Recent reporting by ProPublica further exposes and continues to shed light on Chief Justice Paul Newby’s abuses of power that tarnish the integrity of North Carolina’s highest court. Reporter Doug Bock Clark writes, “Few beyond North Carolina’s borders grasp the outsize role Newby, 70, has played in transforming the state’s top court from a relatively harmonious judicial backwater to a front-line partisan battleground since his election in 2004.”

North Carolina teachers are already the lowest paid in the South and among the lowest paid in the nation but thanks to Republicans in the General Assembly, their take home pay is only decreasing. Because of Republicans’ inability to pass a real budget and cost increases on the State Health Plan, teachers across North Carolina are effectively having their pay cut.