PLANE WILL FLY OVER CHAPEL HILL WITH BANNER READING "RESTORE SILENT SAM": For the second time this month, a plane with a Confederate flag and “restore Silent Sam” banner was seen flying in North Carolina. According to a Facebook post, the flag and banner were expected to fly over Chapel Hill- near the University of North Carolina campus, Durham and Raleigh as people commemorated Veterans Day across the state. “[The plane] will be in the air for a couple of hours showing the citizens of North Carolina that all veterans matter and that those brave men who were called to serve their country deserve to be honored,” a Facebook post from the group said. The “Silent Sam” statue has been in storage since it was toppled. Chancellor Carol Folt's administration and the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees have until Dec. 14 to submit a plan for the statue's future to the UNC Board of Governors.
https://www.wral.com/confederate-flag-restore-silent-sam-banner-fly-over-triangle/17987522/

TEACHER INVOLVEMENT IN NC ELECTION LEFT AN INDELIBLE MARK: To kick off the election campaign, NCAE organized the May rally that brought at least 19,000 teachers and public-education supporters to Raleigh. The event caused at least 42 school districts that educate more than 1 million students to cancel classes for the day. The march helped personalize the concerns teachers had, according to Matt Ellinwood, director of the Education and Law Project at the liberal N.C. Justice Center. Instead of just seeing NCAE complaining, Ellinwood said, some voters connected the issue to someone they knew, such as their own child’s teacher. “When people saw it was their own teacher, someone in their own community ... it was very powerful,” Ellinwood said. As part of NCAE’s post-march push to the election, the group encouraged teachers to become involved in the political process to support legislative candidates.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article221371205.html

GOP LEADERS EYE LAST CHANCE TO PASS VETO-PROOF LEGISLATION: Republican state legislators in North Carolina plan to write more laws this month to take advantage of the last weeks that they hold a veto-proof majority. Legislative leaders have said they planned to take action on voter ID in the November session. Pat Ryan, a spokesman for Senate leader Phil Berger, said Wednesday that staff was just beginning to work on the voter ID and victims’ rights laws, and it was too soon to say what the proposals would look like. The legislature could take up other bills that Republicans want to pass before next year, when Cooper gets the power of vetoes that can stick, said Sen. Floyd McKissick, a Durham Democrat. McKissick said he was prepared for legislation needed for the amendments “and any and all other matters before they lose the supermajority.”
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article221299965.html

2018 MID-TERMS THE EPITOME OF GRASSROOTS ACTIVISM: Once pegged as a low-thrill election cycle without major statewide races, North Carolina's campaign season became a high-intensity fight over Republican governance in Raleigh and Washington, and whether Democrats deserve more power. Record numbers voted early before Tuesday's midterms, reflecting the energy and money injected into legislative, judicial and congressional races and ballot questions. State Democrats raised mammoth sums of cash, buoyed by Gov. Roy Cooper's call to "Break the Majority" of the GOP in both the House and Senate this decade. Appraisals of state Republican control stretched to a state Supreme Court race and six referendums that if approved would imprint GOP policies in the state constitution. Three GOP congressional seats were also threatened with close races. Cooper raised at least $7 million for the state Democratic Party, which passed money along to the party's legislative candidates.
https://www.wral.com/n-carolina-elections-got-amped-up-despite-lacking-major-race/17973565/

WHAT IF EVERYONE VOTED? As a result, voters’ experiences in the same national election will vary significantly by state, to a greater degree than has been true in decades. Underlying that reality is an increasingly partisan split over whether it should be a goal at all in the United States to get more people to vote. Many political scientists say that policies that make voting easier would also make American democracy more representative and less likely to favor the interests of wealthier, older and white voters who typically turn out at higher rates. Broader participation, proponents say, could ease polarization, lift faith in government and dampen criticism that politicians representing the views of a minority of Americans wield the majority of power in Washington. “Equalizing turnout across the population would be the single best thing we could do for our democracy and probably for our country in the near term,” said Adam Bonica, a political scientist at Stanford.
https://www.wral.com/what-if-everyone-voted-/17953734/