Shutdown hits home: N.C. suspending WIC

For those who might be applauding the slimming effects of the federal government shutdown, some harsh reality:  The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services is temporarily halting benefits for a program that helps low-income pregnant women and new moms buy healthy food if  their families are facing "nutrition risk."  

From DHHS this afternoon: 

Due to the federal shutdown, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, also known as the WIC program, will discontinue issuing benefits at close of business on Tuesday, October 8, 2013.   Approximately 80 percent of eligible clients already have been issued food benefits for the month of October.  DHHS has determined that federal WIC funds available to the state will be sufficient to cover WIC vouchers already issued for the month of October, but not sufficient to issue additional vouchers.

WIC clients should keep their nutrition appointments and continue redeeming October vouchers and WIC vendors should continue normal operations to accept existing vouchers.  The Department will continue to monitor the daily availability of federal funds and will announce changes if they become necessary. 

"Some of our most vulnerable citizens, pregnant and breastfeeding women, infants and young children, will be affected by the interruption of WIC services due to the federal shutdown," said DHHS Secretary Aldona Wos. 

DHHS, in a letter today, also is telling some providers that it is issuing a Stop Work order on their contracts - meaning there are no funds to pay them, due to the shutdown.   

Meanwhile, moments ago, U.S. House Speaker called President Barack Obama's proposal of a short-term "clean resolution" to get the government funded again "unconditional surrender" for Republicans. 

Peter St. Onge

Report: McCrory administration suppressed critical Medicaid info

It's common political practice for incoming administrations to tout how good of a job they will do by first explaining how bad of a job their predecessors did. But the incoming administration of N.C. Gov. Pat McCrory might have taken the practice too far in trying to paint the state's Medicaid program as broken, according to an investigation published today by North Carolina Health News.

Documents show that Department of Health and Human Services officials deleted key information in the department's response to State Auditor Beth Wood's audit of the Medicaid program under previous governor Bev Perdue. That audit from Wood had alleged high adminstrative costs and budget overruns in the state Medicaid program. The initial response refuting those allegations was written by outgoing Perdue officials.

The edits, done by DHHS Secretary Aldona Wos and Medicaid head Carol Steckel, include removing whole paragraphs and evidence that North Carolina's administrative costs are lower than most states, rather than 30 percent higher, as McCrory administration officials have contended publicly, Health News reports.

Another example: Steckel removed paragraphs explaining that CommunityCare of North Carolina - a much-lauded network of physicians, pharmacists and health departments - had been studied by two national groups that found cost savings. Instead, Steckel inserted language casting doubt on the program.

The DHHS documents, including the edits, are available online at North Carolina Health News, a not-for-profit news organization founded by Rose Hoban, who reported on health care for six years for North Carolina Public Radio. 

 In a January news conference, with McCrory standing behind her, Wood said North Carolina was spending significantly more on administrative costs than most states. That criticism helped McCrory and Wos characterize the Medicaid program as "broken," which they used as justification to turn down a federal expansion of Medicaid that could have helped a half million North Carolinians.

Of course, if the state's Medicaid program isn't "broken," McCrory might have a more difficult time  justifying the Medicaid privatization he's proposing.

DHHS spokesman Ricky Diaz told North Carolina Health News that DHHS officials "stand by our final responses to the audit." That's not good enough. Wos needs to justify the specific deletions  made to the audit response and explain why they removed critical information that might have painted our state's Medicaid program in a far different light.

Peter St. Onge

Did we mention we're searching your car?

Beginning this week, Charlotte Douglas International Airport officials will offer you the courtesy of letting you know your car is being searched.

The only reason they're fessing up, of course, is because they got caught.

According to a WCNC/Observer report over the weekend, airport employees have been searching valet-parked cars for the past year and a half without the consent or knowledge of car owners. The reason we know now? When one traveler was paying her valet bill inside at the airport last week, she noticed through the window an employee with a flashlight looking through her trunk.

Update, 4:45 p.m.: Interim Aviation Director Brent Cagle told the editorial board Monday that the airport will suspend curbside valet parking – along with what he called the “visual inspections” –for 5-10 days until officials can determine the best way to notify travelers about the practice. Cagle, who became interim aviation director in July and was hired by Charlotte Douglas last year, was not involved in enacting the policy. But, he said Monday: “We understand now that we should have done a better job.”

The searches were part of the airport's security plan. Each U.S. airport is responsible for submitting such plans to the Transportation Safety Administration, according to the TSA's Bob Burns, who addressed the issue on an agency blog in July. The TSA approves the plans, but no TSA agents participate in car searches, Burns said.

Not all airports handle the searches the same way, according to Mother Jones magazine, which wrote on the issue in July. At the Minneapolis-St. Paul, Boston and Nashville airports, the searches are done with the car's owner present and consenting. But the search issue first popped up earlier this year because of one airport in Rochester, N.Y., where a woman returning from a trip found a placard on her car windshield saying her car had been searched.  

The searches thus far would seem to be a violation of the Fourth Amendment, which says the government can't search without suspicion. But Indiana University law professor Fred H. Cate says maybe not. "The Supreme Court has made an exception to searching items that you've voluntarily given to someone else - like a car," he told Mother Jones.  

The key may be notification. If a sign is present at the valet check-in letting you know your car may be searched, you are likely offering consent by choosing to park there, anyway. But you have to know first, and Charlotte Douglas officials waited a year and a half too long to give travelers that information.

Make no mistake - the searches themselves can be a legitimate security tool involving cars that are parked close to airport terminals. But there doesn't seem to be a valid security reason for keeping customers in the dark. Rather, it seems more like an arrogance we're seeing too often in government lately - that as long as you're doing something in the interest of public safety, the public doesn't necessarily need to know about it. 

Peter St. Onge




 

Is N.C.'s Public Policy Polling biased?

Is Public Policy Polling biased? The Raleigh-based firm is a prolific poller, and has established a strong record of accuracy over the years. But it's also described as Democratic-leaning and now finds itself in a debate about whether it concealed poll results that were unfriendly to a Democrat.

PPP polled in Colorado's state Senate recall elections last weekend. When it found that Democratic state Sen. Angela Giron was down by 12 points, it decided not to make the results public. PPP said it was concerned that something was off with its methodology -- it was unusual that a Democrat would be losing so badly in a heavily Democratic district. Perhaps respondents didn't understand the question?

Turns out they understood the question just fine. Giron did in fact lose in Wednesday's recall vote by the precise 12 points that PPP's survey predicted. And now PPP's decision to keep its results private is lighting up the Twitterverse, including from data phenom Nate Silver, formerly of the New York Times.

"VERY bad and unscientific practice for @ppppolls to suppress a polling result they didn't believe/didn't like," Silver tweeted Wednesday afternoon.

"Nate I'm sorry but that is absurd," PPP tweeted back. "You're saying you would put out a model if you had serious concerns it was wrong?"

"I'm especially skeptical when a pollster puts its finger on the scale in a way that matches its partisan views," Silver later tweeted.

This is more than just a spat between wonks. Alleging that a polling firm is suppressing poll results because it doesn't like them is an extremely serious charge. Silver's accusation would have more credence if PPP didn't a) routinely release polls that included bad news for Democrats and b) have a long track record of accuracy and c) blow the whistle on themselves in this case.

Another tweeter pointed out that Silver himself withheld poll data on election day that he thought was suspicious, and included video to prove it. (Watch in the 5:40 to 6:10 range.) No word from Silver on that.  

If a polling firm sees red flags that suggest its data may be off, it makes sense for it to revisit its methodology rather than just throw results out there that it doubts are true. Silver is a smart guy, but he's wrong on this one.

-- Taylor Batten


 

Cannon over Mitchell for mayor: Was it those ads?

So, what was the deciding factor in Patrick Cannon's walloping of James "Smuggie" Mitchell in Tuesday's Democratic primary for Charlotte mayor? Better name recognition, Cannon's 20-year record, solid grassroots' appeal, a slap at the "establishment" ties associated with Mitchell? All were likely factors. There was also the fact that Cannon came off as more confident and polished than Mitchell.

But Mitchell may also have misfired with what Cannon and others deemed Mitchell's "negative" campaigning. The blitz of mailed flyers which Mitchell said only was designed to show the contrast in their positions showed Cannon with various sour looks on his face and tied Mitchell to former Mayor Anthony Foxx's agenda. The continuous flow of such ads turned some people off. And then there was the final blitz of robocalls from Mitchell, including one looped one over and over again from Mitchell's wife, a former astronaut. It had the ring of desperation to some.

But the race was probably decided before much of that even occurred. Cannon led in early voting returns both in absentee and one-stop voting by the same margins that he won the overall vote. By the way, both Edwin Peacock, who won the Republican mayoral contest in short order Tuesday and Cannon were in our top four in our inaugural Mayoral Power Rankings in April.

In elections elsewhere....

It seems New Yorkers aren't so forgiving of sexual impropriety as folks are in other places - places like, uh, South Carolina.

S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford, who forgot his state duties to have a tryst with his Argentine mistress while on the state's work clock, made a rebound from disgrace to Congress last year. But on Tuesday night, former N.Y. Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who resigned that job after discovery of his trysts with prostitutes, couldn't get elected to a local office as city comptroller.

Well, actually, he was seeking the Democratic nomination, but that was a virtual lock for whoever the Democratic nominee turned out to be. That will now be Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. Stringer didn't have the deep pockets of Spitzer - Spitzer outspent Stringer $7 million to under $4 million - nor could he match Spitzer's financial expertise. As N.Y. attorney general, Spitzer was known as the "Sheriff of Wall Street" for his aggressive and successful prosecution of financial firms.

But it looks like Spitzer couldn't escape the scandal in the mind of many undecided voters, and nagging doubts about his integrity were only reinforced by his decision not to fully disclose his tax returns. Stringer released five years of his returns.

On Tuesday, Stringer handily beat Spitzer.

And speaking of handily getting beaten, the weird ex-Congressman Anthony Weiner also got a sound whipping voters. He only got five percent of the vote, and it's kind of surprising he got that many after discovery in the middle of his campaign that he had continued the lewd sexting behavior that led to his resignation from Congress in 2011.

But there's still room for forgiveness, it seems, even in the Big Apple, and even while the one seeking forgiveness is spewing curse words and flipping people off with his middle finger as Weiner did the day before and in the hours after his defeat. Go figure.   

North Carolina's reputation plunges

A revealing new poll about North Carolina is out today. The state's reputation nationally over the past two years has dropped from one of the 10 best in the country to one of the worst.

The survey comes from Public Policy Polling in Raleigh. Some will no doubt dismiss the findings because they consider PPP a "Democratic" firm. But that criticism would miss the point that the original poll ranking North Carolina well was also done by PPP, and after the legislature had been in Republican control (and that PPP ranked all 50 states in any case).

We can't summarize the new findings better than PPP's Tom Jensen can, so here's what he has to say:

Two years ago PPP did national polls assessing the favorability of every state in the country. While southern states generally found themselves toward the bottom of the list, North Carolina was an exception. It polled among the ten most popular states in the country, with 40% of voters rating it favorably to only 11% who had an unfavorable opinion.

 

North Carolina's national image has seen a strong shift in a negative direction since that time. Its favorability has dropped from 40% to 30%, while the share of voters with an unfavorable opinion of it has more than doubled from 11% to 23%. Its +7 favorability rating would have ranked it 40th in our national study of state popularity in 2011, rather than its top 10 popularity at that time.

 

The state's national image has seen particularly large declines with racial minorities and women. In 2011 North Carolina stood out in the south as a state African Americans had a positive opinion of, at a 42/8 favorability rating. Now blacks see it negatively by a 19/30 spread. It's a similar story with Hispanics- they gave the state a positive 50/9 favorability in 2011, now it's a negative one at 20/39. There's also been a steep decline with women. They gave the state a net +32 favorability in 2011 at 40/8, but that's dropped all the way down to +3 at just 25/22.

 

Predictably the biggest hit in North Carolina's national image following this legislative session has been with Democrats. Their view of North Carolina has dropped a net 38 points from +18 (35/17) a couple years to -20 at 18/38 now. What's interesting though is the state has gotten less popular with Republicans too- it had a +42 favorability at 48/6 in 2011 and that's declined now to +28 at 41/13.

 

This analysis is also available on our website:

 

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2013/09/north-carolinas-national-image-declines.html

How the professor helped his buddy the candidate

As a political science professor, Larry Little tries to foster civic engagement in his students. Instead, his wrong-headed approach last week is providing ammunition to those who want to suppress the vote.

Little teaches American government at Winston-Salem State University. Last week, he invited Democratic City Council candidate Derwin Montgomery to speak to his class. Sounds OK, perhaps, except that Montgomery used his visit to campaign, then arranged transportation to the Winston-Salem elections office for students who wanted to vote. Those students left class early, apparently with the professor's blessing.

It gets worse. It turns out that Little and Montgomery are friends, and Little served as an adviser to Montgomery's first City Council campaign in 2009. That might explain how Montgomery got access to Little's students that his opponents, Joycelyn Johnson and Phil Carter, didn't.

Montgomery defeated Johnson, then a longtime incumbent, in that 2009 race. He did so by getting Winston-Salem State students to flood the polls, with hundreds registering and voting the same day. Johnson complained at the time that many of those student voters were not properly registered.

Winston Salem State is part of the UNC system, which limits political activity on its campuses. Its chancellor, Donald Reaves, has created a committee to investigate the incident. The committee should declare that what Little and Montgomery did was wrong and determine an appropriate punishment for Little.

At a time when voting rights are being restricted by the N.C. legislature and local election boards, the professor has done a disservice to the cause of civic participation. Republicans have been especially seeking to limit student involvement in elections -- at Elizabeth City State, Appalachian State and elsewhere. The incident in Little's classroom, rather than creating good citizens, fuels the statewide voter-suppression movement.

-- Taylor Batten

Not a good day for election suppression

Updated 4:22 p.m.: Advocates of election suppression were dealt two small blows Tuesday, showing that even in North Carolina, there may be a limit to how far you can go to make it hard for people to participate.

The Republican-led state Board of Elections voted unanimously earlier this afternoon to allow Elizabeth City State University student Montravias King to run for the city council there, the Associated Press and WCNC's Jeremy Markovich report. The Pasquotank County Board of Elections, also led by Repubicans, had blocked King from running, saying that he couldn't use his campus address to establish residency.

Later, at the same state board of elections meeting today, the two Republicans on the Watauga County Board of Elections said they would undo their decision to combine three Election Day precincts into one, a move that had eliminated a precinct on the Appalachian State University campus.

The state board, however, did allow Watauga to eliminate the early voting site on campus. 


We've written about the cases here and here.

The unanimous ruling on the King case was the right one. King had been registered to vote since coming to college in 2009, and the state board seemed to have clear guidance from the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in Symm v. United States that the government can't deny or discourage residency to students.

In Watauga County, here's the stat you need to know: The App State precinct had the highest early voting turnout in the county in 2009 and 2011, according to Watauga BOE member Kathleen Campbell, the lone Democrat on that county's board. The precinct also trended Democrat, which was why Republicans had targeted it.

North Carolinians are still left with what some feel is one of the country's most restrictive voting laws. But for the most part today, N.C. officials decided it's better to have more people, not fewer,  taking part in elections. 



Peter St. Onge

Frankly, the governor says "frankly" a lot

Former editorial board member Lew Powell thinks we missed the bigger story with our Saturday editorial about Gov. Pat McCrory. Frankly, he might be right.

 

Here's Lew: 

 

I was shocked to read your misguided Aug. 30 editorial, “Does the governor have a truth problem?”

 

Of course, Gov. McCrory wasn’t telling the truth when he insisted his two campaign aides were given jobs that “frankly, a lot of older people applied for, too.” Nor was he telling the truth when he claimed, "Frankly, yesterday I went out and talked to several” Moral Monday protesters.

 

But we North Carolinians should be proud, not ashamed, to hear McCrory prevaricating with such earnestness. What previous governor even approaches his self-proclaimed frankly-ness? 

 

On the limits of government to solve problems:

 

“Frankly, there is no new money falling out of the sky.”

 

On his unwillingness to support teacher pay raises:

 

“Frankly, I inherited a financial mess.”

 

On the shortcomings of liberal arts:

 

"Frankly, if you want to take gender studies, that's fine. But I don't want to subsidize that if that's not going to get someone a job.”

 

On his opposition to extending unemployment benefits:

 

“Frankly, Gov. Perdue accepted over $2.6 billion in debt, which we haven't paid back to the federal government.”

 

On the elimination of pre-registration for young voters:

 

“Frankly, we think students can do that themselves, just like any other age group.”

 

And McCrory hasn’t hesitated to contend that advertising for the state lottery is “frankly annoying,” that corruption “frankly has existed in North Carolina politics in the past,” that drug testing for welfare recipients “frankly can't be implemented in a consistent way,” that US Airways was “frankly, one of the parties that brought up some of the initial concerns” at the airport and that legal loopholes “frankly allow people to vote once or twice or even more.”

 

OK, so maybe truthfulness isn’t our governor’s strength. But where’s the Observer’s appreciation of his mastery of frankly-ness? We’re witnessing rhetorical history in the making – and he’s only in his first year!