Tuesday Wrap: Override fails and bail highlight one-day legislative session

The calendar may say 2020, but Tuesday marked the last gasp of the 2019 legislative session.

Senate Democrats stood their ground and upheld Gov. Roy Cooper's veto of legislation that would have given teachers and other public school employees raises, saying Republican lawmakers aren't providing enough funding to education.

After Senate Republicans also failed to override a veto on a regulatory reform bill, they pulled an override on Cooper's veto of the overall $24 billion state budget off the calendar without even putting it to a vote.

Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger predicted that the state might go until 2021 without a new state budget, meaning another year without raises for teachers, and said the Democrats' decision to stick with the governor's "ultimatum" that no budget would pass without an expanded Medicaid program would haunt them in the November elections. Democrats fired back more money for public schools and health insurance for the working poor will carry the day come election time.

Lawmakers did approve a fix for a scholarship program for the children of wartime veterans, which was left hanging amid the budget stalemate before the adjourned until the 2020 legislative session begins on April 28.

Finally, longtime Rep. Mickey Michaux, D-Durham, formally took his seat in the Senate, taking the place of Sen. Floyd McKissick, D-Durham, who resigned last week for a position on the North Carolina Utilities Commission. Michaux bragged that he would be the shortest-serving state senator, as the winner of the Democratic primary for the seat will be appointed to it for the duration of the short session.