Governor Cooper Visits WNC
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Last Wednesday, Governor Roy Cooper visited Southwestern Community College to meet students who received
Finish Line Grants
that help them stay on track to finish their degrees. I joined the Governor for a panel with students to hear their personal stories about why these grants are so helpful.
The goal is success in school, getting students "across the finish line." The Governor's budget supports continuing and expanding these grants to assist not only Community College students but University students as well,
helping them meet unanticipated financial challenges
that otherwise might derail their goals so they can finish their degrees and become productive members of the workforce in a 21
st
century economy.
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I was proud to join Governor Roy Cooper and a panel of Southwestern Community College students who received Finish Line Grants to discuss their experiences and the real life challenges they face to finish school.
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You shouldn’t have to choose between your education and making ends meet.
Whether it’s a car repair, an unexpected healthcare cost, or a childcare need, Finish Line Grants offer assistance to make sure you keep your head above water and graduate on time. Thank you, Governor Cooper, for your hard work to create this incredibly beneficial program!
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We had a great Haywood County Fair over the weekend, with great family fun, fantastic musicians, and wonderful dancers, an authentic community celebration of all that we are! I am proud to have had the opportunity to help out.
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Hill Country playing for the J Creek Cloggers as part of the Saturday Night Hoedown at the Haywood County Fair.
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Don't miss out on the
50th Smoky Mountain Folk Festival
this Friday and Saturday at Lake Junaluska's Stewart Auditorium. 5 - 6:30 for Open Tent Shows and 6:30 - 10 for Main Stage Shows.
And be sure to join in on the longest running
Labor Day Celebration
in America in Canton, North Carolina, this coming Sunday and Monday.
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Thank you, Governor Cooper, for proclaiming today, August 26, as Women's Equality Day in commemoration of the
19th Amendment
granting women the right to vote.
I am a proud co-sponsor of the
Equal Rights Amendment
in the Legislature because, while we have come a long way, there is still a lot of work left to be done to ensure that everyone indeed has equal rights, not the least of which is equal pay for equal work.
We could be the 38th state
to pass this legislation, ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment to our United States Constitution.
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Thank you for your leadership Governor Cooper!
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A Full House, and Still no Budget...
This past week was the first time in many weeks that
we had all 120 members of the House present in session.
The Republican Leadership took this opportunity to pack our calendar with many of the most important, and most controversial, bills of the session. But yet again, they refused to simply hold a vote on our state budget.
This obstruction needs to stop. Speaker Moore has the power to call this vote and finally get to work on a good, bi-partisan budget that will work for ALL North Carolinians, but instead
he continues to flat-out ignore the needs of our state.
The taxpayers are footing the bill, nearly
$50,000 every single day,
for this prolonged session. Speaker Moore says that he is planning to manipulate this budget stalemate until October at the earliest. That means
$2-3 million
of our tax dollars will be flushed down the drain because of this inaction. We deserve better.
While Speaker Moore continues to threaten local communities' funding and offer bribes for votes, we are holding tight, sticking together, and staying strong.
We are standing firm
because our state deserves a budget that
invests in teacher pay
instead of more tax cuts for corporations, that has
a school and infrastructure bond
instead of a slush fund, and that has
Medicaid Expansion
to insure more than half a million North Carolinians instead of wasting $4 billion each year.
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This past Wednesday we voted on Senate Bill 559, the
"Duke Energy Bill."
This legislation would have given Duke Energy more power to raise rates on their customers several years in advance, an action that I strongly opposed.
With
bi-partisan support,
we were able to take out the multi-year rate hike section of SB 559. That provision is not in the bill that we passed out of the House. Instead, I am happy to announce that we adopted
a very smart amendment
that changed the nature of this bill into something much better.
I voted for this amendment, and then I voted for SB 559. Now,
customers won't be stuck with multi-year rate hikes
from Duke. This idea will be studied in a true, stakeholder-driven process before any future legislation is proposed.
Since we amended SB 559,
it is now a good bill
for North Carolina ratepayers.
This is an important victory,
and some good news in the midst of our prolonged session! Before, it was Duke's way or the highway. Now, because we have this study, we will have a true stakeholder-driven process that will involve the voices of real North Carolinians to decide our state's energy future.
Our goal for energy is
lower-priced electricity for North Carolina's consumers.
A smarter, greener, alternative, and more sustainable energy base is how we get there, and stakeholder involvement is critical to success.
I also proposed my own amendment, to allow our Utilities Commission to work with the broadband industry to
ensure we have high-speed internet everywhere we have electricity.
A few years ago, the legislature voted to ban the Utilities Commission from any involvement in the broadband industry. We must change this law. This type of involvement is how we expanded electricity to every corner of our state, and it is now what we must do to ensure that everywhere we have electricity, we also have high-speed broadband internet.
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This map shows North Carolina's broadband coverage. You can see that most of Haywood, Jackson, and Swain fall into the low coverage category. If this were a map of electricity coverage, it would all be the same coverage. We need to get there with broadband.
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Unfortunately, Speaker Moore did not allow my amendment to be heard. It is a shame, because our energy industry and our broadband industry are interconnected, and we must have good broadband across our state if we are to meet the energy needs of the 21st century.
I will continue to work to remove this and any other special interest provision in our state's statutes that impedes our goal that everywhere we have electricity, we also have high-speed broadband internet.
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Please
share
this with your friends!
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P.S. check out our legislative web page at
www.joesamqueennc.com
. You can find all of my previous newsletters and more!
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