Control of the NC Board of Elections shifts amid legal fight (05-01-2025--Hour3)

What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all of the links. Become a patron, go to dpeteclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free, rite to your smartphone or tablet, and again, thank you so much for your support. Let's go over the latest installment in the never ending saga of the Board of Elections litigation in North Carolina. The control of the state Board of Elections has been the source of much litigation, much legislation, and much consternation over the last well since twenty eleven. That's when Republics won control of the General Assembly and they then began trying to change the makeup of the state Board of Elections, especially after a series of bad behavior and maladministration occurred. And at the heart of it is that the governor appoints a majority of the well all of the members of the Board of Elections. There are five members at the state level, and then all of the counties. It used to be three. I don't know if they expanded to five at the local level, but I think it's still three. And so what the governor always does is appoints a majority from his own party and a minority from the opposing party. And what that then translates into is that the governorship controlled by Democrats for now like eighty years, most of it, aside from you know, Jim Martin back in the what eighties, Jim Holshauser for a brief period, and then Pat McCrory for one term. That the boards of election are packed with Democrats three to two majority at the state level and two to one majorities at every county level. And so they have resisted because they're Democrats, and for some reason they resist really most efforts to lock down the integrity of the systems and to do proper list maintenance and such. They don't want anybody to be disenfranchised by any kind of restriction, right when in fact, every single restriction, like simply saying you can't vote if you're not eighteen, that's a restriction that disenfranchises everybody under the age of eighteen. But that is what we have put on as a restriction as a society. We have determined eighteen years old is when you can vote. There's a reason for that. All rules, even you know, do you have ten days of early voting, fifteen days of early voting? Right, they are all restrictive in some way. And so when you're arguing. It's one of the things that drives me nuts about Democrats on any kind of election integrity topic, is this idea that because we differ on where we want to set the guardrail, like you want it to be way out there and I would like it to be a little bit closer here. And then you accuse me of wanting to, you know, stop people from voting, when no, I just I don't think we need a full month of early voting for a number of reasons. Right, There's an administrative reason, there's a cost reason involved, there's a you know, possibility that the longer you run these things, the more open they become to manipulation and such. There are all sorts of reasons, and I don't I'm not going to ascribe motive to you, and you shouldn't ascribe motive to me when we're when we agree that a restriction is acceptable, we're just disagreeing on where to set up that guardrail. But when it comes to the Board of Elections and the makeup and who appoints these members, the Republican lawmakers have been trying for the last for the over the last decade, they have been trying to make the Board of Elections less of a partisan packed body and more of an either bipartisan one, or to pack it with more or to put more people on there that are, you know, independents or whatever, or to make them appointed by state parties or legislature or whatever like. They they've they've tried all sorts of different permutations, and every single time the governor, the past governor Roy Cooper now Josh Stein, every single time the governor fights them on this. Stein and Cooper want to keep control of the Board of Elections under their control. They want to make the appointments, they want the ability to remove people in the like. And it's hard for me to believe that it is not due in some part to the fact that they are your political party allies. And again, as I mentioned, some of the behavior of the Board of Elections in recent years has been a little suss as the kids would say. For example, four executive directors have resigned over the last roughly ten years, they've had four executive directors who are apparently chosen by the governor's campaign team, had to resign, including for overt partisan behavior. The Board was the subject of national media criticism when it tried to lock out the Green Party from the ballot. Green Party had to sue and they won. Twenty twenty. They had the secret deal that they cut that the Board of Elections cut with their allies in these left wing nonprofits that sued to try to expand voting while voting was occurring, to try to expand the voting rules for COVID, they had asked the legislature to give them like longer times and you know, extended periods and you know, don't worry about the the affidavits and such, and the signatures on the ballots and postmarks and like all of these things that they wanted to see done. And the legislature said, no, we'll do some of these fixes here for the pandemic and that's it. And then they got sued. The Board got sued by some lefty groups saying no, no, no, you should do what the Democrats on the Board of Elections want, and they then cut a deal with the Board of Elections and the Attorney General's office josh Stein's office. They cut a deal one of the defendants, though in that case that was not part of the deal. They didn't even know about a potential deal was the legislature. That was why it was called a collusive settlement. They cut out the law the legislature because they would have they would not have agreed to the settlement deal. And then all of the Democrats basically went in front of the Democrat judge and said, hey, we got to an agreement. We're going to settle this so it doesn't go to trial. Everybody's happy. And then the Legislature's like, wha wait a minute, you sued us too. We're not part of this deal. So now the legislature said, you know what, we're moving this from the governor. We're going to move it over to the state auditor, Dave Bullet. We're going to move it over to him. He's a Republican and he'll be in charge of the Board of Elections. Now, josh Stein sued, they went to a district court level, basically the local district. They got a three judge panel, and I believe it was believe it was two Republicans and one Democrat. The panel split, the two Republicans split, and so it was a two to one ruling Democrat Republican versus a Republican against the legislature. We went over some of the details on this the other day last week. But then the Court of Appeals just stepped in and blocked that lower court ruling that was in favor of Josh thein And today was the day, according to the law, when the State Auditor would make the appointments to the Board of Elections. And because the Court of Appeals blocked that lower court, that means the law is still in effect. And so what just happened was the state Auditor announced his picks for the state Board of Elections. I've got their names right here. Some of them might be familiar, all right. So spring is here a time of renewal and celebrations. You've got graduations, weddings, anniversaries and the special days for mom and dad. Your family's making memories that are going to last a lifetime. 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According to the state law, the auditor now gets to make the appointments to the Board of Elections. Democrats are not playing along with this, so they have not submitted any names for the appointments, and that's usually how this works. The state party will I think it's the state party, could be the legislature, but I think it's the state Party and they recommend the names, and then the governor picks off of the list of names, and so they've only got the Republican members named. Here are the three names for the State Board of Elections to be chair. Francis de Luca. He is the former president of the Civitas Institute, served in the United States Marine Corps for thirty years, retired at the rank of colonel, and was a previous member of the State Ethics Commission. Second right, so this is nominated. Sorry, de Lucas not nominated to be the chair, my bed. He was nominated by the chair of the State Republican Party. That's who makes these nominations. Another nomination from the state party Chairman Bob Rucho, former North Carolina lawmaker I believe, a Mecklenburg County commissioner at one point. He now lives in Catawba County and he's a former state senator for seventeen years, and so he was named. And Stacey Clyde Eggers, the fourth of Boone, who is currently a member of the State Board of Elections already, So that would be the makeup if it is allowed to stand. Now, will it be allowed to stand. I don't know now the governor. After the Court of Appeals decision, the Governor came out and started throwing shade all over the place at the judges, which I think, are we still doing the whole you can undermine the judiciary. That's a threat to the democracy. Are we still doing that? Or no? It's hard for me to keep track, like, are we still packing the court? Was that still something we wanted to do? Pack the US Supreme Court? We still Yeah? That kind of that whole movement just kind of died away for some reason. I digress. The governor said that the decision poses a threat to our democrac and the rule of law. The only plausible explanation, he claims, for the appeals court action is to try to help overturn the results of last falls disputed state Supreme Court election. The only plausible explanation, he said, this guy's a lawyer. Josh Stein's a lawyer. He's the former attorney general. And you can't think of another explanation for why judges, a three judge panel on the Court of Appeals, why they came to a different conclusion. You do realize that the lower court decision that you were touting that that was a split decision two to one, and the one judge Womble is his name, Andrew Womble. He wrote a dissent. He's a Republican. He wrote a dissent, and in that dissent he explained plausibly. I might add what his argument is for not overturning this law. He said, the General Assembly reassigns the duties of the auditor while keeping the appointment power within the executive branch, which is still subject to the supervision and direction of the governor. So the plain text of the Constitution establishes the auditor as a member of the executive branch, and the constitution authorizes the General Assembly to assign the auditor's duties. We talked about this on Tuesday with Andrew Dunn from Long Leave Politics, and he explained he wrote about this, I think it was over at the It was an obed in the Charlotte Observer where he spelled out how North Carolina needs a new constitution because there's ambiguity in the state constitution about this very thing. The General Assembly like, we don't want a king, and so they diffused the power in the executive branch among ten offices. These are the Council of State offices, and we vote on these every four years. Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, Attorney General, Agriculture Commissioner, insurance commissioner, Auditor treasurer. Well that's eight. What am I missing? It doesn't matter. There are two more in there. I forget which ones. So you have these ten executive executive branch offices. Their duties are assigned by the legislature. And this is why Democrats and Republicans. But Democrats really started this whole tradition. They wrote the I mean, they were the ones that created the constitution we're living under now because they controlled the legislature for seventy years, and our constitution was ratified in like the late sixties. It's our third constitution in the state. Took effect in like nineteen seventy one. And so Democrats wrote all of this, but they wrote it all at a time when they had a hammer lock on all of the power. So they gave the legislature all of this power because that's where they wanted the power to lie with them. They were the ones drafting the constitution after all, right, they were the ones that did it all up and so they they put this into place. Now they were warned. There was a commission that they had impaneled, and the commission actually warned about this kind of a problem in that you've got ambiguity about some of the roles of the executive branches and whether the legislature would have too much power moving things around and that sort of thing. And that's what we have seen. Democrats wanted that control in the legislature. But now when you have Republicans controlling the legislature and Democrats controlling the executive branch or the governorship, I should say, now, now they're not too keen on the lawmakers taking away duties from offices that they hold. They were fined by the way doing it. When Republicans, on the rare occasion would win the governor's race or the lieutenant governor's race, they would strip power from the lieutenant They did with Jim Martin when he won the lieutenant governor's race, and they were like, oh my gosh, this is unacceptable. They stripped him. That's why the lieutenant governor to this day doesn't really have much power. It's because a Republican won. And that was you know, that was unfathomable. How dare he win? So they took away all of his power. And so now that the Republicans have the legislature, they're doing it to the governor. And in the dissent by the Republican judge on the lower court panel, he said, the plain text of the Constitution says the Auditor is a member of the executive branch, and the General Assembly assigns his duties. Thus, the decision to assign the duty of appointment of members of the Board of Elections to the Auditor is one that the General Assembly was expressed authorized to make. As a result, the governor cannot show that the bill either impedes his ability to take care that the laws will be faithfully executed, nor it doesn't violate the separation of powers clause, because this is what the other two judges argued. They said, Well, the governor has is charged in the Constitution with taking care that the laws be faithfully executed. And what the Auditor has argued in his court filings is that you've basically made all of the other nine Council of State offices, You've made them basically subservient to the governor as if we're his assistants or something like the deputy assistant to the regional manager or something. But that's not the case. We are all on the Council of State. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina. Just a quick drive up the mountain and Cabins of Ashville is your connection. 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Call or text eight two eight three six seven seventy sixty eight or check out all the re to offer at cabins Offashville dot com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. So Charlotte Observer report by Richard Straddling or Stradling on a piece of legislation moving through the General Assembly in Raleigh that will finally crack down on the monsters who drive too slow in the left lane. It's about time that this scourge has been addressed. Quote. Many people believe it's common courtesy to get out of the left lane of the wait. That is not true. That is not true. Fake news right there. Many people do not believe it's common courtesy at all at all. They drive in the left lane all the time like it's their birthright or something. It's not just courtesy. Though. If you're in the left lane and there's nobody around you, that's fine. You can drive in the left lane. I don't care. I'm not around you. But if you see somebody coming up behind you, you should not be in that left lane and force them to go around you. The left lane is for passing. It's a passing lane, okay. Passing on the right is more dangerous. So you're supposed to not be in the left lane. When people come up behind you and they want to get around you, you're supposed to get over. It's not just courtesy, it's actually the freaking law. Okay. In North Carolina, as in most states, it is against the law to impede traffic by driving less than the speed limit in the left lane. If you don't want to drive the speed limit, fine, get your butt over into the right lane. House lawmaker want to make the law more explicit and have it apply regardless of how fast people are driving. So even now, if you are going the speed limit, if you're on the interstate, this is where it would apply on the interstates. You're on the interstate, you're going seventy miles an hour, the speed limit is seventy miles an hour. And somebody comes up behind you, you do what I do, which is you get over. They obviously are on their way to the hospital. Right, So like one way or the other. They're on their way to the hospital, so like, go ahead and get over and let them pass. I get the sense. And I don't know this to be true or not, because I do not have ESP I have not asked the people that you know, drive too slowly in the left lane. I have not asked them this. But I suspect part of it is sort of this delusion of authority, like they think they're they're the traffic cops, that they're sitting in that left lane and they're going to make sure nobody nobody breaks the law. I'm gonna sit I'm going to drive the speed limit on cruise control seventy and a seventy and nobody can get around me because I'm helping. I'm making sure you follow the law. I feel like that's what's going on there. By the way, if they do crack down on, you know, people driving too slow in the left lane, this basically, I think now prohibits every driver from Tennessee from driving on our highways. I think. I don't know what they're gonna do. You don't really see a lot of it here in the Charlotte area, but up in western North Carolina you get a lot of Tennessee, you know, crossover drivers that come into western North Carolina, and I don't know, I feel like it might actually be a rule in Tennessee that you're supposed to stay in that left lane. I feel like it might be against the law to drive in the right lane in Tennessee because there's no other explanation I can think of as to why every Tennessee driver that I ever encountered on the interstate is in the left lane and not going the speed limit. I do not understand it. It's got to be something that they're taught. I'm not I'm not denigrating Tennessee drivers. I mean, they could very well be the worst there. I mean, Florida they're the worst. Now South Carolina, you guys aren't so hot either. You know what I've noticed, Anybody who doesn't have a license plate from the state that I have a license plate from is the worst. That's what I've determined everybody. And then when i'm if I'm in your state, I'm very aware that i'm the out of state tag and then cringe whenever I see a fellow North Carolina driver doing something stupid, and I'm like, that's not me. He does not represent me. That's a terrible driver, right there, Mark has Okay, Mark's got some insight. Hello, Mark, welcome to the show. Oh peach you so quick? I got to turn a radio. I ain't get to the radio. Okay, here's the deal. So is this really Mark? Or is this Winston? What is this really Mark? Or is it Winston? No, this is not Winston. This is Mark, the guy who gives you a eighty nine point whatever percentage. And I don't know what else I've talked about, but no Winston. I'm Mark, okay, and I will take you. I'm a fast driver. I can't hit triple digits on the interstate sometimes, but I'm not cutting people off or tail gating or and I use my turn signal accept in the case of the left hand you know, self, impage or whatever. I think sometimes you're right there. You know they're morally justified in their minds. But I sometimes think, especially if I have South Carolina place as you're talking about Tennessee and South Charlotte, man everywhere like locusts, and they don't know how to drive, and they're often in the left hand lane, and you'll probably get some calls protests in this, but I'm just stating what I see. So I will shoot the gap on them with no turn signal when I get the first opportunity and leave them in. The dust, which is very like that's a very dangerous maneuver shooting the gap. Which is if you're on like a three lane highway and you got a car in the left lane, car in the in the far right lane, and the center lanes open and you're in the left lane, you move to the center and then shoot between the two cars. It's so dangerous because if one of those cars moves into that center lane, you got nowhere to go. Can I say this? Uh three, I've never had a wreck. I consider myself to be one of the greatest drivers. Wow. Oh if you do say so yourself, Yes, yeah. I did. Okay, and. Don't I don't drive defensively, but I do drive looking out for idiots. They're gonna like I. So this is one of the things I do. Drive defensively. I'm because I when I was growing up, I wanted to make sure that I passed my tests up in New York, where they really don't care if you drive. They prefer to fail you because there are too many people on the roads anyway. So I took a bunch of classes. I learned defensive driving, and I drive as if every single vehicle on the road is purposefully trying to kill me? What right? That's how I When I look at any car that's around me, I'm like, how is this person going to try to kill me? Now? Well, I mean err in the interstate on ramp. My philosophy is, you know, get up to about ninety. You're not really gonna have to worry about what that's dumb? That that that's that's dumb. You get You're gonna run out of your merge lane before you even get to night. What kind of car are you driving? Well, I've given everything from a Lamborghini now I'm driving of all this. Maybe I shouldn't say, because. What's your tag number? Again? All right? Mark? I appreciate the call, sir, No, don't. Yeah, you want to get up to speed as quickly as possible, Like I was taught, when you get on that merge lane, you you like pedal all the way to the floor. You want that, you want that gas all the way down because you need to get up to highway speed as quickly as possible. I don't think you're gonna get ninety by the time the merge lane, but maybe you're, you know, maybe you got a car with massive horsepower as possible. Mark. I appreciate the call, all right. If you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events, and I know you do too. And you've probably heard me say get your news from multiple sources. Wha well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with ground News. It's an app and it's a website, and it combines news from around the world in one place so you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check dot ground, dot news slash pete. I put the link in the podcast description too. I started using ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself check dot ground, dot news slash pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get fifteen percent off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature. Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. House Bill eight sixty four would bar people from using the left lane of a multi lane highway quote at a speed that impedes the normal and reasonable movement of traffic. That's according to Representative Ray Pickett, a Republican who represents three counties in the northwest corner of the state, who drafted the bill to address what he calls left lane campers to persuade them to get the hell out of my way. He didn't say that, I said that, and go over to West. Hello West, Welcome to the program. Hello sir, I enjoy your show. Thanks sir. What's going on? I'm suggesting it a dendum to this loll These people who spit their gum out on the highway and you're home to find gum sprayed all over the side of your car. I think I think we need Dana Testing to track these people down and put them in put them in the stocks in the public square, and let other people hang the gun gum on them. Or pelt them with gum they could have. You could throw gum. Yeah, you could like chew it up and throw it at them while they're in the stocks. Yes, that's very old school, very medieval. I like it. That's right right now, what if. I throw the gum out? If I but what if I throw my gum out and it lands on the grass? Uh? No, no, no, you have to you have to put it in a trash receptacle. It's gonna come out some kind of problem somewhere down the line. Now it won't. Now, if it's in the grass, it's fine. You know what. You don't even know it's in there. Maybe some like some nasty bug will get stuck in it, and then like a mosquito lands on it that has West Nile virus. It gets stuck to the gum, and now it doesn't land on you and give you West Nile virus. Basically, I'm the hero in that story, I guess. So that's a compol reading. But I'll let you go with it all right, man, West, I appreciate the call. That's a good idea the Cone of creativity. No bad ideas in the Cone, as we are, John says, I am, or I guess on more than one occasion when I came across one of these whole monitor types sitting in the left lane, refusing to move and backing up traffic. I have worked my way around them and then got in front of them and taking my foot off the gas pedal slowly slowing down. They start to freak out and flash their lights and blow their horn, but eventually they will get over in the center or right lane. As soon as they do, I hit the gas and take off, and all the people behind them hit the gas and go. I don't like to throw the word hero around, but yeah, it is overused nowadays. In this case, I think it applies by the way they do recommend, like you should not do that sort of a thing, like you should not break check. You get aggressive drivers around you, just get out of the way. Just leave them alone. There's no reason, you know, to basically end up in an altercation. You never know. He's one of the things you never know, and you know, look, I have made my share of mistakes in the past on the roads and this stuff. But now it's like you never know who is in that other car, and you may think you're the baddest person whatever that person could be like some sort of serial killer cartel hit man. You have no idea, you know that minivan is just a cover car, like they're just they're low profiling, which, by the way, white sedan's low profile just as a. Lead. Follow or get out of the way, says Mark on an email, and Richard says, I hope they stopped the left lane campers just so I won't have to listen to my wife scream at them anymore. Yeah. Yeah, So this does pose a bit of a problem. Though. There is a bit of an issue, which is Representative John Blust, Republican from Guildford County. He asked whether somebody would violate this law if they were driving as fast as the law allows, Like, what would be the defense in court, Let's say, or with the cop on the side of the road. But let's do that. You get pulled over because you're going seventy in a seventy mile an hour zone and you say to the officer, I was going the speed limit. You can't expect me to speed and then get a speeding ticket just so I can get out of the way, right, Isn't would that be the argument? I'm not going to I'm not going to go seventy five miles an hour so I can get ahead of the guy in the center lane. So here's a good rule of thumb. Though people do not drive, and this is defensive driving tactic. Do not drive next to anybody. If you've got a car that's pacing you or something like, you are going the same speed as somebody else, you need to either speed up or slow down. I don't care which one it is. Speed up or slow down, but do not drive next to another vehicle. That car has a blowout. They're gonna kill you. They can take you right out. See what I mean? Like this is when you start thinking the way I think on the roads that everybody is actively consciously trying to kill me. If you start thinking like that, you it really puts things in a different light. I'm just saying, like, you do not want to be around anybody. So I will speed up to get ahead of somebody, and I will slow down and let them go. Tara, Welcome to the program. Hello, Tara, Hey, how are you? I'm good? What's going on? Tara? Tara? Hello? I think she I think she hit mute on her phone. Well if she did, I wouldn't. I don't know what you would tell a cop though, when you're going the speed limit and you don't want to break the speed limit. I don't have that problem. I follow the age old rule nine you're fine, ten your mind. I will go nine miles an hour over a speed limit in my current age. When I was younger and I had more horse power in my vehicle, I was not always in adherent to that rule, but now I am, so I'll go seventy eight seventy nine. And I do not drive in the left lane unless there's nobody else around me. But even then I'm usually in the center lane or the right lane. And here's the other thing. Do not slow down in the right lane for the mergers. Okay, if you are in the right lane, first off, thank you for not driving in the left. But you have to learn how to let other cars in front of you. They're not gonna beat you in the race, okay, Like if they if they're merging in and they're going fast, getting up to speed, and they're gonna and they're gonna beat you to that merge point, just let them in. Let them let them go in. You can get into the center lane, go into the left land to let them in. That's fine, they're not gonna win the contest. It's not a contest. Let them in. And if you're merging in, get up to speed. But these people, oh my gosh, the ones that slow down to let other people merge it. No, just maintain your speed. Maintain your speed. That's Pete's traffic and driving tip for today. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepetecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.