C2C’s NEWSLETTER:
on THE ISSUES
Abortion, a Deeply Personal Decision
“Abortion is a deeply personal decision,” observed Rep. Tricia Cotham in 2015. “My womb and my uterus is not up for your political grab. Legislators–you–do not hold shares in my body, so stop trying to manipulate my mind.”
Bad bills, good bills
There is no shortage of candidates for bad bills this session to highlight in this inaugural edition of "Bad Bills - Good Bills," but the recent restriction on abortion rights by General Assembly Republican certainly merits to be top of the list.
Extreme Supreme court
It is terrifying to me that the highest court in the state has no respect for the rule of law: that they would literally disenfranchise thousands of North Carolinians in what the editorial rightly describes as an exercise of "raw politics."
To Be Among the Woke
The cautionary “stay woke” from African American vernacular traveled through the Civil Rights Movement and on into the Black Lives Matter Movement until the Right cleverly appropriated the term “woke,” repurposing the cautionary expression into a derogatory dismissive rebuke. Even more elastic than its predecessor “political correctness,” “woke” has become the Right’s ubiquitous term to apply to the ideas, people, books, and media they scorn, they fear, or they simply seek to dismiss.
ALEC: The Elephant in the ROOM
Most North Carolina Democrats who have lived here for the past decade know that 2011 was the year when everything changed. But once the new state legislature was in place, led by Speaker Thom Tillis and Majority Leader Phil Berger, it was the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)—funded by the same corporate interests—that shaped the key elements of that transformation.
ALEC’s Sinister Plans
No one knew anything about ALEC until Trayvon Martin’s murder in Florida. It turned out that Florida’s Stand Your Ground Act was based on an ALEC model, and groups around the country from Common Cause to Color of Change started a boycott movement against companies that participated in ALEC. The boycott was effective: ALEC lost a lot of members and decided to move out of social issues and concentrate on legislation that directly affected corporate well-being — like preventing efforts to fight climate change by boycotting fossil fuel companies.
Republicans Stash Billions
Federal stimulus fueled a faster than expected economic recovery. As a result, state revenues exceeded expectations by billions of dollars. Instead of spending those funds to address pressing needs in our state, legislators chose to sideline more than $4 billion through a variety of reserves.
We can expand medicaid now
On Valentine's Day hundreds of advocates for Medicaid Expansion swarmed through the General Assembly, visiting Representatives and Senators to urge them to finally support Medicaid Expansion. For 10 years Republicans have been holding back on the grounds that the Federal Government wouldn't come through with their promised 90% of reimbursement for the 600,000 working adults who make too much to qualify for traditional Medicaid, and too little to afford health insurance on the Affordable Care marketplace.
We took a carrots approach: handing out valentines and candy hearts with notes that said: Wouldn't it be sweet if we expanded Medicaid?
Democrats and the Youth Vote
In November’s midterm, Democrat Cheri Beasley lost her Senate race to Republican Ted Budd. Republicans gained a supermajority in the NC State Senate, and they fell short by only a single seat of securing a supermajority in the NC State House. Sadly, with less than ⅓ of registered voters aged 18-40 turning out, NC Democrats failed to mobilize young voters. The turnout of registered minority voters in that age group was even more disappointing with only ⅕ of registered Black and Hispanic voters under 41 casting ballots.
2022 Election Results: What the Numbers Tell Us
Even though a lot of people only come out to vote for Presidential elections, at County-to-County we know that every election counts.
In 2010, we learned what happens when folks get complacent and don't come out to vote in midterm elections. For the first time in 100 years, Democrats lost control of both houses of the state legislature and, as a result, lost control of the redistricting process as well as the ability to define the issues that receive priority and a vote in the legislature.
How we win in North Carolina
In a post-election editorial in the Raleigh News and Observer, Paige Masten lays out her prescription for electoral success in our state:
Knocking on doors and registering voters when a major election rolls around is important, but it’s not the way to achieve long-term success. If Democrats want to win in North Carolina, they’re going to have to start laying permanent infrastructure in counties they have too often ignored. That means empowering communities, recruiting candidates for local office and investing resources year-round. It also means having a message that resonates with voters in those communities — understanding their unique concerns about everything from the economy to health care and having a plan to address them.
Sound familiar? This two-fold approach outlined by Masten is the approach that County-to-County has put into practice for the past six years.
GUTTING SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE - THE GOP’S AGENDA IF THEY WIN
No Republican candidate running in 2022 says it upfront.
But read between the lines in recent remarks by Kevin McCarthy, and you’ll see that hacking back Social Security and Medicare remains very much the party’s intent, if they win the House on November 8.
Why This College Student is All-In for Democrats This November
When I was 13, right before the ill-fated Presidential election of 2016, I heard conversations in the recess yard about how Hillary Clinton was trying to change America as we knew it and that Donald Trump, while a bit of a jerk, was the only way to stop her - “the lesser of two evils.” These sorts of comments were typical of the Catholic middle and high schools that I attended - isolated, conservative bubbles where most of my peers were happy to parrot their parents’ talking points and views, not giving politics a second thought.
WHY I AM VOTING FOR DEMOCRATS
My name is Chloe, and I am a 20 year old college student at Vassar College. I spent my entire life growing up in Chapel Hill and Carrboro attending the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools.
Like many people, I got involved in politics after 2016 because I was so afraid of what Trump’s election would mean for the United States. However, I have stayed involved because I came to understand the egalitarian goal of the Democratic Party to improve the lives of all, regardless of their annual income, their zip code, their gender or race.