Advocates, clergy arrested at NC General Assembly while demanding child care funding

Police arrested protesters calling for funding for child care at the North Carolina Legislative Building

Wednesday afternoon, after the group chanted outside the Senate and House chambers on the building’s second floor.

According to NC General Assembly Police Chief Martin Brock, eight people were arrested.

Brock said the police received a noise complaint.

“We asked them three times to lower their voices,” Brock said. After the “third warning, those who kept singing, we warned a final time,” and then arrested those who remained, he told reporters after the arrests.

Asked who made the complaint, Brock said he was “not sure at this time.”

Brock said the people arrested would be processed and transported to the Wake County Justice Center for second-degree trespassing and violation of the building rules.

Those arrested were part of a coalition of child care providers, parents and clergy who had a day of action planned at the legislature to call on lawmakers to provide funding to child care centers ahead of what they dubbed a “child care funding cliff.”

Advocates included members from the North Carolina Poor People’s Campaign, Repairers of the Breach and Forward Justice.

The Rev. Rob Stephens, NC Repairers of the Breach organizing committee coordinator, was one of the people arrested.

Prior to the arrest, during a news conference outside the legislature calling for action, Stephens told The News & Observer “we are here for deadline for day care. We came two weeks ago to let them know that at the end of the month, we’re gonna lose funding for thousands of day cares.”

“And they are now indicating that they’re willing to let that funding fall off the cliff. We are not willing to let them do it without a witness.

On June 12, some of the advocates present on Wednesday went to the General Assembly and demanded lawmakers stay in Raleigh until they have fully funded child care, according to a press release issued by the coalition.

Since then, the GOP-controlled Senate and House have not come to an agreement on how to amend the two-year budget passed last year.

Both chambers have passed separate versions of a budget. Leadership has indicated that they would be willing to go home after this week and come back later — potentially in September. This means additional child care funding — included in both chamber’s budget adjustment proposals — would be put on the back burner should the chambers fail to agree.

Emma Biggs, a child care provider from Charlotte, said at the press conference before the arrests that House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate leader Phil Berger have ignored their multiple calls for action.

”We had families and supporters across this state call and send emails for over a year. They’ve ignored us,” Biggs said. “We have held five in-person actions right here at the General Assembly since April 24. They have received at least four personal emails and letters from the Poor People’s Campaign to meet with us. They ignored us. We hosted a child care phone blitz two weeks ago where both representatives Berger and Moore received 800 phone calls personally from constituents across this state who believe in the value of childhood and what our educators do every day. They ignored us. They keep ignoring us.”

But, “today, June 26, we are back and we will not be ignored,” she said.

What’s the child care funding cliff?

Child care facilities across the state received stabilization grants provided by Congress — and enhanced by COVID-19 pandemic aid allotted by lawmakers — that allowed them to pay employees, cover rent and mortgage costs and subsidize child care costs for some families.

This helped raise child care workers’ pay by an average of $2 to $3 an hour. Still, child care workers’ wages remained at a median of $14 an hour, as previously reported by The News & Observer.

The funding under these stabilization grants is set to expire at the end of the month. This is expected to lead to child care centers closing or raising tuition. A survey of the state’s child care programs found 29% expect to close when the stabilization grants go away. That means 1,535 programs could close, which would take away 91,660 slots, The N&O reported.

Other protests

Stephens touched on several other legislative issues at the news conference, contrasting them with the failure to approve more child care spending.

“We are here to say that they have made the people’s house into a den of thieves,” he said, decrying “... corruption that you see, whether it’s the Summerfield, whether it’s down in Carteret County with indigenous lands, whether it’s giving to casinos or using the state budget as their private piggy bank. People need to know what they’re doing with our money.”

“So its the deadline for day care, it’s also a deadline for democracy,” he said.

Also protesting in the morning outside the legislature were residents and leaders from the town of Summerfield in Guilford County.

They were calling on lawmakers not to de-annex land from Summerfield so that it can be used for a project led by developer David Couch. Those protesters do not appear to be among those who were arrested.

Lawmakers had also been working on a controversial bill that would have allowed developers to build on archaeological sites in some environmentally sensitive coastal areas. That bill was met with widespread opposition from Native Americans in North Carolina and the state’s Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, The N&O previously reported.

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