skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Monday, March 18, 2024

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Report says a second Trump term would add 4 billion tons of climate pollution; Trump predicts a bloodbath for the country if he is defeated in November's election; Nevada leaders discuss future of IVF, abortion in the Silver State; and anglers seek trawler buffer zone as Atlantic herring stock declines.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

The SCOTUS weighs government influence on social media, and who groups like the NRA can do business with. Biden signs an executive order to advance women's health research and the White House tells Israel it's responsible for the Gaza humanitarian crisis.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Midwest regenerative farmers are rethinking chicken production, Medicare Advantage is squeezing the finances of rural hospitals and California's extreme swing from floods to drought has some thinking it's time to turn rural farm parcels into floodplains.

NC Lawmakers Expected to Make Big Changes to Election Law

play audio
Play

Tuesday, October 17, 2017   

RALEIGH, N.C. – It was a late night for the North Carolina Senate on Monday - as members voted to override Gov. Roy Cooper's veto of legislation that would eliminate judicial primary elections in 2018, among other things.

The state House is expected to make a similar vote this morning. If the Electoral Freedom Act (SB 656) becomes law, it would allow judges to be elected with much less than the majority vote.

Dawn Blagrove, attorney and executive director of the Carolina Justice Policy Center explains how that might impact next year's ballot.

"What essentially will happen is that you could have anywhere from one to 100 people who decide they want to run for that judicial seat," she explains. "We completely lose the ability to elect someone as a community, by a majority vote."

Critics of the legislation, including Gov. Cooper, say it's intended to make it easier to oust Democratic judges, many of whom have been ruling Republican-led laws unconstitutional. In addition to impacting judicial elections, the bill reduces ballot requirements for third-party candidates. Supporters of the legislation say it will increase access to the ballot for all candidates.

Blagrove says she speculates this is the first step in an attempt to remove the selection of justices from the election process altogether.

"I believe that the end game here is to ultimately end up with the right to elect judges being removed from the people and ultimately having justices be appointed by the General Assembly," she says.

The ability to orchestrate a judicial shake-up in next year's election with the elimination of a primary also could force many African-American and Democratic judges to run against each other. The state's judges are expected to rule in a number of cases that would impact Republican-supported legislation.


get more stories like this via email

more stories
Corporate partners sign contracts to offer a graduate assistantship and pay the students. In turn, MSU pays the graduate assistant's tuition, fees and salary, so the assistantship is directly tied to the academic experience. (pressmaster/Adobe Stock)

play sound

By Victoria Lim for WorkingNation.Broadcast version by Farah Siddiqi for Missouri News Service reporting for the WorkingNation-Public News Service Col…


Social Issues

play sound

A new report brands Connecticut's tax system as "regressive" for low- to middle-income residents and uses a report from the state to make its point…

Environment

play sound

Backers of a new federal rule said it will increase fairness for livestock and poultry producers, in North Carolina and across the country. The U.S…


A study by the advocacy group Inseparable showed one in five adults said at any given time, they consider their mental health to be either 'fair' or 'poor.' (Adobe Stock)

Health and Wellness

play sound

Mental health care advocates are encouraging federal agencies to adopt a proposed update to regulations which would expand access to psychological car…

Social Issues

play sound

With hotter summers bringing hotter working conditions, the Maryland Department of Labor is implementing a heat stress standard to protect workers …

Environment

play sound

Recreational fishermen in New England say commercial trawlers are threatening the survival of smaller businesses relying on a healthy stock of Atlanti…

Social Issues

play sound

Women are treated much differently than men by the criminal justice system, according to a new report detailing how and why mass incarceration is …

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021