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Gov. Pat McCrory gave the GOP’s weekly radio address on Saturday morning, giving the newly elected North Carolina governor a bit of a national profile.
McCrory repeated the gist of his campaign themes and remarks he has made since taking office in January, saying North Carolina is working on reforms in the economy, education and efficiency.
Jamie Hahn, a Democratic Party strategist and the wife of strategist Nation Hahn, died overnight from wounds suffering in a knife attack.
Raleigh police said they would seek a murder charge against a friend of the couple, Jonathan Broyhill.
The Wake County GOP issued this statement Wednesday morning:
"Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family of Jamie and Nation Hahn. Both are highly respected democratic party leaders and strategists active in Wake County and State politics. Regardless of our differing political views, it is our civic involvement and love of our community that binds us together. Please keep the Hahn’s in your thoughts in the wake of this senseless tragedy."
North Carolina’s Latino advocates are voicing alarm following the governor’s decision to eliminate the state’s office for Latino affairs. The closing of the Office of Hispanic/Latino affairs was sudden and caught many by surprise. The move appears to have exacerbated the already tense relationship between Republican Gov. Pat McCrory and the Latino community, including criticism over a driver’s license plan for young immigrants.
Advocates says it sends a message that McCrory and Raleigh conservatives are less concerned with the needs of the Latino community. Paradoxically, it comes at a time when issues of deep concerns, like immigration, are at the political forefront and Republicans nationally are trying to appear more welcoming to Latinos.
***Thanks for reading the Good Friday edition of the Dome Morning Memo. Send tips and news to dome@newsobserver.com. More on the Latino office and other big headlines below.***
It's Blueprint North Carolina's turn to be in the spotlight at least another day, as the head of the nonprofit group now says it didn't distribute the controversial strategy memo that offered options to discredit GOP leaders. He suggests political dirty tricks are at play.
A "Back to Basics" bill in the House would require students be taught cursive writing. (Holding an instrument called a pen or a pencil in your fingers and making looping figures on paper to form words and sentences -- before there were keyboards.)
DMV offices in Raleigh and two other cities will be open later on weeknights and on Saturday mornings, DOT Secretary Tony Tata announced. Ultimately, the expanded hours will be statewide.
As The Charlotte Observer reports Friday, Blueprint’s main donor – the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation – is upset at the organization’s strategy memo. The foundation gave Blueprint $425,000 in 2011, according to its most recent IRS filing.
Who else contributes to Blueprint?
Donors to nonprofit organizations are not part of the public file that goes to the IRS. But Blueprint included the information with its filing with the state as a charitable organization.
The state House GOP caucus on Saturday, meeting in High Point, chose its leaders for the coming session.
Rep. Paul "Skip" Stam of Apex was promoted from majority leader to speaker pro tem. This will be his seventh term.The previous pro tem, Rep. Dale Folwell, left office to run unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor. The pro tem steps in to run sessions when the speaker is absent. Speaker Thom Tillis of Cornelius was re-elected to the post last month.
Rep. Edgar Starnes, from Caldwell County, was chosen Majority Leader. Starnes has been in the House since 1993.
UPDATED: Democratic Congressman Mike McIntyre's trip to Europe made headlines in 2011 and now its the subject of a Republican attack ad.
Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty will make a public appearance in Raleigh on Saturday, a GOP source confirms this evening. Final arrangements are still being made, and additional details will be forthcoming.
Pawlenty is on the short list of potential running mates for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
UPDATE: Here are those details: Pawlenty will attend something called a sports parents roundtable at the Polar Ice House in Cary around mid-day, and then head to North Raleigh for the opening of the new "victory office" on Spring Forest Road later in the afternoon.
Despite intermittent bursts of rain, a rally of about 45 people representing 25 organizations gathered this afternoon as NAACP NC President Rev. Dr. William Barber protested GOP policies on the Bicentennial Mall in front of the General Assembly.
"If you can take the General Assembly and put it under a political MRI, and study the systematic impact, you would find the General Assembly is mean-spirited toward the poor, minorities, African Americans, and women ... intentionally," Barber said Thursday.
Patrick Ballantine, a former GOP candidate for governor, has returned to Raleigh as a lobbyist.
Ballantine, who lost to former Gov. Mike Easley in 2004, is lobbying for aluminum giant Alcoa, Lorillard Tobacco, Universal Leaf Tobacco and a group called Advocates for Free Commerce, as clients in his new firm Ballantine Co.
Ballantine was elected Senate minority leader in 1999 when he represented New Hanover in the legislature. He resigned his Senate seat in 2004 to focus on his run for governor.
