Legislative Update for 07/01/24
July 1, 2024
Last week the verbal battle between the House and Senate became so intense that legislative leaders discussed a “little cooling off” period this week. The House presented and passed their $31.7 billion budget plan for the upcoming fiscal year starting July 1, which was approved with a 68-36 vote. However, the Senate has expressed no interest in this measure, even announcing it was dead on arrival. So, the Senate in turn proposed their own $31.4 billion “mini budget” in response. The Senate plan is 240 pages shorter than the House bill and excludes many of the House’s provisions, including additional salary increases for teachers and state workers on top of the increases already passed in the long session. The House also declared that they were not interested in the “Senate version” of the budget. Read the full report here.
Legislative Update for 06/18/24
June 18, 2024
Budget discussions in the state legislature between the House and Senate are at an impasse as Republican leaders argue over the allocation of a $1 billion surplus for the new fiscal year starting in July. Speaker Moore announced plans to release the House’s budget proposal this week. “This is the Plan B on the budget,” Moore said. “But while we’ve not been able to reach an agreement with the Senate, we’re tired of waiting. We’re going to move on, and get a budget done.” Moore indicated that the House’s spending plan would be filed by Monday night, and is scheduled to be in House Appropriations on Tuesday, then voted on Wednesday. He expressed frustration with the Senate’s lack of urgency, noting that the current fiscal year ends in less than three weeks. Senate leader Berger quickly responded to the news, declaring the proposal will be dead on arrival in their chamber. Read the full report here.
Legislative Update for 06/12/24
June 12, 2024
Budget negotiations haven taken a rocky turn, with the chambers at odds on how to move forward. Senate leader Berger shared with reporters last week that they “are not making progress.” “The good news is we have a budget. We adopted a two-year budget last year, and we have a budget,” Berger said. “The real sticking point at this point is that — notwithstanding the fact that we have seen revenue projections that are about a billion dollars more than what we anticipated — spending that billion dollars is not enough for the House … They want to spend a billion dollars out of reserves in addition to that, and the Senate will not go along with that.” When reporters asked what the House wants to spend the extra money on, Senate leader Berger responded: “Pork.” The House, however, seems more optimistic. “It could be better, but it could certainly be a lot worse,” Speaker Moore said when describing negotiations. “I was hoping that we would have made even more progress.” Speaker Moore’s spokesperson further countered the rhetoric out of the Senate: “Perhaps we need to send the Senate a new calculator with our next offer. The claim that the House ‘wants to spend $1 billion from the state’s reserves on earmarks’ is not accurate,” Demi Dowdy told reporters. “As good faith negotiations move forward, the House remains focused on pressing issues such as salaries and childcare — priorities the Senate has so far failed to consider at all,” Dowdy said. “We look forward to wrapping up a budget sooner rather than later that includes these priorities and fully funds Opportunity Scholarships.” The Senate typically favors more conservative spending than the House. Time will tell whether their differences can be resolved before their self-imposed deadline of the new fiscal year, which is less than a month away. Read the full report here.
Legislative Update for May 24, 2024
May 24, 2024
The pace of session is speeding up and what would session be without some controversy! Budget concerns loom large due to the reduced revenue forecast, casting uncertainty on the session’s pace and duration. “Once we got those initial numbers, we went ahead and started baking in some of the proposed funding, so when you pulled that $400 million, it certainly made an impact,” Speaker Moore told reporters last week. All seemed to be on track with the budget until this week when Senator Berger told reporters that there was an impasse on the budget with the House since the House wanted too much “pork” spending in the budget. I would call this a shot across the bow of the annual House vs. Senate budget negotiation process. Speaker Moore quickly responded that discussions were continuing to reach a resolution. The announced plan to have the budget done in June before the fiscal year starts July 1st seems to be a bit in doubt. Read the full report here.
Legislative Update for May 17, 2024
May 17, 2024
It seems that our state’s anticipated surplus might not be as substantial as initially projected. With recent revenue collection data from April rolling in, it appears the expected surplus of $400 million this year and $1 billion next year might be significantly lower than anticipated, possibly even less than half of the initial projection. While the Consensus Forecasting Group has not announced a revised figure, they are currently meeting to reassess the situation. “The Consensus Forecasting Group (CFG), which includes the Office of State Budget and Management and the Legislature’s Fiscal Research Division economists, is indeed meeting to re-evaluate the Consensus Revenue Forecast released in April. As was noted in that forecast, ‘Late April, just after income tax payments are due, is traditionally marked by the highest uncertainty in revenue collections. If actual collections differ significantly from this revised consensus forecast, the CFG may issue another revised consensus in mid-to-late May.’ The forecast released in April was developed prior to the availability of revenue collection data for April. The Forecasting Group is reviewing the April’s data and the impact it will have on their forecast. We expect the Group will complete their evaluation and release a revised estimate very soon,” the Office of State Budget and Management told a reporter. Read the full report here.
Legislative Update for May 8, 2024
May 8, 2024
It is officially the short session of the General Assembly that began on April 24th and is on a fast track! Gov. Cooper laid out his recommended budget adjustments on opening day of session this year. His recommended budget prioritizes investments in public education, child care, workforce development, Medicaid, and environmental protection. The proposed budget aims to raise teacher pay by 8.5% and invest over $1 billion in public schools using some of the funds currently routed towards taxpayer-funded private school vouchers. The Governor’s budget would further issue a moratorium on the private school voucher program Additionally, the budget aims to strengthen child care and early education funding, offers salary increases and retention bonuses for state employees, and invests in workforce development and job creation programs. His recommendation also includes $458 million in additional funding for Medicaid. Environmental protection measures include funding for clean drinking water initiatives, conservation efforts, and resilience programs to mitigate the impact of natural disasters. Read the full report here.
Legislative Update for April 22, 2024
April 22, 2024
The countdown is on for session to begin this Wednesday. With the aim of adjournment by July 1st, things are expected to gear up fairly quickly. Budget writers will hit the ground running this week, and some committees will even begin their work, with House Rules and Senate Transportation already setting times to convene on opening day. Read the full report here.
Legislative Update for February 20, 2024
February 20, 2024
Speculations about the upcoming short legislative session in our state have been circulating, with a prevailing expectation that this session might indeed be brief. Legislative leaders aim to finalize adjustments to the biennium’s budget by July 1st. As always, the budget is the time-keeper of session. Once it is passed, the session almost surely ends. The prospects of an expedited short session gained strength this week as one of the major lingering issues from the long session is unlikely to be addressed. Senate leader Berger, who led the charge for casino expansions in the long session, told a reporter this week that he will not champion the effort this year and doesn’t know of anyone else who intends to, either. This issue previously held up budget negotiations between the House and Senate and drug the long session on for weeks. Read the full report here.
Legislative Update for December 20, 2023
December 20, 2023
Friday was the last day of candidate filing, and there have been surprise announcements right up until the very end. Please see below for campaign announcements from this week, as well as Senate leader Berger’s appointments for interim committees. Read the full report here.
Legislative Update for December 11, 2023
December 11, 2023
As soon as session finally winds down, we know that campaign season is soon to follow! Many candidates started announcing what races they were going to run for and also started raising money right away. I started getting emails and calls about support for candidates and requests for contributions before the filing period even opened! We have seen quite a few surprises already and I am sure there are more to come as the last day of filing always has some treats in store. Candidate filing officially began on December 4th and will to continue to this Friday, December 15th. Once the filing period comes to a close there will be a great deal of analysis about who “should” win and “why” but this will be an especially interesting campaign season in North Carolina with highly contested Governor, Lt. Governor and Attorney General races, along with the battle in the legislature for seats. We have already seen some retirement announcements that have been surprising and have candidates who announced they were running in one race, only to change and run for another! Here are just a few updates so far – we will send a complete list of candidates for statewide and legislative offices once the filing period is over. Read the full report here.
Legislative Update for November 1, 2023
November 1, 2023
The legislature released their highly anticipated redistricting plan and went about quickly to approve it. These maps will have a heavy hand in shaping the political makeup of the legislature and our State’s Congressional delegation for the remainder of this decade. Redistricting maps are not subject to vetoes by the Governor, nor do they require his signature. North Carolina has a long history of litigation over the maps and we have no doubt that these maps will be litigated as well; however, with new rulings that seem to allow partisan gerrymandering, it will be more difficult to challenge these maps. Read the full report here.
Legislative Update for October 12, 2023
October 12, 2023
After many, many months and countless twist and turns, the budget saga has finally come to a close and North Carolina has a budget for the 2023 – 2025 biennium. The last several weeks were even more shocking than the delay, as behind the scenes meetings were revealed and press conferences were held that showed the frustration of the process. Here are some of the details of the final weeks. After working on the budget since early in the year and being almost 3 months behind schedule, the conference report was released on Wednesday following an impromptu press conference announcing that a deal had been reached between the chambers on Tuesday night. This was no easy feat after both chambers ended up at odds over the expansion of casinos in our state. Read the full report here.
Legislative Update for September 20, 2023
September 20, 2023
Last week the checkered flag was supposed to be in sight, with a budget expected to be voted on and passed by both chambers by the end of the week. Fairly abruptly, that goal post was moved and it seemed that a budget agreement was further away than ever as leadership of both the House and Senate exchanged personal barbs and the atmosphere at the General Assembly was tense to say the least. Speaker Moore sent the House members back to their districts with his certainty that there would be no budget agreement. There was one issue that appeared to be holding up progress: casinos. Read the full report here.
Legislative Update for August 22, 2023
August 22, 2o23
The legislature has sprung back into action last week, setting a state record for the most veto override votes in one day. On Wednesday, the House and Senate overrode six of Governor Cooper’s vetoes. Read the full report here.
Legislative Update for August 16, 2023
August 16, 2023
Just like the weather in North Carolina, the timeline for the budget as well as other bills keeps changing from week to week, day to day and sometimes within the same day. Although changing plans is quite common in North Carolina politics, this is quite unusual. Legislative leaders had planned to reconvene last week for voting sessions, specifically to take up override votes of outstanding vetoes. They placed bills on the calendar for last week and talked about trying to have the budget if not completed – close. Last week that all changed and it was announced that there would be no legislative activity last week and that they will now come back into session today, Wednesday, August 16th for veto over-ride votes. Several days later House Speaker Moore unexpectedly announced that there would not be a budget before September! This just after announcing that they were going to try to resolve the budget so that Medicaid Expansion could begin by October 1st. Of course, there is much conjecture about what is holding up the progress, whether the House or Senate has the upper hand, etc. We just know it is seemingly taking forever! Read the full report here.
Legislative Update for July 24, 2023
July 24, 2023
It’s been a quiet stretch at the legislature, with no signs of picking up soon. Given delayed budget negotiations and travel plans, the legislature has announced a pause on all votes and committee meetings until August 7th when the Republicans will have all their members present. We expect the various veto override votes to be taken that week (Republicans need all their members present and voting to override a veto). The expectation is that a budget will soon follow, as well. Read the full report here.
Legislative Update for June 30, 2023
June 30, 2023
The schedule of this long session continues to be driven by the ongoing cross-chamber budget negotiations, which appear to continue to be hung up over the overall tax package and how much of our state’s reserves should be spent. As a reminder, earlier this session leaders in the House and Senate predicted having a budget deal done and to the Governor by June 15th, and this year’s “long” session adjourned by the end of this week (in other words, today). Given the current stalemate those rosy predictions are long forgotten, and some members are saying publicly they are planning to be in session through July, August and perhaps into September. Read the full report here.
Legislative Update for June 27, 2023
June 27, 2023
A lawsuit against Speaker Moore alleges that the Speaker had a years-long affair with a married state employee and used his position to keep the relationship going, “destroying” the marriage, and pushing the state employee to degrading acts in exchange for political favors. The Speaker is being sued by Scott Lassiter, a former Apex Town Council member and Republican House of Representatives candidate. The lawsuit is based off North Carolina’s “alienation of affection” statute, which is a law that only a few states have that enables people to sue their spouse’s extramarital partners. The 20-page lawsuit also claims that Mr. Lassiter and Speaker Moore met at a Biscuitville to discuss the affair. The suit claims that Speaker Moore confessed to the affair and suggested “that he could use his power he held as Speaker in some way to benefit” Mr. Lassiter in an effort to keep this quiet. Lassiter also accuses the Speaker of hiring someone to set up a surveillance camera outside of Lassiter’s home. Read the full report here.
Legislative Update for June 6, 2023
June 6, 2023
Two Republican House members have resigned from their positions as deputy whips of the House Republican caucus following fallout from controversial comments made by the policymakers.
During debate over a bill that would expand eligibility for Opportunity Scholarships, Rep. Jeff McNeely questioned whether a fellow member of the House, Rep. Abe Jones, would have gotten into Harvard University had he not been a minority and an athlete. Rep. McNeely apologized both privately and publicly for his remarks. In a separate debate over the veto override vote of the abortion bill, Rep. Diamond Staton-Williams shared her personal story with abortion. During her heartfelt speech, she discussed her faith and growing up attending church, to which Rep. Keith Kidwell quipped, off-mic, that she was a member of the “Church of Satan.” “I thought it was unfortunate, especially as a person of faith,” Rep. Staton-Williams said. “That, because how I believe and how I feel and how I live my faith don’t align with him, that something like that was said.” Read the full report here.
Legislative Update for 05/23/23
May 23, 2023
The House and Senate have overridden Gov. Cooper’s veto of Senate Bill 20, Care for Women, Children, and Families Act, on a strict party line vote. This means, starting July 1st, the state will prohibit elective abortions after the first 12 weeks, allowing abortions up until the 20th week in instances of rape or incest or up until the 24th week if there is a life-limiting anomaly in the unborn child. In cases of a medical emergency for the pregnant woman, abortions will be allowed at any time. The bill also includes a number of other policy measures, including allowing for independent practice by Certified Nurse Midwives, appropriating additional funds for a number of maternity programs, new reporting requirements for all abortions and criminalizing certain actions, like the provision or advertising of abortion-inducing drugs.
As you can imagine, there were mixed reactions to this new law. Speaker Moore, and many other Republican policymakers, were quick to share their excitement over the move to further abortion restrictions in our state.
Read the full report here.
Legislative Update for 05/12/23
May 12, 2023
After several weeks of lengthy committee meetings and floor debates, the crossover deadline has passed. With a substantial number of bills moving, controversy was sure to follow. Controversial policies included new abortion measures, a gun bill, and a bill banning surgical gender transition procedures for minors. Of course, those are just the bills that make the headlines, there are hundreds of other bills that moved through the process with very little review or debate so we are going through those to see where we need to intervene. Please see below for some of the bills that made their way around the General Assembly last week.
On Tuesday evening, Republicans unveiled their long-anticipated abortion bill. As expected, the bill further restricts abortions in the state by prohibiting elective abortions after the first 12 weeks instead of the state’s current 20-week policy. It would allow abortions up until the 20th week in instances of rape or incest or up until the 24th week if there is a life-limiting anomaly in the unborn child. In cases of a medical emergency for the pregnant woman, abortions would be allowed at any time.
Senate Bill 20, the “Care for Women, Children, and Families Act”, would also make a variety of additional changes to healthcare laws in our state. One of its noteworthy changes would allow for independent practice by Certified Nurse Midwives, repealing the 40-year-old requirement for a signed physician “supervision” agreement and also a “fix” to the law regarding guns and domestic violence victims.
Read the full report here.
Legislative Update for 05/04/23
May 4, 2023
With bill filing deadlines behind us, the crossover rush began last week and is careening towards its finish on Thursday, May 4th. Any bills that do not have a fiscal impact on the state will have to be approved by at least one chamber in order to remain eligible for the remainder of the 2-year session. This to me is the most dangerous time of the session, when bills with very little, if any, discussion are voted on and move through committees and on the floor of the House and Senate. Committees have so many bills on their agendas, that there is little time to intervene, amend or discuss the bills at this stage.
Yesterday, the House and Senate Republicans announced that they had reached an agreement on a bill that would further limit abortion in North Carolina. They put the provisions into Senate Bill 20 (a bill already approved by both the House and Senate) and heard the bill in a joint House and Senate Rules Committee hearing today and expect to have the bill approved on Thursday by both chambers and to the Governor. According to the press conference, all Republican members of the House and Senate have committed to voting for the bill and if that is true, they will be able to override any veto from the Governor. By putting the bill into a “conference report” they have also protected the bill against any amendments – legislators will have to vote yes/no on the bill.
Read the full report here.
Legislative Update for 04/27/23
April 27, 2023
Speaker Moore says he thinks legislators are “really close” to reaching a consensus on a change to the state’s current abortion policies. Speaker Moore told reporters that he believes Republicans are coming to an agreement for abortion restrictions after 12 weeks. However, there is still no final agreement at this point on any part of an abortion bill. When reporters reached out to Senate leader Berger for comment to this, he said he is still discussing options with his members. Senate leader Berger has said previously that he would personally be in support of restrictions following the first trimester (12 weeks), and Speaker Moore has said that he thought that is where his chamber would end up on this, as well. This seems to confirm that a 12-week ban is likely what we will see proposed from this General Assembly – that’s an 8-week decrease from the state’s current 20-week ban. It is unclear what exceptions would be included for rape, incest, and health of the mother and we understand those details are still being worked on behind the scenes. Read the full report here.
Legislative Update for 04/17/23
April 17, 2023
What a rollercoaster ride we are on this session! I have been a lobbyist and involved in the General Assembly for over 20 years and I have never seen a session move this quickly. Some of this makes sense in that the leadership teams for both the House and the Senate have been fairly consistent and should know their caucus and have a pretty good plan for what they want to get done. We are hearing that the Senate expects to roll out their version of the budget in about two weeks and that the conference committee wants to complete their work on the final budget by the middle of May! I have not seen a budget done that early ever and frankly the trend has been to take longer and longer, with some budgets not being done until July and August and a few years in there not reaching a budget consensus at all. Of course, much has to happen before a Budget is approved so we will see what happens! More than usual is riding on this budget to be approved since Medicaid Expansion is also on the line.
As you can see by the length of this legislative report and the next few – bill filing deadlines are here. That means the bill drafting division is trying to finalize all the bills in their pipeline to file by the deadlines – Senate deadline was April 6th and the House has two deadlines, public bills by April 18th and bills regarding appropriations or finance by April 25th. We understand that over 220 bills were filed on April 6th and some of those bills will be in committee next week. It is very difficult for lobbyists, let alone the public, to keep up with all the bills and respond to them. It will be a very busy few weeks at the General Assembly working toward May 4th which is the Crossover Deadline – the date that a bill must move from the chamber it was filed in to the other chamber. If it does not move by that date, officially the bill is ineligible to be heard for the session. The exceptions are bills that impact spending (appropriations) or taxes (finance) as these are eligible for the length of the session.
Read the full report here.
Legislative Update for 04/11/23
April 11, 2023
The House budget proposal as released tops 1,000 pages and spends approximately $30 billion over the biennium. “This is a budget that invests in our state employees, teachers, infrastructure and workforce development. It is a budget that balances the needs of the state with a growing economy while maintaining a sustainable spending path,” Speaker Moore told reporters.
The House budget was released, discussed in committee the next day, had a few amendments, and went quickly through the various committees – Appropriations, Finance and Retirement. It was approved on a bi-partisan vote with 9 Democrats joining their Republican colleagues. There is much to like in the House Budget, including the trigger for Medicaid Expansion, substantial teacher raises, State employee raises, and other funding for hard to fill positions in schools and government. Read the full report here.
Legislative Update for 03/30/23
March 30, 2023
The wait is nearly over! The House budget will be unveiled this week. Health Chair Donny Lambeth said that the House budget will be presented to caucuses on Tuesday and on Thursday morning, the budget will move on to Appropriations subcommittees for discussion. By that afternoon, the budget proposal will be in the full Appropriations Committee. Floor votes will be held next week before the legislative Spring Break begins. With most of the focus on the budget, the House isn’t expected to do too much heavy lifting on policy bills until after the budget has passed over and they return from their week off.
Once the budget leaves the House, the fun will really begin. The Senate will develop their own version of the budget and then typically a Conference Committee will be formed to iron out the differences between the two chambers’ spending plans. While both chambers have Republican majorities, priorities somewhat vary between the two. There will likely be lengthy negotiations between the chambers to balance out their top priorities for this biennium’s budget. Once it’s over to the Senate, the chambers will switch roles and the Senate will now be the one whose focus is mostly off of major policy bills and onto the budget.
MEDICAID EXPANSION
After 13 years of discussing this policy measure, the General Assembly has approved a Medicaid expansion bill with wide bipartisan margins and sent it on to the Governor. On Monday the Governor invited a variety of legislators, groups and lobbyists who worked on the issue to celebrate the signing of the bill, but unfortunately it is not over just yet. There will be one hurdle left for North Carolina to become to the 40th state to approve Medicaid expansion: the state budget. The expansion portion of the bill would not become law until a new state budget is enacted, and would be voided if there isn’t a new state budget by June 30, 2024.
Read the full report here.
Legislative Update for 03/22/23
March 22, 2023
As expected, Gov. Cooper released his proposed budget this week. The Governor’s budget would spend approximately $34 billion in state funding, and include major investments in mental health support, teacher pay, state employee compensation, public education, child care funding, job training, infrastructure, and economic development.
The Governor’s plan would make our state the top state in the southeast for teacher pay, with an average 18% raise for teachers over the biennium. On average, state employees would see an 8% raise over that same period. The budget would fully fund the remedial Leandro plan ordered by the Supreme Court for North Carolina’s public schools, and includes funding for more school nurses, counselors, social workers, and school psychologists.
Gov. Cooper’s plan hopes to use the $1.8 billion federal sign-on bonus North Carolina will receive for expanding Medicaid to create the Improve Health Outcomes for People Everywhere (IHOPE) program to improve mental health and substance abuse services. The Governor proposes to use $1 billion of the bonus to create this program, using the funds to increase Medicaid rates for behavioral health services over three years ($225 million), improve access to mental health services in schools and throughout the state ($175 million), fund additional behavioral health services for justice systems ($150 million), improve behavioral health crisis support ($200 million), improve health technology and data tracking ($50 million), and more to improve access to mental health care.
Read the full report here.
Legislative Update for 03/16/23
March 16, 2023
House and Senate leaders have reached an agreement on the overall spend for this biennium’s budget. In 2023-2024, the state plans to spend approximately $29.7 billion and will follow the next year spending roughly $30.8 billion. “Reaching this agreement with the Senate on the overall spend is an encouraging start to crafting another responsible budget that addresses the needs of North Carolinians, including key investments in teacher and state employee raises, infrastructure, and workforce development,” Speaker Moore said in a press release.
The budget process is ticking away and will be even further down the road once the Governor releases his budget proposal. This will be our first real glimpse at our State Departments’ funding requests for this biennium.
Read the full report here.
Legislative Update for 03/09/23
March 9, 2023
A decade-long stalemate over Medicaid expansion appears to be coming to an end. On Thursday, House and Senate Republican leaders announced that they had reached an agreement to expand Medicaid in North Carolina. The agreement was said to have been reached in final negotiations that ran late Wednesday night into Thursday morning. At the time of the press conference, legislative leaders had not discussed their agreement with Gov. Cooper, or their respective caucuses. “We wanted to go ahead and get it out there … and get the details to the public, because it’s something we can all be very proud of,” said Speaker Moore regarding the timing.
The bill will include some Certificate of Need (CON) reforms and a provision to authorize HASP, a federal reimbursement program for hospitals. The compromise language “will eliminate certificate of need for behavioral health beds and for chemical dependency beds. It will raise the replacement equipment threshold to $3 million and index that number to inflation. It will increase the threshold for diagnostic centers to $3 million and index that to inflation.”
One measure that was noticeably missing from this agreement was the SAVE Act, a measure that would repeal the requirement for Advanced Practice Registered Nurses to obtain a physician’s signature on a “collaborative practice” agreement in order for them to practice independently in the state. This provision was included in the Senate Medicaid expansion package passed last session.
Read the full report here.
Legislative Update for 02/28/23
February 28, 2023
Speaker Moore told reporters this week that the House plans on having their version of the budget out on April 6th, right before Easter and the General Assembly’s spring break the week of April 10th. It appears to be a favorable time to be working on the budget with the news of a projected $3.25 billion surplus for the state this year, however the surplus is non-recurring, one-time money and not recurring money which can be used for a wider variety of funding priorities.
As in years’ past, there are two topics that remain top priorities in both chambers that still prove difficult to fully agree on when it comes down to specifics: raises and tax cuts. It’s clear the chambers have already begun negotiations around the amount of tax cuts for this biennium. “The conversations I’ve had with leadership in the House, with members in the House, leads me to believe that the House is prepared to move forward with further reductions in in our taxes,” Senate leader Berger said. “We’re still early in the session, we’ll see how that materializes.”
Read the full report here.
Legislative Update for 02/21/23
February 21, 2023
Last week, the North Carolina House of Representatives made history by passing a bill that would expand Medicaid. While the House has passed a bill to study expansion previously, this bill would actually set it in motion and have North Carolina join the vast majority of states who have expanded. The hold-out chamber from last session did not seem to have adequate support in the Republican caucus to pass this measure along with the Senate previously, according to Speaker Moore. Now, it seems the tide has changed. This bill received bipartisan support and was approved by the chamber by a vote of 92-22.
The bill was amended to include a pilot program that would provide forgivable loans to eligible medical and nursing students who choose to practice full-time in rural areas. It was also amended to include language that would authorize work requirements as a condition of participation in the Medicaid program if there’s ever any indication that the federal government would authorize those requirements. “This is a part of history, and we need to advance this bill, move it forward so we can begin some serious discussions with the Senate on how do we make this happen for the state of North Carolina and for people who benefit from this,” primary sponsor Rep. Donny Lambeth told his colleagues on the House floor. Now, it’s the Senate’s turn to respond. The Senate has indicated that they have other priorities they wish to couple with Medicaid expansion, so it is likely that the Medicaid expansion proposal from the House will be amended on the Senate side. This long saga continues.
Read the full report here.
Legislative Update for 02/14/23
February 14, 2023
The legislature has a full week planned ahead, with 22 Committees meeting just today alone. The legislature couldn’t let the Parents Bill of Rights bill have all the fun; this week they are expected to roll out other high-profile contentious bills, including the House’s Medicaid expansion bill and various bills that would loosen the state’s restrictions on firearms. The House and Senate have yet to reach a consensus on a Medicaid expansion proposal, so the House version that will be debated this week will almost surely vary from the Senate’s proposal from last session which included other controversial health care reforms. Along with that, Republican legislators are expected to move firearm bills this week. Ever a partisan issue, these gun bills will likely garner a lot of attention and opposition from various groups and Democratic legislators opposed to less restrictive access to firearms. Appropriations Subcommittees will also continue to meet this week to review various areas of the budget and find out about the many programs being funded by the State. The House will be presenting their budget proposal first this session.
Read the full report here.
Legislative Update for 02/07/23
February 7, 2023
Session is gaining momentum as more and more bills are steadily being filed and committees are beginning to hold their first meetings of the biennium. Of course, it’s not the General Assembly’s style to slowly ease into session. Legislators started with a bang this week with the session’s first contentious bill making its way through committees, the Parents’ Bill of Rights bill.
Read the full report here.
Legislative Update for 02/01/23
February 1, 2023
The legislature is up and running for 2023’s long session. While most of Wednesday afternoon was spent handing out gavels to new Committee Chairs, bills also began to be filed. There were 20 bills filed in the House and 18 in the Senate on the first day. The very first bill filed in the Senate was Sen. Rabon’s NC Compassionate Care Act, Senate Bill 3, which would allow the use of medical cannabis in our state. This bill passed the Senate during last year’s short session, but was stalled in the House. “There is support for something where there’s doctors involved, and where there’s some type of controls and pharmaceutical involvement,” Speaker Moore told reporters when asked about the House’s stance this year. “There’s some support, but we’ll see. There’s a chance it may happen.”
The medical cannabis bill was not the only hot topic bill that was filed right out of the gate. Democrats held a press conference to discuss their filing of an abortion bill that would codify abortion rights under the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision into state law. While abortion policies are likely to be changed this session, this bill is unlikely to get much traction in a Republican-led General Assembly. Republicans are expected to file a more-restrictive abortion bill during this session.
Read the full report here.
Previous Sessions