In an institution that once was peopled by colorful characters with engaging nicknames and soaring oratorical powers, longtime state Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand's surprise decision to leave the Senate before the end of the year does several things all at once:
The state's two most recent former governors made important public appearances in the Capital City in the last week or so. They could not have been more different.
Jack Betts: When he was running for his first of four terms as governor, Jim Hunt told voters he'd crack down on criminals by bringing them to trial faster and putting them away in prison for a fixed term.
In the fall of 2004, June Atkinson campaigned for and apparently won the job of N.C. superintendent of public instruction, the state's key constitutional officer for public schools.
If you were making a list of your favorite books about North Carolina - or even the most important books - what would you include? Maybe more important, where would you start?
If news predictions are accurate, the U.S. Supreme Court is on the verge of undoing one of the key underpinnings of election campaign regulation that have helped North Carolina elections, and those in a number of other states, avoid the corrosive influence of special interest money in politics.
In North Carolina, Down East mean that big stretch of land and marsh to the west of Core Banks and east of the Lower Neuse River. There, in little towns all along this watery world, descendants of explorers became fishermen and, of necessity, boatbuilders.
Pamlico Sound must have been an astonishing place in the 18th and 19th centuries. Old salts told tales of oyster reefs so teeming with aquatic life that they were a menace to navigation.
Have North Carolina Democrats missed a golden opportunity to change the state's outdated revenue system and produce a fairer, simpler tax code the meets the state's needs or basic services?
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