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Running for state auditor is inherently partisan. On the ballot, each candidate’s name is followed by his or her party affiliation.
But the state’s top watchdog on the spending of tax dollars is expected to operate independently. And compared his predecessors, Dave Boliek campaigned in a much more partisan manner, publicly accepting Donald Trump’s endorsement and aligning himself on issues like abortion and immigration.
Two weeks after Boliek won the auditor’s race, Republicans in the state legislature stripped power from offices held by several Democrats. Among the changes: The auditor, and not the governor, will now appoint members of the State Board of Elections, which administers elections statewide and hires the board’s director. The auditor will now also appoint the chair of each county board of elections.
Boliek says he’ll be fair. But as Ren Larson reports, Democrats around the state are worried.
How North Carolina Got a Trump-Backed Voting Chief
Since losing the governor’s office in 2016, Republicans have sought to regain control of the state’s elections apparatus. Now GOP legislators have given that responsibility to the Trump-endorsed new state auditor–and Democrats are frightened.
“It’s really important to leave a party label at the door, particularly in the role of the state auditor,” Boliek told The Assembly in September. “That doesn’t mean that you leave your principles at the door, or your mindset at the door.”
Have a news tip for our team? You can reach us at scoops@theassemblync.com.
Something to Bragg About
In June 2023, Fort Bragg officially became Fort Liberty. The change cost a reported $8 million and took more than two years to finalize. Now the new Secretary of Defense wants to change it back.
On Monday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed a memo restoring the name Fort Bragg–but this time it will reference Roland L. Bragg, a World War II hero, rather than the Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg.
CityView‘s Paul Woolverton has the details on the old Bragg and the new one.
On ICE
President Trump’s push to increase deportations of undocumented immigrants has prompted a spike in calls to an advocacy hotline and a scramble among school districts to tell families how they would handle law enforcement showing up on campuses, our partners at the Border Belt Independent report.
Siembra NC, a Durham-based immigrant advocacy group, said it received more than 300 calls to its hotline in the two weeks after Trump took office, many more than normal.
Some of those calls came from people who reported sightings of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, said Nikki Marín Baena, the group’s co-founder. Siembra NC is not aware of any recent ICE raids in the state, but Marín Baena said undocumented immigrants here seem more alarmed than they did in the initial weeks of Trump’s first term.
“We’re seeing rumors that we did not see in the last administration,” Marín Baena said. “And they picked up so quickly and in such a widespread way that it feels so different than last time.”
What We’re Reading
Bo Knows: Bo Hines, the 29-year-old who twice lost races to represent North Carolina in the U.S. House, has a new job guiding cryptocurrency policy for the White House, per Bloomberg.
Oh NOAA: Blue Ridge Public Radio looks at how the proposed government buyouts could affect the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration office in Asheville, which has 175 employees and houses one of the world’s largest climate and weather data archives.
Centering a Trailblazer: Durham’s new Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice, which tells the story of the “scholar, writer, activist, priest, and gender-nonconforming trailblazer,” is the subject of a feature in the Washington Post.
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