Neighbors on Call's Weekly Policy Update for 8/9/21

COVID-19

• On Thursday the NC House passed HB 96, which authorizes pharmacists to administer vaccines, with an added provision from the NC Senate that requires minors to have written parental permission before receiving a vaccine authorized under emergency use by the FDA. Although the HB 96 passed the Senate unanimously and the House with only 5 votes against it, one of those nay votes came from Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, who had previously sponsored the bill but objected to the added provision. Governor Cooper previously expressed hesitancy over signing a bill with a parental permission requirement and has said he would seek DHHS advice.

Fair Representation

• On Thursday the NC House Standing Committee on Redistricting and the NC Senate Standing Committee on Redistricting and Elections met jointly to establish procedures and rules for the 2021 redistricting process. With filing for the 2022 elections opening on December 6 and census data scheduled to be released August 12, the committees have a short window of time to complete the redrawing of district lines. Even before the census data is released, however, the committees intend to begin proposing and debating redistricting criteria this week. The committees appear to intend to continue following procedures designed to increase transparency in the redistricting process that stemmed from a 2019 court decision. Public comments on the redistricting process can be submitted through the newly-opened public portal.

Education Policy

• The NC House’s proposed budget, parts of which were released on Thursday, includes several significant education policy changes. These include delaying the implementation of new social studies standards designed to be more inclusive of marginalized groups to at least the 2023-24 school year, requiring school districts to post teacher lesson plans and other instructional materials online, shifting the responsibility for curriculum updates from the State Board of Education to a politically appointed commission under Republican Superintendent of Instruction Catherine Truitt, and mandating the creation of “local community media advisory committees” by districts to evaluate challenges to instructional materials. The NC House is expected to debate its proposed budget in committee early this week and to vote on it on the House floor later this week.

Neighbors on Call's Weekly Policy Update for 8/2/21

COVID-19

• The NC Department of Health and Human Services announced that anyone working or volunteering at state-run health care facilities will be required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by the end of September or risk disciplinary action, including the possibility of job loss. Workers with approved medical or religious excuses will not have to comply with the vaccine requirement. Other health care systems, including Rex, UNC Medical Center and Duke Hospitals, are requiring that employees get vaccinated as a condition for employment.
  

• On Thursday, Gov. Cooper announced that all state employees who work in agencies in his cabinet will be required to verify they have been fully vaccinated for COVID-19 or undergo weekly tests and follow mask mandates. While this order will impact some 50,000 workers, it does not encompass employees in state agencies under the direction of other elected officials, such as the Department of Labor, the State Treasurer’s Office, and seven others. Nor does it apply to the judicial branch, the state legislature, and the state’s university systems. Leaders in these agencies have all voiced support for voluntary vaccinations but as yet have not decided to mandate vaccinations.

Voting Rights

• In an effort to improve state and county election system security, the NC Board of Elections announced that all 100 North Carolina counties will move voter registration data from the current network of computer servers to a cloud-based storage system. The migration will be complete by the end of the summer and is the first critical step in a multi-year process to “upgrade state and county election systems to improve security, usability and efficiency” according to the NCSBE. However, these upgrades depend on federal funding from the Help America Vote Act, which the state Senate’s proposed budget would eliminate.

Neighbors on Call's Weekly Policy Update for 7/19/21

Voting Rights

• A group of House Republicans is pushing to inspect North Carolina voting machines. Citing worries from constituents about voter fraud, the “Freedom Caucus” has asked to access voting equipment and software, claiming they want to “reassure” their constituents that nothing is amiss with the machines. The lawmakers were denied access to the machines by Karen Brinson Bell, North Carolina’s Elections Director, because such access would violate state laws and federal guidelines that restrict who can access elections infrastructure.

Education Policy and Economic Policy

• In a Wednesday news conference, Senate leader Phil Berger announced that the Senate will propose an anti-affirmative-action constitutional amendment. The amendment uses language from a similar California ballot initiative in 1996 that banned affirmative action: “The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, an individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education or public contracting.” The proposed amendment would appear on the next primary ballot and, if passed, is expected to significantly impact the number of underrepresented minority students attending the University of North Carolina as well as the percentage of state contracts awarded to minority- and women-owned businesses.

• During the same news conference, Berger also promoted a new bill that would ban North Carolina public schools from “promoting the idea that one race or gender is inherently superior to another and that someone is inherently racist or sexist because of their race or gender.” Berger spoke against “indoctrinating students” with critical race theory, even though critical race theory is not taught in any K-12 schools. The bill would be the NC Senate version of an anti-critical-race-theory bill already passed by the NC House (HB 324).

Environmental Policy

• The NC House passed a complex energy bill during a midnight session Wednesday night. The bill, HB 951, would set energy policy in North Carolina for the next few decades, and in addition to falling short of climate change targets advocated for by environmentalists, it contains controversial provisions that would take power away from the NC Utilities Commission, limit the state’s ability to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, and potentially significantly raise electricity rates. All but two Democrats voted against the bill, meaning that an expected veto from Governor Cooper would likely be sustained. The bill now goes to the Senate for consideration.

Criminal Justice

• A criminal justice reform bill that previously included changes to the rules governing release of body camera footage has dropped those measures. In earlier iterations, SB 300 would have mandated the release of body camera footage upon request to families of those shot by police, a reform from the current law that requires families to receive approval from a judge to gain access to the footage. Despite passing the NC Senate unanimously with those reforms intact in May, the bill’s language was changed in response to law enforcement pressure before it began its process through the House this week. After a discussion in committee, the body camera language was stripped completely from the bill, meaning that current rules would stay in place if the bill passed without further changes.