It didn't take long for hot-button issues to pop up during this legislative session.
While Democrats quickly filed bills calling for Medicaid expansion and repealing a 2015 law protecting Confederate monuments across the state, Republicans have responded to two bills that would place new restrictions on abortion in North Carolina. GOP legislative leaders said the two measures won't be the only abortion-related legislation this session, either.
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While those bills have only been read in so far, the House actually did pass legislation setting up the chamber's rules for the session. Democrats grumbled a lot about one rule that allows four top GOP House members to cast votes in almost every committee, giving Republicans some breathing room if there's ever a tight vote.
Meanwhile, the State Board of Elections has agreed to hand data on nearly 800 voters over to federal authorities who had subpoenaed information last fall on 7 million voters.
Gov. Roy Cooper spent the day in Washington, D.C., where he testified before a House committee on climate change. Still, he found time to rescind his appointment of Charlotte City Councilwoman LaWana Mayfield to the state Human Relations Commission. Some in Charlotte and GOP lawmakers had criticized the appointment, noting that Mayfield had equated police officers with terrorists in tweets last year.
Finally, Judge Marion Warren is stepping down as director of the Administrative Office of the Courts to become senior associate dean of Regent University School of Law in Virginia Beach, Va. That's the school that North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark Martin will head upon his retirement at the end of the month.