John Locke Updates: 2020

There’s always been overwhelming support for programs offering school choice opportunities for disadvantaged and special-needs children assigned to underperforming or unsafe public schools. Modest investments in school choice programs can…

Click for Part 1 and Part 2 of this series. To recap: The Cooper administration sent a list of 22 studies, all published this year, containing what…

The question is this: Does this research offer a slam-dunk case justifying Cooper's extreme emergency orders? This series will examine and discuss each study provided by the Cooper administration and ask whether it supports Cooper's extreme exercise of power, because that is the relevant standard.

Free people should never have to prove they have a right to live their lives free from government interference. Instead, it is the government that bears the burden of justifying the restrictions it wishes to impose, and the more severe the proposed restrictions, the stronger the justification must be.

Iif the procedure for absentee ballots described above is to be changed, only the state legislature can do it under the U.S. Constitution. That did not happen in the states named in the Texas lawsuit — Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Wisconsin. It didn't happen in North Carolina, either.

The question is this: Does this research offer a slam-dunk case justifying Cooper's extreme emergency orders? This series will examine and discuss each study provided by the Cooper administration and ask whether it supports Cooper's extreme exercise of power, because that is the relevant standard.

Prior to the election, I emphasized the importance of the upcoming judicial races in North Carolina and urged voters to “choose wisely.” Judging by the results, I think they did. Compared with past years, an unusually high percentage of voters took the time to vote for judicial candidates this time around.

Public school advocacy organizations and teacher unions claim that educator attrition data indicate the health of the teaching profession. If that is the case, then they should be pleased that the rate continues to drop.

Since each state’s business restrictions temporarily sacrifice jobs to save lives, a reasonable question would be, “How are states doing?” That is the point of the Covid Misery Index, which measures each state on jobs lost per million state residents since February and the number of Covid-related deaths per million state residents.

If voter fraud was actually as pervasive as some are claiming, the future of free and open elections would be in serious doubt. Indeed, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and others warned that problems with electronic voting machines “threaten the integrity of our elections.”