The North Carolina General Assembly gaveled back into session Wednesday for another year of budget-writing and lawmaking.
The day was largely about the typical ceremony and initial organizing that come at the beginning of every legislative session, but it wasn’t without action. Lawmakers previewed the session’s first major fight: Over a rule change that would give the House’s Republican majority more leeway to surprise Democrats and catch them a member short on key votes. There was also a brief delay at the beginning of the House session after a representative needed medical attention.
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Republicans hold a veto-proof supermajority in the state Senate after the November elections, and they’re one seat short of that margin in the House. Changing the rules of procedure would let the GOP move quickly on veto overrides, passing controversial bills into law if a Democrat misses a session or leaves the chamber.
Debate on that change will likely dominate the early weeks of session after lawmakers take a two-week break, which they must by law, and return Jan. 25. That’s when the session begins in earnest, with a raft of issues outstanding, including whether the state expands Medicaid health insurance coverage to the working poor, what new abortion restrictions the GOP majority backs, how much the state spends on public schools, whether a new tax cut is in the offing, and how much of a raise state employees can expect with job vacancy rates in many agencies hovering around 20%.
“There’s some real recruitment and retention issues,” Speaker of the House Tim Moore told reporters after the day’s ceremonial session.
Many of the state’s 120 House and 50 Senate members are new, with roughly 25% of seats turning over in the November elections. Leadership at the top remains the same: Moore, R-Cleveland, is entering his fifth term as speaker, the longest streak in North Carolina history. Sen. Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, leads the Senate Republican majority as the chamber’s president pro tempore.
Session priorities
The two chamber leaders ticked off a handful of priorities during speeches to their chambers and in remarks later to reporters. But the full scope of this legislature’s business, and the countless details of the 2,000-plus pieces of legislation they may consider, won’t come into focus for months.
Republicans are widely expected to tighten the state’s abortion laws, which generally forbid abortions outside of emergencies now after 20 weeks. Moore said the House and Senate have working groups that are in the early stages of talking through details. Berger said he doesn’t believe abortion should be restricted in a pregnancy’s first trimester.
Both chambers generally want to expand Medicaid in North Carolina, which is one of 11 states that hasn’t expanded the federally funded insurance program in the 12-plus years since it became an option. There’s a wide gulf, though, between the House and Senate positions here, with Senate Republicans demanding regulatory rollbacks opposed by hospitals and more freedom for advanced practice nurses as part of the package.
House Republicans have opposed the shift, and leaders of both chambers confirmed Wednesday that their positions remain the same.
The biggest job before lawmakers is to write a new two-year state budget. Berger told reporters that his chamber might ask to accelerate already planned business or personal income tax cuts, depending on whether state revenues continue to outpace expectations.
Berger also noted that Republican senators have long wanted to cut or eliminate the state’s franchise tax, which is based on businesses’ net worth.
Moore said employee raises and other spending has to be balanced against the taxes people are charged. He declined to give a proposed percentage for raises when pressed for details on employee pay.
“Whatever we can afford,” he said.
Education funding will be a major issue. GOP leaders gave no indication that they’re contemplating the massive spike Democrats have pushed for and that a court decision in the state’s long running Leandro case calls for.
In his speech to the chamber, Moore said learning loss from the pandemic “is real” and that lawmakers “need to continue to invest in education.” But he also said lawmakers are charged with managing the state “as efficiently as we can” and letting the free market system function.
In his own speech Berger said people “must disabuse ourselves of the notion that more money alone buys positive outcomes for our students.”
“Success in education policy is about more than hitting some arbitrary funding goal,” he said.
Ceremonial start
Family members packed the two chambers on opening day, holding Bibles for representatives and senators to swear their oaths of office. Former Gov. Jim Hunt, North Carolina’s only four-term governor, attended the Senate session. His daughter Rachel, a fellow Democrat, won election to the Senate in November after two terms in the House.
In the Senate, swearings-in were handled by a pair of Republican state Supreme Court justices with connections to the body: Tamara Barringer, a former state senator, and Phil Berger Jr., whose father is the body’s top Republican. In the House, N.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Newby administered the oaths.
Proceedings in the House were delayed briefly when Rep. William Brisson, R-Bladen, seemed to have a medical scare. He was helped out of the chamber and attended to by emergency personnel, then wheeled back in at his insistence, colleagues said, to take the oath of office before leaving the General Assembly for a checkup.
Other House members said Brisson was talking and joking as he left.
North Carolina’s legislative sessions come two at a time. Odd years, like this one, bring the long session. Next year is the short session, where the second year of the state budget gets a rewrite and bills not finalized this year get more reconsideration.
Neither session has a time limit. In recent years the General Assembly has stayed in session for much of the year in both the long and short session.