Tag search result

MORE ARRESTS EXPECTED AT LEGISLATURE: Activists fighting the Republican legislative agenda say they will return to the Legislative Building on Monday and more plan to be arrested. The civil disobiendence, led by the N.C. NAACP and other groups, is design to raise the public's awareness of the policies GOP-lawmakers are pushing this session. A demonstration a week ago led to 17 arrests.

McCRORY TO TOUT DRILLING IN TEXAS: From AP -- Gov. Pat McCrory is visiting an offshore energy trade conference in Texas to try to help build momentum for drilling off the coast of North Carolina and other states. McCrory says he'll participate Monday in a panel discussion with other governors at the Offshore Technology Conference in Houston. McCrory says the energy industry could create thousands of jobs and reduce America's dependence on foreign oil and generate state revenues.

***Thanks for reading the Dome Morning Memo. More North Carolina politics below. Send tips and news to dome@newsobserver.com. ***

More than 35,000 people are coming to Charlotte for September’s Democratic National Convention. But the buzz Wednesday was on 14 who aren’t. That’s the number of Democratic congressional candidates who’ve said they plan to stay home and campaign rather than attend their party’s convention. And they’re doing it with the blessing of the man trying to get them elected.

U.S. Rep. Steve Israel, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said this week he would advise any candidate to stay home. “If they want to win an election, they need to be in their districts,” he told Reuters. “A trip to Charlotte may be interesting, but why leave your districts?” Read the full story here.

More political headlines:

--Gov. Bev Perdue is being asked by media organizations to veto a bill that would restrict public access to information about businesses that put their employees at financial risk by not purchasing legally required workers’ compensation insurance. An investigation by The News & Observer in April revealed that tens of thousands of North Carolina employers do not have the insurance.

Rep. David Price visited N.C. State University's campus on Monday to push for the passage of a bill that would prevent the current Stafford Loan interest rate from doubling on July 1. He blasted Mitt Romney and Congressional Republicans for their stance on the student loan bill.

Price, seeking reelection to Congress from North Carolina's Fourth District, told a dozen or so students and a crowd of reporters at the Wolf Plaza that his colleagues should act before a July 1 deadline passes and the interest rate on Stafford Loans propels from the current 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent.

President Barack Obama arrives at UNC-Chapel Hill on Tuesday with a message that may resonate with young voters worried about their economic future. In North Carolina, the higher interest rate would affect 160,000 students, adding $980 over the life of the average student loan, according to the White House.

At the same time, state financial aid dollars have declined; the UNC system suffered a 15.6 percent cut in state funding last year. A state need-based grant program was reduced by $35 million last year. On Monday, Gov. Bev Perdue, a Democrat, said she would restore that $35 million for financial aid in her budget. Read more here.

Other political headlines:

--It did not take long for the John Edwards trial to get tawdry, and for once it was not the former presidential candidate at the center of the salacious allegations. It was Andrew Young, the former aide who is expected to be a key witness for the prosecution. Get more details from the Greensboro federal courtroom and see a photo gallery.

President Barack Obama will visit the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on Tuesday as part of a nationwide tour to promote lower interest rates on student loans, the White House announced Friday.

He will also appear on a special broadcast of NBC’s Jimmy Fallon show taped on the campus featuring the musician Dave Matthews.

The Chapel Hill campus is the first of three universities on the tour designed to pressure Congress to prevent student loan interest rates from doubling this summer. More than 7.4 million students hold loans with 3.4 percent interest. The White House believes there is still time for Congress to prevent the increase from taking effect July 1.

The N.C. Center for Public Policy Research is crying foul on lawmakers for their last-minute local bills that would allow 25 community colleges to opt out of offering federal loans.

The local bills get around a veto by Gov. Bev Perdue of similar legislation this year. The move would shut off access to low-interest loans for 111,000 college students in North Carolina, the research center estimated.

The local bill process has not been transparent, the nonpartisan center argues.

"The public has a right to know the content of all bills when they are first introduced in the legislature," said a news release from the center. "These bills do not give adequate notice to the public of what is being proposed, they’re not transparent in their content and purpose, and they are being used to rush consideration of significant legislation."

The center has done three years of research on financial aid policy in North Carolina, and has advocated for all of the state's 58 community colleges to offer the federal loans. The loans are considered to be the cheapest and safest way for students to borrow money for college. Some local college presidents have argued that they don't want to participate in the loan programs because high default rates could conceivably lead to a loss of other federal dollars.

The issue has a back-and-forth history. In 2010, the Democratic-controlled legislature required all community colleges to offer the loans. This year, the Republican-led legislature passed a bill that would have repealed the requirement, but it was vetoed by Perdue.

The local bills that emerged this week employed an old legislative trick. The bills' original language -- on topics such as parking meters, occupancy taxes and mental health waivers -- was stripped and the substitute language on the loan issue was inserted.

North Carolina is one of four states that don't make federal loans, which offer lower rates and more repayment options, available to a large share of its community college students.

Too many defaults on the loans at a campus could jeopardize the college's other financial aid options. Supporters of the expansion say that risk is overstated. (N&O)

NO FEES: North Carolina consumers can continue to miss their payment deadline on small, high-interest loans without incurring late fees.

Lawmakers looking at banking reforms voted Tuesday to study the consumer-finance industry and did not take up the question of recommending legislation that would allow those lenders to add late fees, as industry representatives asked. (N&O)

LESS PRIVACY? Facebook's plan to spread its online social network to other websites could be detoured by regulators looking into privacy concerns that have raised the ire of federal lawmakers. (AP)

NOW WHAT? Congressional Democrats sent the final piece of landmark health care legislation to President Barack Obama before heading home to face a skeptical — and sometimes even threatening — electorate. (AP)

OUT OF THE BUSINESS: Ending one of the fiercest lobbying fights in Washington, Congress voted Thursday to force private commercial banks out of the federal student loan market. (NYT)

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole is being criticized for her vote on a student loan bill.

In December of 2005, the Senate took up an omnibus deficit reduction bill aimed at cutting $39.7 billion from the federal deficit.

One section in the bill targeted student loans.

The bill cut costs by reducing subsidies to lenders and kept a shift from variable interest rates on loans to a 6.8 percent fixed rate.

At the same time, it increased loan limits for first- and second-year students and established a new $3.7 billion grant program for low-income college students studying math, science or certain foreign languages.

In all, it achieved $12.7 billion in net savings.

The Senate voted 50-50 on the bill, with Vice President Dick Cheney breaking the tie in favor. Dole voted for the bill. 

Republicans argued that the cuts in student aid would only affect banks and other lenders, while Democrats and college administrators said that two-thirds of the savings would be borne by students and their parents.

"This is the biggest cut in the history of the federal student loan program," said David Ward, president of the American Council on Education, an umbrella group for colleges, at the time.

But a Dole spokesman defended the bill.

"The bill had $9.2 billion in new education spending on students," wrote Dan McLagan in an e-mail to Dome. "The net effect is an increase in benefits for students and a decrease in payments to lending institutions." 

A recent TV ad by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee criticizes Dole for her vote on the bill.  

How bipartisan has U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole been?

With the candidates for Senate touting their ability to bridge the partisan divide, Dome decided to take a closer look.

One measure is the number of Democrats who signed onto legislation Dole sponsored.

In the 2007-08 session, the Salisbury Republican was the primary sponsor of 75 bills. Of them, 42 had no cosponsor, 18 had only Republican cosponsors and 15 had Democratic cosponsors.

Overall, her 87 cosponsors included 64 Republicans and 23 Democrats, or about a three-to-one ratio.

The most frequent Democratic cosponsors were Sens. Joseph Lieberman and Ted Kennedy. Lieberman, an Independent who caucuses with the Democrats, signed on to bills praising the Coast Guard for a cocaine seizure, creating a student loan program for worker training and committing 4 percent of the gross domestic product to military spending.

Kennedy signed onto the Coast Guard resolution, an amendment that would require the Navy to publicize Camp Lejeune's drinking water contamination, and a resolution honoring the U.S. Marshals' anniversary.

Dole also had Democratic cosponsors on bills recognizing the Lumbee tribe, giving a tax credit for hunger relief, amending the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the Trade Act of 1974, starting a pilot program for pregnant college students, honoring Veterans Day, creating a Southeast Crescent Authority and researching flow batteries.