot reports) -- Jurors will now hear testimony on whether Mikel Brady should get the death penalty.

Inmate convicted of murder in deadly NC prison breakout attempt (AP reports) -- A N.C. inmate was found guilty of murdering four prison workers during a failed escape attempt two years ago.

N.C.’s economic slowdown continued (NC Justice Center reports) --  “North Carolina’s economy is stumbling through 2019,” said Patrick McHugh, Senior Policy Analyst with the Budget & Tax Center, a project of the NC Justice Center. “We have more people looking for work than at the start of the year and employment growth has slowed down — two clear signs our labor market isn’t creating enough jobs for everyone that wants to work.”

After decades in development, Honda's jets quietly evolving (AP reports) -- Nearly four years after delivering its first jet, Honda is facing decisions as the company better known for cars and lawnmowers considers whether to sink billions more into its decades-in-the-making aircraft division.

Folwell's 'arm-twisting' not politically-related (The Insider reports) -- State Treasurer Dale Folwell is recovering from breaking his arm in a recent motorcycle race. Folwell said in a Facebook post that he broke his humerus and was "immobile" after a West Virginia race that he'd already intended to be the last in his decades years of motorcycling racing.

Campaign fundraising numbers give NC Democrats hope of flipping a US House seat (Durham Herald-Sun reports) -- Democrats hope to flip at least one of N.C.’s 10 Republican-held seats. Here’s how that might occur.

WESLEY LOWERY: Can of spray paint, rock and Facebook video expose racial divide in N.C. (Washington Post reports) -- The call for violence appeared a week and a half before classes began. A group of students at South Davidson High, a nearly all-white school in central North Carolina, arrived to paint the “spirit rock,” a knob of stone normally covered with signatures and school slogans. But on that morning in August, one of the teens had something more sinister in mind, scrawling two words in shaky white letters. “Kill Niggers!” Within minutes, the slur was gone, painted over by other students. But a grainy video was soon ricocheting across the Internet, igniting a weeks-long controversy that has exposed raw racial tensions, imperiled the fall football season for dozens of middle school students and sparked a tempestuous debate over whether the incident constitutes a hate crime. While local residents have been united in condemning the slur, they are deeply divided over its meaning and importance. Was it harmless graffiti — a stupid decision by a single teen — or a dangerous call to racial violence?

DELECE SMITH-BARROW: H.B.C.U.s’ Sink-or-Swim Moment (New York Times column) -- These storied schools are largely responsible for the nation’s black middle class. They are also on the brink of financial ruin.

‘Separate is still unequal.’ Are charters and vouchers segregating NC schools? (EdNC reports) -- With the former head of a Holly Springs charter school questioning its rapid growth, charter schools are in the news again. In North Carolina, charters are debated often — most recently at a Public Schools First NC event, where school board members, teachers, and policy experts convened for a half-day event called “Impact of Privatizing Public Schools: A Crisis in the Making.”

UNC-CH students discuss alarming report of sex assaults on campus (WRAL-TV reports) -- Less than a week after the release of a national survey showing more than one in three undergraduate female students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill reported having been sexually assaulted, students met Monday night to discuss the troubling report.

ECU unveils plans for potential aviation institute (Greenville Daily Reflector reports) -- East Carolina University is setting its sights sky high as it explores the potential for an aviation institute. The idea took flight after university officials heard feedback from academics, industry leaders, economic directors and government representatives at a workforce development round table.

Settlement Is Reached as an Opioids Trial Was Set to Begin (New York Times reports) -- Four state attorneys general — from North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas and Tennessee — announced a step toward that much more ambitious goal, saying they had reached a tentative agreement to settle the cases against the three distributors, Teva, and Johnson & Johnson. But they not only have to sell the deal to the rest of the states, but also to the cities and counties, who have been pushing for more money paid out in a shorter time frame. The attorneys general laid out the basics of their agreement: that the three distributors and Johnson & Johnson would give $22 billion in cash over 18 years; and that, over the next decade, Teva would give $250 million as well as addiction treatment drugs it values at $23 billion. In addition, the distributors would provide about $3 billion in distribution services for a decade. Although the states acknowledged that the cities and counties were not on board, they said that their arrangement could cover the entire country immediately. “This is a national crisis that demands a national solution,” said Josh Stein, the N.C. attorney general.

Scourge of opioids can affect any of us (Greensboro News & Record) -- A widely respected judge in Guilford County, known for his deep local roots and his dedication to worthy causes, died last summer of an opioid overdose. That came as a shock to many when the autopsy report was released last week. But should it have?

THOMAS GOLDSMITH: Seniors signing up during Medicare open enrollment hitting glitches (N.C. Health News reports) -- Annual open enrollment for Medicare started Oct. 15 and concludes Dec. 7. State officials and advocates involved in Medicare benefits say glitches are slowing the process for consumers to sign up, even as the process gets more complex.

JAY PRICE: Has Hired Its First 'Resilience Officer' To Plan Ahead For Climate Change (WUNC-FM reports) -- After hundreds of years of mainly focusing on the aftermath of hurricanes, this is the first hurricane season that North Carolina has a "chief resilience officer," tasked to think ahead in new ways to bolster the state against the effects of climate change.

Navassa Residents Take Issue With EPA’s Plan (Coastal Review reports) -- Navassa residents are asking why the EPA’s development proposal for part of the former Kerr-McGee site determined to be of no risk to humans or the environment excludes residential use.

ROB SCHOFIELD: Now is no time for another giveaway to Duke Energy (N.C. Policy Watch column) -- First and foremost is the fact that multi-year rates plans can be a double-edged sword. While it’s conceivable consumers could benefit, a far more likely outcome is that consumers could easily find themselves regularly locked into higher bills than they ought to pay for years at a time, given the fact that the rates will be based in large measure on Duke’s own projections of its costs. The second big problem revolves around what will happen to any excess profits the company reaps. In its lobbying efforts, Duke has made much of a provision it has inserted into the bill that would direct excess profits (amounts of money the company brings in that exceed a prescribed range) to benefit low income communities.

River Restoration Project in Western NC Aims to Save Trout Population (Public News Service reports) -- major project to restore more than 1,000 feet of the Linville River flowing through Gill State Forest

Willow Spring man buys $20 scratch-off ticket, wins $5M top prize (WRAL-TV reports) -- Gabriel Campos of Willow Spring claimed the first top prize of $5 million in the $5,000,000 Fortune scratch-off game, the N.C. Education Lottery announced.