Abortion, Medicaid, voting maps top state lawmakers' 2023 agenda

Closing out their 2022 session this week, legislative leaders offered a preview of the issues likely to top their agenda in January. Abortion, Medicaid expansion and redrawing voting maps were all on the short list.

Posted 7:39 p.m. Dec 15, 2022 — Updated 10:56 p.m. Dec 15, 2022

Laura Leslie

, WRAL capitol bureau chief

RALEIGH, N.C. — As the 2022 legislative session ended this week, Republican legislative leaders offered a preview of the issues likely to top their agenda when the new session convenes in January. Abortion, Medicaid expansion and redistricting were on the short list.

North Carolina currently bans abortion after 20 weeks, except in cases posing a major risk to the life of the mother. Republican legislative leaders expect to approve a more restrictive law early next session, but neither Senate Leader Phil Berger nor House Speaker Tim Moore offered any details about what it might look like, other than to say they're not currently planning to model it on another state.

Berger, R-Rockingham, has previously said he favors a 12-week ban. Moore, R-Cleveland, supports a six-week ban, sometimes called a heartbeat bill. Both said they need to survey their respective caucuses to see what added limitations would have support.

"We have a caucus that represents a pretty broad spectrum, particularly on this issue," Moore said Tuesday.

Berger told reporters: "The question is whether or not you'll see something here like you've seen in some other states where the folks on the fringes are so opposed or so determined to get what they want — either abortion for nine months or no abortion at all — that that gums up everything, and you don't get anything done. I would say at the outset that that would represent a failure on the part of the General Assembly."

Governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat, has pledged to veto any new abortion restrictions, but Republicans will have a veto-proof majority in the Senate next session. In the House, they're one vote short of a supermajority, so they still need one Democrat to vote with them to override a veto. Moore is confident they can get it.

"Whatever we do when we do it, we're going to try to be bipartisan, reach broad consensus, and tackle what has been clearly a tough issue facing this entire nation for 50 years," Moore said. "It would have to be something that would have to be structured in a way where you could get a handful of centrist Democrats to vote with you."

Medicaid expansion, redistricting

Another top agenda item will be Medicaid expansion.

North Carolina is one of a dozen states that has not expanded Medicaid. Doing so would unlock billions of dollars in federal funding, with the U.S. government paying 90% of expansion costs and kicking another $1.5 billion down to the state in an enticement that Congress passed last year to appeal to holdout states.

Both Moore and Berger say they’d like to enact the expansion next year. However, they haven’t yet reached a deal on the differences that stalled expansion this year.

"The language that the Senate sent over in their legislation is not something that we would approve," Moore said, referring to "certificate of need" reform.

Legislators will also have to redraw congressional voting districts. The court specified that the map it put in place for this year was only for the 2022 election.

Berger said he "suspects we'll look at" redrawing legislative districts again, too, although the state constitution forbids lawmakers from redrawing maps without court action after they've drawn them once per decade.

"You have to make a careful reading of the constitution," Berger said. "My reading of the constitution tells me that we've not done anything that would be a violation of the constitution if we decided to draw maps this year."

That interpretation is likely to draw a legal challenge from anti-gerrymandering groups. But with a Republican majority taking their seats on the state Supreme Court in 2023, Berger may find a more sympathetic judicial audience for his claim.

Berger and Moore say the redraw probably won’t happen until the U.S. Supreme Court has issued its rulings in Moore v. Harper and an Alabama case, Merrill v. Milligan, on the role of race and the 1965 federal Voting Rights Act in redistricting. Those rulings aren't likely to be issued before June or July.

"It would be helpful in what we would have to do to have some guidance from the Supreme Court on those issues before we start drawing maps," Berger said.

The new legislative session will convene Jan. 11, but under state law, both chambers have to take a two-week break between convening and the beginning of legislative work to allow time for administrative tasks like committee and office assignments. The House and Sente plan to start work Jan. 25.

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