Imagine this alternate reality for North Carolina: Computer algorithms review every second of police body camera footage and single-use plastic is against the law in restaurants.
Or another one, where the government grants are forbidden to fund free electric vehicle charging stations, unless stations give out free gas, too.
These ideas are pending in the state legislature, though they've hardly a chance of becoming law.
The odds are long for most bills still sitting in the queue at this point of the legislative session. Leaders hope to wrap their business by early next month, and there are more than 1,800 bills pending. More than half of them are sitting in the House or Senate rules committees.
The good news: Rules committees are usually the last stop before bills hit a chamber floor and move toward becoming law.
The bad news: They’re also a parking garage. If your bill gets filed and, one day later, gets sent to a rules committee, it’s probably not going anywhere else.
Maybe your bill was a bad idea. Maybe it’s an idea whose time hasn’t come. Maybe you’re a Democrat, and Republicans control the North Carolina General Assembly.
Maybe you’re a Republican, but leadership just doesn’t like the idea, and neither do enough of your colleagues. Maybe it’s got a powerful industry against it. Maybe you filed the bill too late to give it a legitimate chance, and your more immediate interest is in pointing to the issue on the campaign trail.
In a legislature of 170 people — 120 in the House of Representatives and 50 in the state Senate — there are almost as many reasons as there are ideas.
Bills with a shot at passage typically get the media coverage, but every now and then it’s worth dipping into the well of doomed ideas to ask, “What if?” After all, every seat in the North Carolina General Assembly, and thus the right to decide between good ideas and bad, is up for election this November.
Here are a few bills that aren’t expected to advance this session:
Add Segregation Score to School Report Cards. House Bill 948 would create a new “proportionality score” comparing every K-12 public school’s demographics to demographics in the county where they’re located. Then they would be ranked highly proportional, proportional, somewhat proportional, or highly disproportional in an effort to quantify how diverse, or how segregated, the student population is. Schools would also get a new “equality of access” score indicating, among other things, how many teachers there have at least three years of experience, the number of field trips offered, how much arts and music instruction is offered and the ratio of students to guidance counselors. The bill has five sponsors, all Democrats, and it has been sitting in the House Rules Committee since May of last year.
Automatic Police Body Cam Analysis. House Bill 937 would use artificial intelligence to review law enforcement body camera footage. Those computer programs would use “natural language processing technologies” to “identify flags” in the officer’s language and measure when “respectfulness and de-escalation drops below the minimum threshold” set by a state training and standards commission. The bill says less than one-tenth of a percent of officer-worn body camera footage is ever reviewed and that law enforcement produces so much video these days that it’s “impossible for humans to analyze.” At least one company, Truleo, produces this sort of software, and the bill would put $6 million over two years for local law enforcement agencies to purchase software. The bill has 10 sponsors, all Democrats, and has been sitting in the House Rules Committee since May of last year.
Ban Single-Use and Non-Recyclable Products. House Bill 959 would forbid restaurants and other “prepared food retailers” from using plastic containers, plastic silverware or any other disposable food ware unless it’s reusable or compostable. Some restaurants could use polystyrene containers, but only if their local government has a recycling program for it. The bill would also forbid grocery stores and other retailers from giving out single-use plastic bags, except to hold meat, fish, poultry or produce. It was filed in May of last year, has six sponsors — all Democrats — and has been sitting in the House Rules Committee since the day after it was filed in May 2021.
Equitable Free Vehicle Fuel Stations. House Bill 1049 would forbid using public funding to establish free electric vehicle charging stations unless free gasoline or diesel is offered as well. The bill would also require businesses that offer free charging to include, on any receipt, the percentage of the customer’s total purchase that resulted from the cost of providing free charging. The bill has five sponsors, all Republicans, including state Rep. Ben Moss, who said taxpayers shouldn’t be footing the bill for free charging. The bill was filed last month and has been sitting in the House Transportation Committee ever since.
Fiona Mae Wagglebottom's Act. House Bill 1116 would make it illegal statewide to leave dogs tethered outside when it’s below freezing, over 85 degrees or during storms. It’s named for sponsoring state Rep. Allison Dahle’s dog and it has 17 sponsors, all Democrats. It was filed last month and has been sitting in the House Appropriations Committee. Some cities and counties have already made tethering illegal, but a statewide ban is unlikely to pass, at least this year.
Many of the Republicans in House and Senate leadership are opposed to animal welfare bills. They say any such bill would be a slippery slope to animal rights bills that could harm or ban the state’s hog and poultry industries.
Sacred Relationship/Doctor/Patient. Senate Bill 796 would forbid the state’s various medical licensing boards from taking disciplinary action against doctors, nurses or pharmacists who prescribe unproven remedies for COVID-19. The list is laid out in the bill and includes Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermetcin, anti-parasite drugs that are not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for COVID-19 treatment. The bill has a single sponsor, Sen. Ralph Hise, R-Mitchell, and has been sitting in the Senate Rules Committee since last month.
Intercept Communications/All Party Consent. Right now it’s legal to record a phone call as long as at least one person knows it’s being recorded.
House Bill 840 would flip that on its head, requiring all parties to consent. If not, it would be a low-level felony to record the call. This wouldn’t apply to law enforcement. The bill has a single sponsor, Rep. Tim Moffitt, R-Henderson. It has been in the House Rules Committee since May of last year.
Homes for Heroes. Senate Bill 812 builds on a proposal Gov. Roy Cooper wrote into his budget plan. It would provide teachers, police officers, active duty military, veterans and other public servants by providing up to $25,000 to help cover the down payment on a home mortgage. Cooper asked for $50 million in his budget; this bill asks for $150 million. The bill has 16 sponsors, all Democrats, and it’s been in the Senate Appropriations Committee since last month.
Green Schools Save Money. House Bill 942 has $4.68 billion in it to boost energy efficiency at public schools. The money could be used to install high efficiency lighting, replace pipe insulation, weatherize, upgrade HVAC systems, install solar panels and replace school buses that are more than 10 years old with electric vehicles that, according to the bill, would have to be assembled in state. The measure has 21 sponsors, all Democrats, and has been sitting in the Senate Rules Committee since May of last year.
WRAL Capitol Bureau Chief Laura Leslie and Senior Multiplatform Producer Mark Bergin contributed to this report.
