Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Ellis Hankins, executive director of the North Carolina League of Municipalities, tells Host Barlow Herget that new annexation laws have hampered cities' ability to grow and new proposal in the current legislative short session will complicate annexation more.  The Republican controlled legislature now wants to retroactively undo legal annexations in certain cities. 

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Longtime political observer and UNC Director of the Program on Public Life Ferrel Guillory tells Host Barlow Herget that the overwhelming victory of anti-gay voters in Tuesday's election shows that the state, while moderate in much of its politics, remains a culturally conservative state.  He thinks the Tuesday vote got the attention of the Obama White House.  So did the election of Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton as the Democratic nominee for governor against better funded Pat McCrory, an easy winner of the Republican nomination.  Guillory sees the large number of Republican runoffs in Council of State races as a sign of the growth and  confidence of the NC Republican Party since 1972.