bakst

RALEIGH — Local governments will serve their communities best through policies that limit taxes and regulation, while protecting private property from unnecessary government intrusion. Those are some key concepts driving…

Policymakers in the many local governments of North Carolina face a host of important challenges. This issue guide offers solutions to problems that confront North Carolinians at municipal and county levels. The common thread in these recommendations is freedom. By increasing individual freedom, local governments can foster the prosperity of all North Carolinians and keep open avenues to innovative solutions from enterprising citizens.

North Carolina may for the first time begin regulating emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), an invisible, odorless gas prevalent in almost every sector of the economy and also vital to human health. The Environmental Management Commission, a state commission that adopts environmental regulations, is considering regulations that would mandate certain facilities to report their CO2 emissions. These regulations would lay the groundwork for far costlier CO2 regulations.

RALEIGH — North Carolina’s Environmental Management Commission should reject plans to regulate carbon dioxide emissions. It’s the wrong governing body, both legally and practically, to make “critical” decisions about regulating…

Even those commission members who would have wanted a proper definition of “meaningful services” had to oppose the weak definition provided to them by the legislative staff. The chair prohibited commission members from amending the definition. The recommendation was so weak that it would have allowed municipalities forcibly to annex areas without providing water and sewer service.

RALEIGH — Lawmakers seeking real reform of the state’s flawed annexation law should tackle two critical issues that were not addressed properly in a study group’s final report. That’s the…

Forced annexation is a kind of city-initiated annexation that allows municipalities unilaterally to force citizens living in unincorporated areas into the municipalities. North Carolina has an extreme annexation law even among states classified by recent studies as forced-annexation states.

Click here to listen to Daren Bakst discussing this report. RALEIGH — North Carolina has an “extreme” annexation law that needs major reform. That’s the assessment of a John…

In June 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court in a case called Davis v. Federal Elections Commission struck down a federal law that punished Congressional candidates for spending too much of their own money on their campaigns. Under that law, once personal spending exceeded a threshold level, the opposing candidate was given fundraising advantages.

RALEIGH — North Carolina should repeal its system of taxpayer-financed elections, since a 2008 U.S. Supreme Court ruling makes it clear the system is unconstitutional. That’s the conclusion a John…