Weekly Wrap: Lawmakers returning, fights over reopening, Burr steps down

After keeping the public out of the Legislative Building during a brief session recently that focused on pandemic relief, people will be allowed in next week, but at only 50 percent of the building's capacity. Visitors also will have their temperatures checked before entering, in addition to normal security procedures.

Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger said he doesn't want to take up a second relief package immediately, saying lawmakers first need to see how they will be able to use another $2 billion in federal aid. The state is already looking at an estimated $4 billion budget shortfall in the coming year.

Yet, plenty of coronavirus-related bills have been filed, from helping sick workers get workers compensation to preventing businesses that violate stay-at-home orders from being punished to guaranteeing that people in the hospital can have a companion to paying for food pantries on college campuses to helping struggling farmers switch their crops over to medical marijuana.

Since lawmakers wrapped up that earlier session two weeks ago after unanimously passing the $1.6 billion relief package, traditional partisan divides have reappeared.

Republican lawmakers and state officials have openly criticized Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper's plan to resume business and social activities statewide, saying it moves too slowly and is hurting the state economy. Berger twice this week said counties, not the state, should decide when to reopen businesses, from hair salons to restaurants. Lt. Gov. Dan Forest, Cooper's opponent in the fall election, also took the side of churches, some of which claim – dozens of ministers rallied in Raleigh on Thursday – the governor's order restricting indoor church services is unconstitutional.

Finally, U.S. Sen. Richard Burr gave up his post as chairman of the Senate Intelligence committee this week as an investigation into his financial activities in the early days of the pandemic heats up.

The FBI seized Burr's cellphone during a Wednesday search of his Washington, D.C., home. Burr has come under fire for selling up to $1.7 million in stock in mid-February, shortly before the pandemic tanked the market, prompting some to question whether he acted on information he got from Senate Intelligence briefings. Burr has denied any wrongdoing.

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NOTE: In the accompanying video, WRAL statehouse reporter Travis Fain misspoke when discussing the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' en banc petition denial. That motion was actually filed by the plaintiffs in NAACP v. Cooper and was, in part, an unsuccessful attempt to block Republican lawmakers from intervening in the case.