Neighbors on Call's Weekly Policy Update for 9/6/21

Governance

• A bill limiting the governor’s power to unilaterally issue or extend executive orders during an emergency was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee along party lines and is likely to be included as a policy provision when the legislature completes its final budget proposal. HB 264 would require the governor to get approval from a majority of the Council of State members within 7 days of issuing these orders. Republicans assert that the power to issue these orders should not rest with one person. Democrats argue state law already provides a check on this power through the court system and veto overrides.
  

Voting Rights

• An injunctive order issued by the Wake County Superior Court that would have immediately expanded voting rights to people on parole or probation for a felony was “stayed” without comment by the NC Court of Appeals while Republican state lawmakers’ appeal of the ruling is pending. The Superior Court had granted the injunction under the presumption that the law as written would be found to be racially discriminatory. The plaintiffs immediately appealed the Court of Appeals decision to the NC Supreme Court, asking that the high court restore the injunction pending final resolution of the case.

Fair Representation

• Gov. Cooper vetoed SB 636, a Republican-sponsored bill limiting public disclosure of donors to NC-based nonprofits. Republicans claimed the measure would protect free speech and free association rights and prevent the harassment of donors by those who disagree with them. Democrats had argued that the measure was unnecessary and would limit efforts to trace “dark-money” political contributions. Only one Democrat in the House supported the bill, making it likely that the Governor’s veto will be sustained.
  

Economic Policy

• According to NC Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger (R-Rockingham), the legislature is unlikely to agree on a new state budget before the end of September. The House and Senate must reconcile differences in their respective bills before sending a bill to the governor, who must then decide whether or not to veto the budget. The new fiscal year started on July 1, 2021, and the state continues to operate under the 2018 budget.

Education Policy

• A controversial bill setting limits on how race and racism can be discussed in schools in North Carolina passed the legislature on a party-line vote and has been sent to Gov. Cooper. HB 324 was a priority of Republican legislators, who claimed it is needed to prevent “fringe concepts on race and racism from seeping into the state’s education system.” Democratic legislators were unanimous in condemning the bill as an attempt to prevent teachers and students from openly examining crucial aspects of the history of racism and its impact in the United States. Republicans do not have sufficient votes to override the governor, who is expected to veto the legislation.
  

• Gov. Cooper signed a wide-ranging coronavirus-related education bill that, among other things, requires school boards that mandate masking to vote monthly on whether or not to continue to require masking. SB 654 had near unanimous support in the state legislature.
  

Health Care Policy

• Gov. Cooper signed SB 693, legislation that makes changes to North Carolina’s foster care system, specifically reducing the time it takes to complete the process for either reuniting children with parents or finding permanent homes when parental rights are severed by a judge. The new law also asks the NC Department of Health and Human Services to determine the cost of creating a centralized hot line for reporting child abuse and neglect.

Gun Violence Prevention

• Gov. Cooper vetoed HB 398, “Pistol Purchase Permit Repeal.” The bill would have removed from state law a requirement that handgun buyers get a purchase permit from their local sheriff. Republican sponsors of the bill argued the purpose of the bill was to end Jim Crow era efforts to prevent Black North Carolinians from purchasing guns, but gun violence prevention advocates and the NC Black Alliance said the real purpose of the bill was to undermine state gun safety laws and mollify the gun lobby.

LGBTQ Rights

• The 4th Circuit US Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that North Carolina state employees who are transgender can sue the state for denying them the right to use their state health insurance to pay for gender-affirming care, including surgery, treatment and transition care. One judge on the three-judge panel wrote a dissenting opinion calling for the US Supreme Court to act quickly to “correct the constitutional error here.”

Criminal Justice

• Gov. Cooper signed three bipartisan criminal justice reform bills into law. Among other things, the new laws enhance police enforcement oversight, provide mental health resources for officers, and create a public database to track officer misconduct. The governor, legislative and law enforcement officials, and criminal justice advocates praised the new laws but agreed more action is needed.

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Voting Rights

• A three-judge panel in Wake County Superior Court heard arguments in a case challenging North Carolina’s felony disenfranchisement law. Under the current law, felons who are released from incarceration can vote, but not until they have completed all requirements of parole or probation. Plaintiffs argued that this process, which can sometimes take years, disproportionately impacts persons of color. If the court rules in their favor and restores voting rights immediately upon release from prison, approximately 56,000 people would regain the right to vote.

  • BREAKING UPDATE:

Fair Representation

• The NC legislature has begun the process of redistricting, using 2020 census data to draw new state and federal voting maps. Based on the results of the 2020 census, North Carolina’s population is both bigger and more diverse, and more people now live within cities and suburbs than in small towns. These shifts have implications for the political future of the state.. Democrats are calling for transparency as the legislature’s redistricting committees discuss when and how to conduct public hearings. A special report from NC Policy Watch, “Demystifying the redistricting process,” provides an overview of what we can expect in the coming months.

• A bill that would require certain nonprofit organizations to get written permission from a donor before making the donor’s identity public passed the NC House on a party-line vote. Supporters insist the intent of the bill is to protect privacy, but opponents of SB 636 fear the law would make it harder to trace special interest and “dark-money” contributions to political advertising. If the NC Senate agrees to minor changes made by the House, the bill will go to Gov. Cooper, who can sign, veto or allow the bill to become law without his signature.

Environmental Policy

• The Senate Agriculture, Energy and Environment Committee voted to confirm Elizabeth Biser for secretary of the NC Department of Environmental Quality. If, as expected, the full Senate approves her nomination this week, Ms. Biser will become the first woman to lead the department.

Health Care Policy

• On Friday, Governor Cooper signed a bill that will allow pharmacists to administer some injectable drugs without a prescription. They will also have expanded authority to dispense certain treatments that still require a prescription. HB 96 also clarifies that until the COVID-19 vaccine gets final US FDA approval, written parental consent is required for children under age 18 to receive the vaccine. The new law will be in place when and if an existing federal emergency order giving pharmacists expanded vaccination authority ends.
  

Gun Violence Prevention

• A bill that would repeal North Carolina’s pistol purchase permit law passed the NC Senate without any Democratic support. HB 398 had already passed the NC House and will now go to Governor Cooper. The Governor has vetoed all past attempts to relax state gun laws.

Women’s Rights

• A bill banning 14- and 15-year-olds from marrying in North Carolina will go to Governor Cooper for his signature. The final version of the bill, which had already passed the House, passed the NC Senate unanimously.

Criminal Justice

• With near unanimous agreement, the NC House passed a bill that would raise the minimum age for juvenile prosecutions so that 6- and 7-year-olds could no longer be charged with a crime. SB 207 passed after lawmakers in the House made changes to the Senate bill, which had raised the minimum age for criminal prosecution to 10 years. The bill will go back to the Senate, which may decide to accept the change or require further negotiations.

• The NC House approved a criminal justice reform bill that originated in the NC Senate last May. Among its many changes, SB 300 requires that police officers intervene and report if they see a colleague using excessive force, creates non-public databases to track problem officers, and requires the State Board of Investigation to investigate deaths in prisons and jails as well as those involving police officers when requested by the Governor or selected other government officials. The bill also changes the access to officers’ body-worn and dashboard cameras, making it easier for family members to request the footage. The bill was changed to remove a section dealing with punishments for rioting. That issue is now part of a separate bill, HB 805, sponsored by House Speaker Tim Moore. This bill has drawn the ire of critics who believe it is a direct response to “Black and brown people taking to the streets” and would have a chilling effect on First Amendment rights.

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Fair Representation

• On Thursday the NC General Assembly set criteria for the redistricting process. Criteria created by Republican leadership, who mostly ignored input from Democrats, included the banning of use of data from previous elections, partisan registration data, and data about race in the redrawing process. Democrats pointed out that even if these data sets are not directly loaded onto the redistricting systems, outside groups will run such analyses and provide input to legislators outside of the official, nominally transparent process, and they advocated for conducting analyses using race data after the initial draw to ensure compliance with the Voting Rights Act.

Voting Rights

• North Carolina will pilot a risk-limiting postelection audit in this fall’s elections. This type of audit samples ballots from across different voting methods, allowing for transparency and assurance in the validity of the results. Depending on the results of the pilot, the method may replace the state’s existing “sample audit” (a hand recount of two randomly selected precincts) in future elections.

Economic Policy

• On Wednesday evening the NC House voted 72-41 to give final approval to its $25.7 billion budget. Democrats did not have an opportunity to see the budget until it was made public. Below is a summary of several noteworthy aspects of the House budget:

  • The budget does not include Medicaid expansion, a key priority for Governor Cooper and legislative Democrats. The Senate budget also does not include Medicaid expansion.

  • Raises for teachers are budgeted at 5.5% over the next 2 years, and state employee raises are budgeted at 5% over the same period. These are greater than the raises included in the Senate budget (3% for both categories) but lower than the 10% teacher raises proposed by Governor Cooper.

  • The House budget includes tax cuts, but they are slightly less extreme than those included in the Senate budget. The personal tax rate would be cut from 5.25% to 4.99%, the corporate tax rate would be cut from 2.5% to 1.99% (but not entirely eliminated as in the Senate budget), and the standard deduction for joint filing would be increased from $21,500 to $25,500.

  • The bill includes education policies that do not deal with spending, including a requirement that schools list all instructional materials online and a mandate for school boards to set up community advisory committees to evaluate complaints about those materials.

  • Democrats objected that the budget did not include enough funding to pay for programs stemming from the consent decree of the Leandro court case, which establishes a minimum plan for meeting the state’s constitutional requirement to provide a sound education,

  • Though State Board of Elections Director Karen Brinson Bell asked for the authorization of $2.8 million in federal funds for election security, the House budget did not include this. Unlike the Senate, however, the House did not say that 30 positions with the SBE would need to be cut.

  • The House included funds for 5 positions in a new emerging compounds unit compared to 10 budgeted by the Senate. Additionally, the House budget allocates funds for resilience and flood control but also eases rules that support resilience and flood control.

  • Democrats argued that the House budget did not include funding to combat climate change and support clean energy projects.

Gun Violence Prevention

• On Tuesday the Senate Judiciary Committee passed HB 398, which would make handguns easier to buy. The bill would repeal North Carolina’s pistol purchase permit law, which currently requires people wishing to buy handguns to get permits from county sheriffs. The North Carolina Sheriffs’ Association supports the repeal of the permit law, but advocates for gun violence prevention condemned the bill, since the permit requirement is often the only check on people purchasing handguns from unlicensed dealers.

Women’s Rights

• The House passed a bill raising the minimum age for marriage in North Carolina from 14 to 16 years. The state currently has the lowest minimum marriage age in the nation, but this bill would change that. In addition, 16- and 17-year-olds would only be allowed to marry someone with a maximum 4-year age difference.