DEM LAWMAKERS FILE COMPANION BILLS TO ALLOW COLLECTIVE BARGAINING FOR PUBLIC EMPLOYEES: Two first-term Democratic state legislators have filed bills hoping to overturn a 1959 ban on collective bargaining by public-sector employees. That means labor unions would have negotiating power. In North Carolina, instead of through collective bargaining, government workers’ wages are set by the legislature or a local government. So workers lobby for what they want rather than negotiate a union contract. Rep. Zack Hawkins said overturning the ban would help grow the middle class. “North Carolina’s a state on the rise ... moving our state in this direction helps our economy,” the Durham lawmaker said at a news conference Wednesday, and repeal would “once again make North Carolina a beacon in the South.”
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article229597039.html

UNC STUDENTS EXPRESS CONCERNS ABOUT CAMPUS POLICE: History graduate student Mark Porlides talked about his arrest during a protest last year, and showed a video clip of his arrest taken by an officer’s body camera. Porlides said officers said there was no video of his being tackled and handcuffed as he stood watching the protest, but that his attorney was able to subpoena the video, which he said showed their account of the incident was incorrect. The charges were subsequently dismissed. Ayling said she has been the target of a number of death threats online. She was one of two people named in threatening language vandals scrawled on UNC’s Unsung Founders Memorial and an outdoor art exhibit on campus on the morning of March 31, she said. Two people UNC has said are members of the Heirs to the Confederacy group have been charged in the vandalism and ordered not to return to campus. Also this month, anti-Semitic posters were left on tables and bookshelves in UNC’s Davis Library.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article229545994.html

DEMOCRATIC LEGISLATORS HOLD KEY IN UPCOMING VETO SHOWDOWN: Sustaining Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of controversial Senate Bill 359 could end up in the hands of a few African-American Democratic legislators – some of whom are ministers. That is the picture that emerges from a look at how members of the state House of Representatives and Senate voted on the bill earlier this week. All four Democrats in the House who voted for the bill are black, two are ministers. Three of the five Democrats who didn’t vote are also black. In the Senate, the two Democrats who voted for the bill also are black. The effort to sustain the Democratic governor’s veto will be a critical test of Cooper’s clout and the power that Senate Leader Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore wield in the Republican-dominated General Assembly. The fate of this over-ride effort is particularly critical because it is the first since Republicans lost their veto-proof legislative majority.
https://www.wral.com/seth-effron-democratic-legislators-hold-key-in-upcoming-veto-showdown/18335030/

GOVERNOR COOPER VETOES "BORN ALIVE" ANTI-ABORTION BILL: "Laws already protect newborn babies, and this bill is an unnecessary interference between doctors and their patients," Cooper said in his veto statement. "This needless legislation would criminalize doctors and other health care providers for a practice that simply does not exist." The bill is similar to others that have cropped up this year in other states, and Cooper's veto is sure to appear in campaign commercials. Already, both sides were fundraising off the news Thursday, sending email blasts to supporters seeking donations. The North Carolina Values Coalition sent out a donation appeal titled "Roy Cooper just vetoed babies." It remains to be seen whether Republicans can muster the numbers needed to overturn Cooper's veto, but it will be difficult. The GOP lost its super-majorities in the House and the Senate in last year's elections and would need to peel off more Democrats to make this bill law.
https://www.wral.com/cooper-vetoes-born-alive-abortion-bill/18333666/

NC REPUBLICANS WANT POOR KIDS TO HAVE "ONLINE" PRE-K: The state House Education Committee backed legislation on Tuesday that would create a three-year virtual early learning pilot program targeted at preparing at-risk preschool children for kindergarten. Backers of the new program say it will help underserved young children who aren’t able to get into a traditional pre-K program. “The purpose of this program is to deliver a high-quality program, early intervention for those kids so that when they do start school they’re not left in the dust.” But critics say the new program falls short of providing children a real preschool program. ‘It seems so often in the last few years that we’re doing things on the cheap.” Keith Poston, president of the Public School Forum of North Carolina, said in an interview Tuesday.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article229142574.html