Today@NCCapitol (June 3): Abortion, guns, veto overrides at issue in House
Members of the state House have a number of volatile bills on their calendar today, including measures dealing with abortion and a pair of veto overrides. The House Rules Committee is set to work on an omnibus firearms bill at 9 a.m.
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McCrory is also scheduled to hold a 10:15 a.m. signing ceremony for House Bill 595, which will make it easier for members of the military to translate their experience into civilian police jobs.
"That one appears to be on track to go ahead and get done this week," House Speaker Tim Moore said.
When it first passed the House, the bill had support from 99 of 120 lawmakers. The measure makes someone who gets hired for the express purpose of conducting an undercover sting operation liable to their "employer" for damages, something that journalism and animal rights groups say threatens to hamper exposés of dangerous and inhuman conditions. The AARP has also sided against the bill, saying it could hamper investigations of elder abuse.
However, Moore is less certain that bill will be heard Wednesday.
"We don't know for certain if we're going to bring it up," Moore said Tuesday. "We won't bring it up until we've had a firm count (of caucus members). Right now, we just haven't had a count....We may or may not vote on it."
Asked if he might bring back former House Speaker Thom Tillis' "veto garage," a limbo state in which vetoes were kept until an opportune moment, Moore said that the facility had been rebranded.
"This is the veto opportunity zone," he said.
"I think it will be in committees next week," Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger told reporters Tuesday.
Senate leaders say they don't expect subcommittees to review the budget this week and said it is possible the budget bill could go straight to the full Appropriations Committee.
The House has already passed its version of the budget. Once the Senate passes its version, the two will have to reconcile the two versions into one bill that gets sent to the governor. Lest anyone think that a moment of kumbaya is on tap, Berger continued to signal the Senate version will be a drastically different animal.
"We held the growth of the state budget to under 3 percent on an annual basis. I think that's important for us to continue even if we have excess revenue," he said.
The House drafted a budget that grew by about 5.5 percent, funded largely on better-than-expected tax revenue.
Berger said he would like to return some of that money to taxpayers in the form of tax cuts.
"I am fairly certain the House will not agree with the changes we make," Berger told a gather of the National Federation of Independent Businesses.
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