[By School of Government instructor Bob Hagemann] City councils hold regular meetings and sometimes they hold special meetings. Regular meetings happen on the adopted and published normal schedule. Special meetings are called for times different from the normal schedule. Maybe … Read more

Update March 4, 2021:  In the days since this blog was posted, readers have sent me corrections to my lists.  I am very grateful.  The post below is updated to fix the lists.  I think they are right now, but … Read more

[For a fuller discussion, with statutory citations, click] North Carolina’s election laws provide two different ways for losing candidates to challenge an election—one way for most elections and one way for top state offices. For the great majority of elective … Read more

The candidate who appeared to win the election in North Carolina’s Ninth Congressional district has not been officially declared the winner.  He has not taken his seat in Congress.  And the state elections board that might declare him the winner has … Read more

This blog post will bring you up to date on redistricting in North Carolina.  It has been a wild decade, but it looks like things have mostly shaken out. Every 10 years, after each federal census, the North Carolina General … Read more

Every once in a while, the North Carolina appellate courts put forward a totally new interpretation of some aspect of the law of employment, an interpretation that has the potential to change the way employers act. It happened in 1985 … Read more

From the earliest days of the American republic, the party in power has drawn election district lines to enhance its own electoral chances and minimize the chances of the opposing party.  The very term gerrymander comes from just such a … Read more

North Carolina’s well-known, and now repealed, House Bill 2 required that all multiple-person bathrooms in government buildings be “designated” for use by persons based on their biological sex (as shown on their birth certificates) and that those bathrooms be “only … Read more

Update January 2017:  The elections administration system described in this blog post was modified by legislation enacted in December 2016.  That legislation modified the number of members of the state and county boards of elections, but it continued the limitation … Read more

Updated September 1, 2016:  Three federal court rulings in separate cases, all in August 2016, make the job of the school attorney described near the end of this blog post much more difficult.  In G.G. v. Gloucester County School Board, … Read more