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VOLUME 96 - NUMBER 31 DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - SATURDAY, AUGUST 5, 2017 TELEPHONE (919) 682-2913 PRICE: 50 CENTS
Political remap could shift N. C. battle’s outcome
By GARY D. ROBERTSON
Associated Press
RALEIGH AP) - North Carolina’s Republican-domi
nated legislature has been repeatedly walloping Demo
cratic Gov. Roy Cooper since before he took office, and
the bitter conflict shows no sign of abating. But an up
coming adjustment to some political boundaries could
sway its outcome.
A court-mandated redistricting threatens the Republi
cans’ power to override Cooper’s vetoes and make unfet
tered changes to state government. This possibility has
GOP leaders planning to return to Raleigh multiple times
this year to consider even more conservative-leaning leg
islation and Democrats quickly raising money in case
judges order snap elections under the new boundaries.
“There’s a sense that there is a deadline,” said Chris
Cooper, a political science professor at Western Caroli
na University and not related to the governor. “There’s
a sense of a looming change coming with redistricting.”
So far, the GOP has steamrolled the new governor. It
began a week after Cooper’s narrow election victory last
December. Republicans convened a surprise special ses
sion and proceeded to strip him of power over elections,
limit the number of policy positions he could fill and sub
ject his Cabinet to state Senate confirmation.
After Cooper went to court to try to block some of the
laws, with mixed results, GOP lawmakers passed a state
budget that essentially blocked Cooper’s use of taxpayer
dollars to hire private lawyers to sue.
“We don’t think it’s appropriate to sue the state and use
state dollars to do so,” Senate leader Phil Berger said last
month. “If he wants to sue the state, he can use private
dollars.” ■ ..jj.
The clash quieted only slightly in March when Cooper
and the Republicans cobbled together a partial repeal of
House Bill 2, the “bathroom bill” limiting LGBT rights
that had brought unwanted national attention to the state.
Then GOP legislators quickly resumed ignoring Coo
per’s wishes and eroding his powers until this year’s main
work session adjourned June 30. They overrode the new
governor’s vetoes, took away his ability to fill upcoming
appeals court vacancies and slashed spending in his of
fice.
“They certainly do have the votes,” Cooper said when
faced with a GOP override of his state budget veto, add
ing he’d “work to fight another battle on another day.”
That day is coming real soon. Republicans already
have scheduled two or three special legislative sessions
this year, with the first Aug. 3. They plan to use them in
part to keep checks upon Cooper, who won by 10,000
votes over Republican Gov. Pat McCrory on a platform
of eliminating the law known as HB2 and straightening
out the state’s recent rightward bent. He says taxpayer-
funded “vouchers” and tax cuts benefiting corporations
and the wealthy need to stop.
GOP legislators also are expecting by this fall to redraw
General Assembly districts struck down by federal courts
as illegal racial gerrymanders. New boundaries will likely
put many GOP-leaning districts in play. Democrats only
have to win three more House seats or six Senate seats to
end the GOP’s veto-proof majority.
“I think you can see from this session what a difference
that would have made,” said Gary Pearce, a longtime
North Carolina Democratic consultant.
Cooper and his allies want the courts to order a special
election this fall under new maps. Republicans say there’s
not enough time and elections should wait until Novem
ber 2018.
Cooper said this week he’s already raised more than $1 million
for an initiative with the state Democratic Party to win more leg
islative seats, with the goal of winning back by 2020 the majori
ties in the House and Senate. Republicans hadn’t controlled the
legislature in 140 years until 2011.
GOP legislators may otherwise avoid controversial issues dur
ing the special sessions to keep attention to broader accomplish
ments this year like raising teacher pay, cutting income tax rates
across the board and expanding pre-kindergarten for at-risk chil
dren. They say the economy is humming thanks to GOP policies.
In recent years, they’ve passed abortion restrictions, prohibited
“sanctuary cities” and passed HB2.
“I do not believe that social issues will be front and center in
those sessions,” GOP consultant Chris Sinclair said. “I think they
will be pragmatic as well.”
Republican Rep. David Lewis, chairman of the House Rules
Committee, said lawmakers “will meet and do those duties need
ed to create jobs and provide tax relief to the middle class. The
governor can work with us or continue to play to and listen to the
far-left wing of his party.”
Groups allied with Democrats have sounded the alarm that
more GOP muscling could be ahead. The state NAACP is so con
cerned it asked federal judges to block the legislature from even
meeting until new maps are drawn by an outside party and elec
tions are held.
As for Cooper, he told reporters recently the legislature should
simply consider vetoes, complete redistricting and “go home.”
2017 Comic-Con - “Masters of the Sun” - Will.i.am, from left, Taboo, and apl.de.ap, of the Black Eyed Peas,
speak at the “Masters of the Sun” panel on day three of Comic-Con International on Sat, July 22, in San Diego.
(Photo by Al Powers/Invision/AP)
Chancellor writes in support
of UNC Center for Civil Rights
By MARTHA WAGGONER
Associated Press
RALEIGH (AP) - A ban on courtroom work for a Uni
versity of North Carolina center that represents the poor
and disenfranchised puts the school’s “hard-earned repu
tation at risk” if it leads the closure of the center, the chan
cellor of UNC’s flagship campus says.
The UNC Center for Civil Rights provides valuable lit
igation training to law school students, UNC-Chapel Hill
Chancellor Carol Folt wrote in a letter . “I am concerned
that eliminating or even weakening the law school’s abil
ity to train the next generation of civil rights lawyers will
reflect poorly on our university and the school, as well as
the university system and the state,” she wrote.
Folt sent her letter to Anna Nelson, chair of the commit
tee that meets Tuesday to consider a litigation ban for the
center, which receives no state funding. If the committee
approves the ban, it would then go to the UNC Board of
Governors, the policymaking board for the 16-university
system, for consideration.
The center was founded in 2001 by noted civil rights
attorney Julius Chambers, an African-American whose
home, office and car were bombed as he pursued school
desegregation cases in the 1960s and 1970s. It has taken
on cases involving school segregation, equal education
rights and a landfill in a poor community.
Center proponents blame ideology for the proposed
ban. Conservative supporters of the ban say the center’s
courtroom work strays from the education mission of the
country’s oldest public university.
Folt writes that she has received as many as 375 let
ters in one day in support of the center. Earlier in July,
a letter signed by 600 law school deans, faculty and ad
ministrators “made clear that preventing the Center for
Civil Rights from representing clients in litigation would
'needlessly tarnish the reputation of UNC in the national
legal education community.’”
In addition, the litigation ban could deter donors who
fund the center’s operations, Folt wrote.
A committee appointed by Folt at the behest of the
Board of Governors to study alternative paths for the
center found no options that would allow the center to
continue the full breadth of its work while also satisfying
those who oppose it.
Board member Steve Long, who has led the effort to
ban the center’s litigation work, has said that the center
must refocus on its education mission.
Long has challenged the center’s history, saying that
the former law school dean Gene Nichol is the actual
founder, not Chambers.
And Nichol and Long have their own history: In 2015,
A board committee that included Long abolished the Cen
ter on Poverty, Work and Opportunity that Nichol led.
In her letter, Folt enters that same fray. “The commu
nity here and elsewhere does not disassociate the mar
(Chambers) and what he stood for from the center anc
the important work it has done on behalf of thousands oi
North Carolinians, among them African-Americans anc
other low-income minorities who otherwise would have
had limited or no access to adequate legal counsel,” she
wrote.
A committee appointed by Folt at the behest of the
Board of Governors to study alternative paths for the
center found no options that would allow the center tc
continue the full breadth of its work while also satisfying
those who oppose it.
The center operates under American Bar Associatior
guidelines and UNC system policies, Folt wrote. The
law school dean approves all proposed litigation, which
“has been just one last-resort strategy our center offeree
to citizens and communities who seek to address issues
that could be resolved out of court through education anc
dialogue,” Folt wrote.
UNC President Margaret Spellings hasn’t taken a pub
lic position on the ban, and a spokesman didn’t responc
Monday to an email. Lou Bissette, chair of the Board oi
Governors, has said that he’s undecided.
Black seniors stroll clown
memory lane aiming
to stay sharp
By LAURAN NEERGAARD
AP Medical Writer
It’s more than a stroll down memory lane.
Seniors are walking through neighborhoods once a
center of Portland, Oregon’s black community, combin
ing exercise with "do you remember” conversations
about their youth. The small but unique study is testing
whether jogging memories where they were made can
help older African-Americans stay mentally sharp and
slow early memory loss.
The study is called SHARP- it stands for Sharing
History through Active Reminiscence and Photo-Imag
ery - and uses old photos to prompt memories the seniors
may have forgotten.
It’s part of a new and growing effort to unravel trou
bling racial disparities in Alzheimer’s and other de
mentias. Black seniors appear to have twice the risk of
whites, and researchers are looking for ways to stop cog
nitive decline as they get older.
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