The State of North Carolina Politics
Rep. Russell is part of the newly elected, notably diverse, and independent-minded group of Democrats who broke the super majority previously held by the Republicans, which means it is now possible to sustain vetoes by the governor. This shift is significant in a legislature that has been dominated by only a few individuals in Republican leadership. Because of their tight grip, even individual Republicans in the legislature have had little sway despite being part of the majority party, so the new Democrats have a chance to make a difference.
Before sharing remarks on the top issues facing the legislature, including many challenges, Rep. Russell emphasized, “I am exactly where I want to be right now.” He appreciates the chance to represent this district, including making an impact in his constituent services, for which he gave special credit to his legislative assistant Anna Meadows.
Rep. Russell explained that he campaigned on the issues of healthcare, education, environment, and economic opportunity in rural areas, which were the focus of his talk, including some of the highlights described below. He stated that Medicaid expansion is the defining issue this session. Not only would Medicaid expansion provide healthcare and address critical health needs across the state, but also North Carolina is losing money due to its failure to expand Medicaid. Rep. Russell noted that this is causing direct harm to rural hospitals, which affects everyone in his district. Bills related to this expansion and other rural health needs have enough bipartisan support to pass, but so far the Republican leadership won’t allow a vote.
As for education, Rep. Russell is a primary sponsor of HB 882 for enhanced standards for early childhood education. He also praised the support for teachers, state workers, and the universities in the Governor’s budget. He shed light on some of the anti-democratic actions of the Republican leadership who literally won’t tell Democratic representatives when a vote might be held in an effort to prevent them from voting to sustain the governor’s veto of the Republican budget. The delay on settling the budget is costing the state money, and the lack of a budget undermines the state’s ability to meet basic needs.
Indeed Rep. Russell made a call to action to encourage everyone to contact their legislators in the state asking them to bring the budget to a vote. It is possible that the Republican leadership will simply refuse to put a new budget into place which means the state would move forward on a limited budget for the rest of the year, again undermining our ability to meet basic needs.
Rep. Russell also commented that one challenge in this state is that the board of governors of the university system has become so hyper partisan that they are doing great harm to North Carolina’s universities. The only solution would be for Democrats to take over both the House and the Senate of the state, and he fears it would still take 10 years to fix the harm that has been done by this board of governors.
As for the environment, Rep. Russell says he is serving on the environmental committee, but unfortunately the Republican leadership will not allow environmental issues be brought to a vote or even to be discussed in committee. Rep. Russell is concerned that we face severe challenges as a state, especially areas without clean water, the impact of single use plastic, and increasing coastal flooding. He finds the situation especially frustrating because “the time to act is now.” He does take heart at some local governments are taking action to make up for the inaction by the Republican leadership on the state level.In the area of economic development, he shared some limited good news that broadband access has increased, but unfortunately the legislation does not include Watauga. A professor of computer science at Appalachian State, Ray Russell has many ideas to develop the IT industry in Watauga and Ashe County, and he hopes that some of these plans will get out of the legislature. Russell also pointed to the governor‘s budget as including some of the best rural economic development plans, stressing again the need to pass the Governor’s budget.
After observing some of the ways the Republican leadership creates obstacles to full participation in the democratic process within the legislature, Rep. Russell pushed for a North Carolina sunshine act to broadcast all committee meetings, but the leadership would not even consider his proposal.
During the question and answer portion of the talk, it became clear that flipping the legislature to Democratic control represents the best hope to end what has been a harmful decade of extremist, anti-democratic leadership by the Republicans.