NC Policy Update | neighborsoncall

Neighbors on Call’s NC Policy Update for 1/23/23

Governance

Voting Rights

Governance

On Wednesday the NCGA began its long session. Though the lawmakers are now taking a legally-required two-week break, reconvening on January 25, the first day of the session included a controversial temporary rule change in the NC House eliminating a provision requiring advance notice of veto override votes. Republicans, who are one vote short of the supermajority required to override a veto from Governor Cooper, will seek to make the rule change permanent once the break is over. Important issues expected to come up in this session of the NCGA include Medicaid expansion, Republican-driven restrictions on abortion, and public school spending. In addition, lawmakers will draw two new electoral maps (for US House and NC Senate races) and likely rewrite the state’s voter ID law.
On Thursday Governor Cooper announced a ban of the app TikTok on state-owned mobile phones. The decision follows TikTok bans on government devices by the federal government and many other states due to TikTok’s ownership by Chinese company ByteDance and its status as a security risk.

Health Care Policy

On January 4 the NC treasurer’s office announced that the State Health Plan – the health insurance plan for NC government employees and teachers – will switch from Blue Cross Blue Shield to Aetna. State Treasurer Dale Folwell said that costs to employees will not change, but which providers are considered in-network may change. On January 12, Blue Cross NC filed a complaint that the request for proposals (RFP) put out by the treasurer’s office was inadequate. The office must either deny the appeal within ten days or schedule a meeting with Blue Cross NC to discuss their complaint.

Fair Representation

Oral arguments in the gerrymandering case Moore v. Harper took place at the United States Supreme Court on Wednesday. Lawyers for Republicans in the NCGA argued for the so-called “independent state legislature theory,” claiming that state courts should not be able to overturn election rules set by state legislatures for federal elections. Opposing lawyers emphasized that the Supreme Court’s accepting the independent state legislature theory would represent a radical departure from precedent and could risk state guarantees of fair elections. With the three liberal justices certain to reject the Republicans’ arguments and four conservative justices previously seeming open to the independent state legislature theory, the decision is likely to come down to Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, both of whom expressed skepticism about the theory during the oral arguments. You can find a full transcript of the oral arguments here.

Voting Rights