Over the past decade, North Carolina’s part-time legislature’s sessions have become longer and longer, with this year’s 199 day session claiming the record for longest.
At the first meeting of the North Carolina Board of Elections following Woodhouse’s hiring, board members clashed over concerns about his involvement with the state’s elections. Woodhouse has frequently voiced support for voter suppression measures, from railing against Sunday voting to requesting that election officials reduce polling hours and locations.
My whole life, I’ve been going back and forth between cultures.
There was one constant that grounded me. Storytelling. I learned that regular working people – nurses, teachers, stay-at-home parents – have stories to tell, and if we actually listen to them, they can create solutions to some of our toughest problems.
North Carolina currently sits as one of the only two states in the nation operating without a current state budget. The last state budget lawmakers created was set to run out in July, and since that deadline, lawmakers have only been successful in passing a reduced or “mini” budget that funds certain priorities. Though Stein signed the legislation in early August, he called it a “Band-Aid budget,” saying it falls short of what’s needed and fails to meet the needs of the people of North Carolina.
Speakers at the convention raised the alarm over the Trump administration’s mass layoffs of federal workers, its attacks against collective bargaining, and the potential privatization of veterans’ health care. They called for solidarity among workers, saying that unions must present a united front or risk losing hard-fought worker protections and many of their jobs entirely.
In addition to putting the healthcare of hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians at risk, the changes to Medicaid are expected to negatively impact rural hospitals, potentially leading to the closure of some health clinics in rural communities across the country.
For storm-ravaged communities, little has changed. Aid has been slow, and Whatley has been largely absent from the disaster zone, with Smoky Mountain News reporting that Whatley has “rarely, if ever” visited the area. Records show the FEMA council has met only twice in seven months, totaling about three hours.
Rep. Phil Rubin (D-Wake) blasted Whatley as a “Washington big oil lobbyist” who has “consistently elevated the most extreme forces in this party and in North Carolina”. Rubin pointed directly to Robinson, who lost the 2024 governor’s race in a landslide after years of inflammatory remarks.
Rep. Sarah Stevens (R-Surry) is making headlines as lobbyists donated thousands of dollars to her 2026 North Carolina Supreme Court campaign, which is a violation of North Carolina law.
At stake, she stressed, is whether someone can cast a ballot and feel confident it will count. “Instead, it will depend on whether partisan politicians have enough money to throw at a race to litigate the outcome after the fact,” Riggs said. She went on to share that in total, defending her election victory in court cost roughly $2 million.