N.C. Senator Ellie Kinnaird's Newsletter

August 28, 2011 Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Ellie Kinnaird

Greetings from the North Carolina Senate,

August 26th was the commemoration of the 1920 passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States granting women the right to vote. An interesting fact about North Carolina is that the legislature didn’t ratify the Amendment until 1970.

We have indeed, come a long way, but we still have a ways to go. Because of the strides made, more than half of college enrollments are women, almost half of new law and medical school graduates, are women and there are more women becoming police officers, fire fighters, or truck drivers. On the down side, we have a ways to go to get equal pay for equal work. A few years ago, we lost a major law suit in the U.S. Supreme Court on wage equality brought by Lily Ledbetter. Ledbetter discovered when she retired that all those young men she had trained during her employment were making much more than she was. But the Supreme Court said that because too much time had elapsed between when she was paid unequally and when she discovered the disparity, she couldn’t recover. But being the plucky woman she is, she didn’t give up and took her outrage and the cause of other women to Congress where the law was changed. We who benefit from so many brave women from the suffragists to the women’s movement that won the acceptance for women to participate fully in education, professions or employment thank those who would not give up. But again recently, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case of Wal-Mart female workers who were denied promotions while men were disproportionally promoted as a class-action suit. This means each woman will have to sue individually, which in essence means they can’t because they don’t have the money to hire a lawyer - remember they’re not paid much above minimum wage - and local lawyers can’t afford to take on such law suits against the giant Wal-Mart.

To make more gains we need to increase our number in the Congress and the state legislature. But in N.C. we went backwards this year: eleven women have been pitted against each other or an incumbent man in the redistricting passed in the Republican legislature. The budget cut more women’s jobs - teachers, child and elderly care workers, librarians, secretaries, social workers and nurses. And what affects women affects children. But women will not give up.

This week I attended an inspirational talk by Robert Kennedy, Jr. who came at the invitation of Treasurer Janet Cowell on alternative energy initiatives. The Treasurer has committed her state investments to helping to reduce our reliance on coal and nuclear power. Kennedy, while pointing out the global costs of coal and nuclear that amount to a subsidy of those industries, gave us a vision of what could be, if we had the political will. Investors also need to step up to the plate. He demonstrated our own local innovation: the Cree LED energy saving bulb now in a 60 watt equivalent version that will replace both incandescent bulbs (which he pointed out hasn’t changed in 100 years) and fluorescent lighting. He talked about the solar arrays that are being built all over, especially in the west, the mid-western and Texas wind farms and in energy efficiency. I have been corresponding with the CEO of the about to be merged Duke and Progress Energy companies, Jim Johnson, about his statement that alternate energy is not immediately feasible. But of course, the way our energy system is structured in NC, it is not, because they have to make a profit for their shareholders. We need to decouple Duke’s profits by paying them for the loss of profits from energy efficiency and find investors for alternative sources that Duke will buy. In the meantime local companies are filling in the gap - a solar energy developer will build what will be the largest municipally owned solar farm on the east coast in Plymouth. Bit by bit, we can do it. Even under the Republican assault on environmental protection, two very modest environmental bills passed. One would authorize compressed natural gas and fuel cell electric vehicles to operate in high occupancy vehicle lanes and to exempt fuel cell electric vehicles from emissions inspection requirement. While this is not immediately realizable, especially since there are no HOV lanes anyway, it is a gesture in the right direction. The other bill allows Mecklenburg and Wake counties and several cities to enter into leases for the siting and operation of a renewable energy facility while exempting them from certain legal requirements. These are attempts to begin the process that the big energy companies refuse to address. A bill I introduced would require the Utilities Commission to establish tiered electricity rates to encourage energy conservation, create a loan pool to help people make their homes energy efficiency and create an incentive for consumers to purchase Energy Star products. Because the original bill included industry and businesses, it didn’t get heard. But I have removed the commercial section and will work to get it heard in the short session.

On the regional front, there is a movement to map the supply of recyclables in relation to the demand. We have 206 companies in the region that depend on recycled materials. This not only keeps usable materials out of landfills, but also provides jobs in our down economy.

I close with a quote from Harry Hopkins (for those of you too young to know, he was an advisor to Franklin Roosevelt during those dark days like ours). When told that things would work out in the long run for the poor, he said, “People don’t eat in the long run, they eat every day - hunger is not debatable.”

Paid for by Ellie Kinnaird for Senate • Campaign Address: PO Box 668, Carrboro, NC 27510 • 919-918-3432
Legislative Office Address: Room 628 LOB, 300 N. Salisbury St., Raleigh, NC 27603 •