Neighbors on Call’s NC Policy Update for 9/26/22

Voting Rights

• Republican leaders at the NC General Assembly filed a request for a three-judge panel to oversee the next stage of the suit brought by the NC NAACP challenging the state’s voter ID constitutional amendment. Last month the NC Supreme Court ruled that state constitutional amendments may not be valid if they are proposed by legislators elected in unlawful districts, and they sent the case back to the trial court to use a three-pronged test to determine whether the amendments in question were legitimately included on the ballot. Republicans have requested that, rather than the trial court, which had previously agreed with the NC Supreme Court in deciding in the NAACP’s favor, a three-judge panel be appointed to apply the test. Three-judge panels are appointed by Chief Justice Paul Newby, a Republican.

Health Care Policy

• NC Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger said Tuesday that he was not satisfied with a counterproposal from North Carolina’s hospital lobby group in negotiations over Medicaid expansion. The North Carolina Healthcare Association had agreed to changes to the state’s certificate-of-need laws governing the establishment of new health care centers, but Berger said the proposal did not go far enough. Republican leaders in the NC General Assembly have only recently been willing to consider Medicaid expansion, but they are insistent on coupling it with multiple changes to health care regulations.