Speaker 1: What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to
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smartphone or tablet, And again, thank you so much for
your support. It's Tuesday noon. That means it's time to
chat with Andrew Dunn. He is the publisher of long
Leaf Politics longleafpol dot com. He's also a contributing columnist
over at the McClatchy papers, including The Charlotte Observer. Andrew,
Welcome to the show. How are you, sir?
Speaker 2: Oh? I am fantastic.
Speaker 1: How about I'm not quite fantastic, but I'm getting there.
I'm getting there. So a couple of pieces you've got
at long Leaf Politics, and I gotta say the first
one here that I'm going to ask you about is
the is your call to give North Carolina governors a
line item veto? And this is an issue that I
really have never cared really much about I don't think.
I just like, if I lived in a state I
think that had the line item veto, I would just adapt,
you know, to whatever political realities are in place. But
because North Carolina does not allow the governor to do
a line item veto, I've never really thought about it,
and there's never been, as far as I can recall,
a serious push to do it. So why are you
suggesting that this occur given that you've got a Republican
super majority in the Senate, Republican majority in the House,
and a Democrat in the governor's mansion. It seems like
you're empowering the Democrat to try to undo Republican priorities.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question, and you're absolutely right it is.
It does sound a little counterintuitive, and North Carolina has
always had a weak governor, one of the weakest governors
in the country, and this is one of the reasons why,
you know, forty four different forty four states give the
governor a line item veto, North Carolina being then one
of six that does not. But I started thinking about
it because I was looking at all of Governor Josh
Stein's vetos. You know, he vetoed fourteen different bills. Last
week was the big veto override week. I'm sure that
you guys talked a whole lot about that. Yeah, And
I was looking as I was looking as the vetos.
I was looking at House Bill ninety six, which was
a bill that passed overwhelmingly. I was supposed to give
property owners the ability to get squatters out of their
property more easily. But then at the very end of
the bill, one of the chambers in the General Assembly
tacked on a bit about pet stores and said that
cities in North Carolina can't regulate pet stores. Now, I'm
not fully at the speed on pet stores. I didn't
take the time to dive into whether that's a good
idea or not. But what's clear is that it's not
related to the bulk of the bill, and that's why
Governor Stein vetoed it. I don't know if he took
the time to see whether that was good policy or not,
but basically he saw that and vetoed the entire bill.
Speaker 1: Well, I can say I will say I'm going to
go out on a limb here because if I recall correctly,
the pet store issue is about and you mentioned the puppy,
it's the puppy mill issue. And remember Pat McCrory when
he got into office. I think his wife Ann tried
to get some legislation to ban puppy mills, and there
was like this massive pushback from legislators in like the
more rural parts of the state. And so maybe this
was this was a way to get at the protection
of the puppy mills, and that's why Stein didn't want
to do it, because he wanted to eliminate puppy mills.
Speaker 2: Does that make sense, Maybe, yeah, it makes sense. I'm
not really one hundred percent sure, But anyway, I mean
the point I'm trying to make here, and I'll get
to the point quicker. I know this is radio with
precious airtime. You know what Stein could have done if
you had the line on in Vito has just crossed
that out and get the rest of the bill into law,
and you know, property owners would get a good tool
that they should probably have to get squatters out of
their property. I just think that if the governor had
a line item veto, we could have more honest conversations
about some of these more controversial issues, and it would
eliminate a lot of the gainsmanship there is on cramming
a bunch of unrelated stuff together, and you know, giving
the governor a poison to you know, you better pass,
you know, you better sign this bill or we're going
to say you're against X, Y or Z. We'd be
able to have more honest conversations around veto's.
Speaker 1: I think, do you think we would have honest conversations
around standalone bills though, because like I don't think we
have honest conversations at all on any legislation really any more.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, that's very true. I think this would help.
I think it would be a good a good step,
and I think, honestly, you know it, it helps Democrats
and it helps Republicans about equally. I don't see this
as as benefiting one side over the other.
Speaker 1: And you also you make the case that this would
benefit Republicans in the long term electorally.
Speaker 2: I think so. And also, you know, I try to
take the long view. I mean, I think that the
General Assembly and a lot of what they do around
divvying up power is pretty short sighted and kind of
assumes that North Carolina will never have a popular Republican governor.
And I think that's uh, I think that's short sided.
I think that we need we should set things up
so that when we have a good Republican governor, that
they're able to do what's best for the state.
Speaker 1: All right, let's move on to another class that can
servative position price caps, and this regards limitations on towing companies,
which there have been a ton of stories out of
the Charlotte area. I know, you know that of uh,
these predatory towing companies, and so you make the case
though that this isn't really a free market transaction. So
why is it not a free market transaction?
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And you know, I'm not overly sympathetic to
people who get their their cars toad. I mean, I
feel like in most cases people who got towed were
doing something wrong and you know, have to live with
the consequences. All that said, Basically, how it works is
if your car gets towed, you have to pay whatever
fee that the towing company says you have to pay,
or else you don't get your car back. I mean
that I believe in competition, I believe in the free market.
But customers here quote unquote customers have no say in
what company tows their car. They have you know, they're
not able to shop around. You know, basically they're at
the whims of whichever towing company is in business over there.
And you know, merchants don't really have much incentive to
to price shop to do what's quote unquote best for
their customers either.
Speaker 1: They don't see them as their customers. They see them
as people who are taking spots from their customers.
Speaker 2: Probably exactly yeah, that's exactly right. But this is a
classic case. You know, I'm not a libertarian. I don't
believe I do believe that the government has a role
in society, and I just feel like limiting price cap,
you know, putting a price cap on towing is a
legitimate use of government here.
Speaker 1: Right, So you make the argument libertarianism resists all intervention
on principle conservatism knows when to step in to preserve order, fairness,
and trust in the system. And there was a bill,
right this House, Bill one ninety nine, and it would
create some sort of a commission. And so you're okay
with that idea.
Speaker 2: I am. You know, when I see the word commission
or hear a proposal for a new commission, I immediately
roll my eyes and think it's a dumb idea. But
in this case, I actually think it could work. And
you know, one of the big lobbyists, you know, Big
Big Towing in North Carolina, is in favor of this
kind of bill, and I think it makes a lot
of sense.
Speaker 1: We call it Big Lick. That's the Yeah, it wasn't
that the Oh no, that was lizard Lick Towing. But
Big Lick is a place actually near Oakboro, North Carolina.
But yeah, I thought lizard Lick was the towing. Was
the reality show with those friends that would run around
and tow people in central North Carolina. Oh that's right, Yeah,
lizard Lick towing. That was it. Crazy show. I feel
probably more scripted than not, but what do I know?
All right, well they all are, yeah, exactly, exactly all right.
Andrew Dunn, thanks for joining us today. You could read
his work at longleafpol dot com Longleaf Politics, and he's
also a contributing columnist over at the Charlotte Observer. Thanks Andrew,
we'll talk to you next week.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Hi buddy. All right, if you're listening to this show,
you know I try to keep up with all sorts
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Why Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which
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Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it
also supports ground News as they make the media landscape
more transparent. All right, so full disclosure here. I am
not sure if this is true. It's in the UK
Daily Mail, which is kind of as the kids say, suss,
the Daily Mail will have they do get stories, they
do get exclusives, but it's kind of tabloidy over there
in the UK. But in this case, they have a story,
an exclusive about my good friend Ray Roy Cooper, and
it kind of ties into something I got in an
email or a text I forget last week or so,
when we were talking about Roy Cooper's entrance into the
US Senate race, and the person who messaged me said
that there I think he said their cousin or something
had dated Roy Cooper and then he just dropped her.
And she was like really into politics and whatever. But
then he and so he but she didn't want kids
and apparently he did, and so then he dropped her
and got married to somebody else. So now like this
is why I'm not sure if this story is true,
but they've talked to a woman. The UK Daily Mail
has talked to a woman named George Anne Rice, who
purports to be his college sweetheart and says they were married.
I was not aware Roy Cooper was ever married before.
So here's what the UK Daily Mail says. The revelation
may come as a surprise for a squeaky clean leader
once described by left leaning politics magazine The New Republic
as the living breathing antonym of controversy at the opposite.
Before his marriage to current wife Kristen sixty nine, Cooper
was wed to his college sweetheart, Georgie Anne Rice, now
sixty five, but Rice says he ditched her for a
career in politics without warning. Quote. He was my orientation
counselor when I was a freshman and started at UNC
Chapel Hill. We dated starting my sophomore year of college,
and then we got married two weeks after I graduated
from college. In nineteen eighty one, former North Carolina governor
and Senate candidate Roy Cooper secretly divorced his college sweetheart
and began dating his second wife before she had finalized
her own divorce. But things would go awry suddenly after
he informed Georgie Anrice that he would be running for
state representative, splitting with her secretly before moving on to
his current wife, who worked as a staff attorney for
the North Carolina General Assembly in the nineteen eighties. Quote.
I thought everything was great until one day he came
home and told me that he had signed up to
run for state representative. We had not discussed it or anything.
We were in our mid twenties and I wanted to
start a family. I was completely flabbergasted that he would
decide to run. He wouldn't even discuss it with me.
He just came home and told me. I told Roy,
I don't want this life. We did not discuss this.
It was a pretty major life decision. Yeah. I mean, well,
meet state representative back in the eighties at that time, Like,
it is a big life decision. I don't want to
minimize that, but it but it's not like he said
I'm to run for president at that time, right, But
maybe they had a discussion or something after he had
filed to run and he said that he wanted to
do politics or something. But see, this is what I
mean this, This does not square with the message I
got from the listener last week. Now. I don't know
who that listener. I don't remember who they were, And
they could have been telling me a story that somebody
told them, and so I don't know if that was
true either. In this case, we have somebody on the
record with a name giving an interview. So as the
young attorney, Cooper ran his campaign for a state House
seat in Raleigh in nineteen eighty five and nineteen eighty six.
He and Georgian secretly split. She says, quote, I took
a promotion and moved to Greenville, North Carolina. I still
came back and went to campaign events for him, but
he did not want anybody to know. But the day
he won the election, I told him, if you lose,
then we can talk about our marriage. But if you win,
I did not sign up for this. Well, he won,
and he's been in politics ever since. When he first
ran for governor, he called me and said, if somebody
contacts you, please don't say anything negative, which of course
is hilarious because nobody ever contacted her. Right, North Carolina
Press did nothing to track this story down. And it's
not like I'm holding the North Carolina political press and
the veterans of the Raleigh Press Corps to some unimaginably
high standard. Here Roy went to UNC Chapel Hill, and
about I don't know, ninety eight percent of the people
covering state politics, and in that world, they all went
to UNC Chapel Hill too. Right, the UNC journalism school
cranks out a ton of journalism majors. You might even
say it's an overproduction of these diplomas. And there were
never any rumblings, never any discussions, nothing ever about Roy
Cooper divorcing his first wife. They just left it alone.
I guess it was the eighties, he was a Democrat,
it was a different time. You know, we just don't
ask about that sort of thing. But obviously people had
to have known that he had that Kristen is his
second wife. I had never thought to look into it.
And maybe I'm just as guilty as everybody else, but
I mean, I just find it kind of surprising that
nobody ever mentioned anything about any of this, like a
time well yeah, I don't know, know, like it never
comes up in any bio pieces about him, nothing. She says.
I don't wish anything bad on Roy, but my friends
think it's funny that it's never mentioned that he was
married before. I do not know her. I'm not her friend,
but I do too. I've been covering North Carolina politics
for twenty five years. I've never heard that he was
married before, let alone any of these details. After they split,
she took a promotion and moved to Greenville, but continued
attending his campaign events. As I mentioned, his estranged wife
then told him that if he lost, they could work
on their marriage, but since he won, she felt she
hadn't signed up for a life overshadowed by his political career.
She said, I have a lot of people texting me
when his name was mentioned for vice president last year,
going quote, do you think he's ever going to acknowledge
that y'all were married for over five years? Well, if
he were tapped for vice president, I suspect people would
have started asking that question. Is what this is? What
I mentioned last week or a week and a half
ago when Roy Cooper, my good friend Ray, when he
announced that he was going to run for US Senate,
I said, he has not had to face the kind
of scrutiny and media barrage that he's going to now face.
And so everybody points to Roy Cooper's never lost a
state wide race. He's never lost an election, right, Yeah,
those were different types of campaigns, Those are different level races.
This is a much bigger deal, right. There is more
on the line than just representing the people of North
Carolina in the US Senate. It is the direction of
the country, right, crafting foreign policy. So it is more
of a national stage. And our results because we're a
purple state, right, our results matter to the rest of
the country. And so now you're going to get the
kind of examination that Roy Cooper has heretofore avoided. And
this story, if true, is a perfect example of what
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make memories that'll last a lifetime. Joseph says, regarding the
topic of the the line item veto, why should we
give the governor a line item veto? When goofball North
Carolina voters keep electing the likes of our good friend
Ray and little Roy Josh Stein. I call him Ray
two D two. Imagine what a disaster this state would
be if we had a strong governor position. That's what
I mean. Like I the line ONEm veto wasn't any
It was never anything that I ever considered. Haven't thought
about it. It doesn't exist at the national level. I've
not covered state politics where it's allowed, so it's just
not anything I ever considered. So when I saw this,
I was like, huh, yeah, I can see this. I
can see I could see the pros and cons It's
like Thomas Sole says, there are no solutions, there are
only trade offs. Here's a seven oh four number. Here's
an idea on the towing issue. Let towing companies charge
whatever they want on the condition that they invoice the
company that they contracted with, and that company collects from
the person that got towed. So the toee has no
contract with the tower. I don't know that would that
would make it quite dangerous, I suspect for the business
that had the people towed, right. I mean, I do
think it should only be fair that you put up
a sign in your parking lot that says, like, here's
the cost of the towing, because like this predatory towing issue,
like it is a real issue. You got companies out
there that I remember, they would line up in right
outside of the Government Center and at four pm, I'm sharp,
there's like a dozen of these tow trucks and they
would just haul everybody away. Indeed, I got the WBT
News vehicle towed because the Transportation committee that I was
covering went long. I went out there at like three
or four h five rather and Carr was gone. Andy
says am I surprised he was married before. No, I
am more surprised that he was married to a woman.
Toy Okay, that's not that's not Allan says, I can't
wait until Cooper's wife is exposed nationally for flipping off
a little kid back in twenty nineteen. Neither one has
any class whatsoever. Yeah, I don't know. And reading through
some of the details in this article too, it it
like she was It seems like she was legally separated
from her husband, who was apparently in the military. They
were separated, had been separated for like two years. They
ended up finalizing their divorce in nineteen ninety one. But
according to there was a story done in the News
and Observer in nineteen eighty nine and it said that
she met she was an attorney in the General Assembly
staff and she met Roy when he was in leadership.
So like there's kind of an employer employee relationship thing
going on there. And they were married after the divorce
was finalized, but she was separated, so and her ex
husband only got like fourteen days annually of visitation and
like that's that indicates something was going on there, and
like that's all personal stuff, and like, I don't it
doesn't have any impact on his ability to govern. But
if like, that's just what I'm reading from the story.
So I don't know if this is a huge scandal
or not. It's just huh. I was not aware of that,
and obviously his first wife. I think the more important
point was that he just went and filed to run
for election and never talked to her about it. That's
kind of crummy. All right. Let me get to the
DMV here, so I'll catch you later. No, I'm kidding.
The state auditor Dave Bullock released the long awaited audit
of the North Carolina DMV yesterday. He equated it to
Hurricane Helene. With the release of his office's long awaited audit.
Teresa Opeka at Carolina Journal dot Com quotes him thusly,
we have seen, for example, the response that our legislature
and our citizens have given to western North Carolina for
Hurricane Helene. When we have a disaster and the DMV is, oh,
oh sorry. When we have a disaster and the DMV
is at that level of emergency in the state of
North Carolina, our DMV affects the economy. It affects people
having to take off work unnecessarily. I had to do
that it takes our students out of the classroom. This
has to be fixed, and it has to be a
top priority that includes DMV, the North Carolina Dot and
the Governor's office. The headline, according to Bullock, is no,
hang on a second, where did my well, I don't
have Oh there it is. I was looking for the
clip here. Clip number one should be the top of
the list, but it was not. He says, the lack
of metrics is the headline here.
Speaker 3: One thing to note as an overall issue that our
audit found, and that is a lack of detailed and
measurably relevant metrics at the DMV. That really should be
a headline across the state of North Carolina. As we've
been I've been in office now seven months. We started
this audit six months ago, so this is a six
month work product. We started the first of February with this.
You know, we need measurable data so that managers can
know what they're doing right and what they're doing wrong,
and so they can look at it and see it
exactly what needs to be done to move to use
the sports analogies ball down the field and you know
private business uses metrics in a day in this day
of data analytics and the use of high speed computers,
the state of North Carolina's got to get on board
with data analytics and metrics across the state.
Speaker 1: So he says also in their audit that they found
the average customer service visit exceeds one hour and fifteen minutes.
That is the average visit.
Speaker 3: Now, I want to note here that this is DMV
data based on when individuals actually check in the license office, right.
This doesn't include how long you have to wait outside
if you're there for a show up. We also found
that thirteen point eight percent of customer visits exceeded two
and a half hours in the year twenty twenty five,
which is a seventy nine percent increase statewide.
Speaker 1: That's insane. So the one hour and fifteen teen minute
average customer service visit only starts when you check in.
You can wait outside. And I have seen the lines.
I've waited in some of these lines over the last
few years because we moved so I had to get
my license updated. Christy had to get her license updated.
So like waiting in the line and trying to make appointments,
and we've gotten we've had a lot of appointments and
a lot of visits to DMVs over the last three
or four years. And that one hour fifteen minute average
waytime is only after you check in. You could be
out in that line for four hours before you ever
check in, and the average service time is over two
and a half hours. I mean, that's just insane. That's insane.
It is completely broken. Twenty audit in Bullock's office worked
in the past six months in conjunction with the Institute
for Transportation Research North Carolina State University, the Brian School
of Business and Economics at UNC Greensboro, and the UNC
School of Government to do the audit. Additional audits of
groups like license plate agencies will also be released in
the coming months, and again, the overall issue is measurably
relevant metrics, he says. We need to do that so
the managers know what they're doing right and what they
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North Carolina auditor out with the audit of the North
Carolina DMV went over some of the customer service declining
performance findings. Next up, he talked about employees struggling with
workload and burnout. Forty three percent express negative views of
prior li leadership support. Employee cited low salary, burnout, security concerns,
lack of support, and inadequate training. Average salaries are below
fifty thousand dollars for examiners in both rural and urban areas.
Dave Bullock, the Auditor, recommended market based pay for licensed
examiners based on cost of living in the different areas
of the state.
Speaker 3: The DMV has to have more employees in its office,
and those vacant positions need to be filled. You know,
one of the things we did in the State Orders
Office we hired a we redesigned an administrative position to
be a full time recruiter, and I think that's a
great idea for d and V as well. We want
to make sure we have the best and brightest working
in the State Auditor's Office, and we want somebody full
time recruiting folks to come work for the state. Specifically, however,
we identified twelve service areas where recruitment and retention efforts
should be focused for maximum impact.
Speaker 1: So he pointed out, the state's population has grown by
twenty nine percent by two point five million people over
the last twenty years, but driver license examiner positions have
only increased by fifty two positions, or ten percent. So
population up like thirty percent, but the positions of examiners
only up ten percent. He says, only five hundred and
five of the seven hundred and ten examiner positions are filled,
so that it's one hundred and sixty vacancies, which means
you can't get your road tests done. And he pointed
to one most the most egregious example is in Harnett County,
one examiner serving over fifty six thousand residents. The findings
in the performance audit point towards a dysfunctional relationship between
DMV and the DOT. He says, this is a major,
if not the major issue.
Speaker 3: This is a governance structure issue that adds too much
bureaucratic red tape to the equation. There are four systematic
challenges stemming from the DMV's governance structure as a division
of DOT. And let me stop here and say I
am aware, and I certainly respect Commissioner Time and Setia
Hopkins disagreement with this recommendation. Actually, if you look at
their response, they agree with every single recommendation we make
except this one. And I certainly understand and respect that.
But the current structure limits the strategic input of the
DMV of the forty five performance milestones and the DOT
strategic plan for twenty twenty three to twenty five. Only
two of the forty five directly pertain to DMV operations.
They have restricted budgetary autonomy. DMV relies on DOT to
submit budget requests, but only thirty one percent of DMV
staffing requests were included in dot's budget requests. Insufficient performance data.
DOT left out DMV customer service satisfaction data in its
performance for work. Exclusion from key process modernization initiatives. DMV
was excluded from planning and procurement phases of improvement efforts
led by the DOT. Again, it's not personality base and
I'm fully aware that Secretary Hopkins is new to the
job over the last six months and Commissioner Time is
new to the job. But this is This has been
a legacy issue at the DMV between the d and
V and the DOT.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this has been going on for a long time.
North Carolina DOT is in charge of the North Carolina
d MV and so DMV has to go through DOT
for its funding and for and to be included in
its you know, long term planning and oh please, SI,
can I have some more positions? Well? DT is also
doing what roads right train stuff, shipping stuff like that.
DOT has got this massive footprint and it seems like
they don't really pay a whole lot of attention to
the Division of Motor Vehicles. And so that's why the
auditor is recommending that the DMV be set up as
an autonomous agency or authority with direct control over its
own budget, its own planning, its own operations. And he
pointed out on some of the funding levels that they
like DMV contributes. Yeah, generates thirty percent of all DOT
overall revenue, so a third of all the DOT funds
come from the Motor Vehicle's Division. But what do they
spend on DMV two point eight percent of their expenditures,
Like this is a cash cow for the Department of Transportation,
and they don't fund this cash cow to the service
level that it needs. This is why people say, oh,
it's the legislature or whatever. Look, legislature has already moved
a bill sitting on the Governor's desk right to give
more money, hire more positions for DMV. To be sure,
the legislature has got fingerprints on this mess too. But
DOT has been raking in the money from DMV and
not allocating the money back down to this cash cow
final clip here, he recommended incentives for more online transactions.
Right now, it costs more money to actually do stuff online,
which is absurd. Pop up locations in regional locations, in
empty big box stores, just do a pop up, be
there for two weeks or something, right, and then offer
a sort of like an easy pass lane, a premier service,
so you get faster check ins, but you pay more
money for the accelerated service. Like, oh, but what about
the poor, Well, they won't be having to now compete
with the people who pay. Right, people who pay will
now clear out of the line, and your line should
move faster too. That's the idea.
Speaker 3: We also have talked with commissioners time and I will
tell you that the D and D is working really
hard to authorize third party testers to administer the skills test.
We found that, for example, in South Carolina, look, there
is a complete regulatory and licensing scheme for folks that
train drivers on how to drive. Whether it's at the
public schools or whether if you're out of private school.
There's no reason why those individuals who spend several hours
minimum of six hours with those individuals in the car
can't certify that they've actually passed the driver's test. We found,
for example, that an examiner can process four to five
renewals or real IDs in an hour, but that road
test for the sixteen year old typically takes a minimum
of thirty five minutes, and for a commercial driver's driver
it takes a minimum of forty five minutes. So eliminating
that thirty five minute timeframe and that forty five minute
timeframe are really actionable steps. And by the way, the
DMV can do that without statutory change.
Speaker 1: Okay, so they can do that. If you look, I
did this. I had a sign up for a course,
I got to drive this guy's car. He trained me
and then went to take the test up in New
York and pass the test. So let those third party
training people be certified to give the tests too. All right,
that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much
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