Approaching a potential constitutional confrontation, Democratic legislators and some lawyers say there’s little choice left but for a North Carolina judge this week to take the extraordinary step of ordering $1.7 billion be spent on addressing inequities in public education.
Superior Court Judge David Lee scheduled a Wednesday hearing in which he could direct state government to move money from its flush accounts – without General Assembly approval – to agencies that would carry out two years of a remedial spending plan he endorsed. Republicans controlling the legislature said he can’t do that because only lawmakers can appropriate taxpayer dollars.
Lee, who’s been tasked with monitoring the state’s response to Supreme Court “Leandro” rulings, has suggested he has the authority when lawmakers have failed to act. In a 2004 ruling in the Leandro case, justices found that although North Carolina’s children have a fundamental right to the “opportunity to receive a sound basic education” under the state constitution, the state had not lived up to that mandate.
