RALEIGH, N.C. — The North Carolina General Assembly wrapped up this year's chief work session Thursday after overriding Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper's vetoes, putting a constitutional amendment about citizens and voting on the November ballot and sending to Cooper's desk many additional bills.
Three politically controversial new bills are now law, as the state Senate voted to override Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper's vetoes Thursday following the House doing the same on Wednesday.
One bill would undo some of the juvenile justice reforms North Carolina implemented in 2019.
Another would allow billboard companies to cut down more trees on the side of the road, and would raise toll road late fees by as much as 50%.
The third is a wide-ranging bill that would change the rules for wearing face masks in public, enact new civil and criminal penalties targeting protesters, and change state campaign finance laws to create loopholes around North Carolina’s ban on making unlimited or anonymous financial contributions to political candidates.
But after two months of work, the Republican-dominated legislature stumbled by failing to pass a comprehensive budget adjustment measure for the next 12 months. Attempts at putting additional constitutional referendums before voters fell short. And bills on other contentious topics didn't get over the finish line.
“I wish we had been able to get more done. I think if we had gotten more done, we’d have a little more to talk about," Senate leader Phil Berger told reporters after his chamber passed an adjournment resolution. But, Berger added, "there was a lot of productive activity that took place."
The two chambers disagreed over how much more to spend when the fiscal year began July 1. That included whether state employees and teachers should get raises that are higher than what were already planned in the second year of the already enacted two-year state budget.
And while the House and Senate managed to approve $67.5 million to help for six months child care centers at risk of closing after federal grants expire, they couldn't agree on setting aside close to $500 million for scholarships and other funds for K-12 students to attend private schools or receive services. GOP leaders in the two chambers identified the funding as a leading priority to address a spike in applications — and children on waiting lists — this year after the General Assembly removed income limits to receive Opportunity Scholarships.
The Senate sent the House a standalone spending measure for those private-school programs, but House members wanted the private-school money accompanied by public school spending increases within a budget bill, House Speaker Tim Moore said. Now it looks like tens of thousands of families will miss out, at least in the short term.
“It would be a real shame and a missed opportunity if we don’t get those Opportunity Scholarship dollars out,” Moore told reporters earlier Thursday. “At the same time, we need to make sure we’re doing all that we can for our public schools.”
Moore said later Thursday he was hopeful that the money could be approved in time for the school year.
Lawmakers will still get another crack at these and other matters. The General Assembly formally agreed to reconvene occasional short sessions for the rest of the year mainly to address veto overrides or emergencies, but also to deal with larger matters.
The Republican leadership succeeded Thursday by overriding Cooper's three vetoes so far this year, extending a winning streak dating back to last year, when all 19 of Cooper's vetoes were overturned. The GOP holds small veto-proof majorities in each chamber. Following votes on Wednesday in the House, the Senate completed the overrides of measures that alter the state’s face masking policy, youth prosecutions and billboard maintenance rules.
The constitutional amendment heading to the ballot seeks to change language in the state constitution to clarify that only U.S. citizens at least 18 years of age and meeting other qualifications shall be entitled to vote in elections. Voting by noncitizens is already illegal, but some supporters of the amendment say the current language in the constitution could be challenged so that other people besides citizens could vote.
Other amendment questions only passed one chamber. The House approved an amendment that attempts to repeal a literacy test for registering to vote that was used for decades to prevent Black residents from casting ballots. It became unlawful under the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 and has been unenforceable. The Senate also approved a bill with two amendments — one to lower the cap on income tax rates from 7% to 5% and a second to make clear photo voter ID also applies to mail-in voting.
Legislators did have other successes in the final days. They sent to Cooper bills that would create new sex exploitation and extortion crimes and that would help fight human trafficking. And the two chambers backed a compromise measure that will allow the resumption of the automatic removal of criminal charges that are dismissed or that result in “not guilty” verdicts. Such removals had been suspended since August 2022 while problems carrying out the expunctions got resolved.
But negotiators failed to hammer out a final bill that would force sheriffs and jailers to comply with federal immigration requests to hold inmates believed to be in the country illegally. The House and Senate couldn't resolve what to do about a sheriff who still failed to comply, said Sen. Danny Britt, a Robeson County Republican and negotiator.
And an effort by the Senate to authorize the legal use of marijuana for medicinal purposes didn't get traction among enough House Republicans, even when the Senate attached it to another measure that placed tough restrictions on federally legal hemp products.
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