Dear Friends -
We have just wrapped up a 2-day session that will likely be our last until after the November election. Our adjournment resolution reserves one week a month that they can bring us back, but we don’t expect that to happen until mid-November.
We did some important things this week – we passed two more bills with corrections and changes to the big budget we adopted earlier this month, we passed some conference reports, and we passed two elections bills. We also adopted two provisions that advance my priority on housing, which is great! Let’s start there.
Build More Housing!
Tucked into the 53-page Regulatory Reform conference report are two provisions that will enable the construction of more housing in North Carolina. The first, that largely mirrors a bill Sen. Tim Moffitt and I introduced last year, will allow by right the construction of Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) in cities with 50,000 or more residents that are not in coastal counties (see p. 44 of the bill). While this is not the fully statewide bill we had hoped for, it is a good start, and we can expand the reach of it in later sessions. There are limitations on what local governments can and cannot require, but the big victory is that, starting in January, homeowners in the most populous cities can build these by right, meaning even if their local government doesn’t currently allow them. ADUs are generally smaller than houses, rent for less, and provide options for older and younger family members to remain close to home but still have some independence.
The other provision allows by right construction of housing as part of redevelopment in areas currently zoned for business, commercial, or light industrial. We called this Housing Near Jobs, and full implementation of this would help bring people closer to job centers. Even though this is how we built our towns and cities for decades, it makes some people nervous, so this provision was scoped down severely to only apply to Raleigh and Charlotte. These cities already allow this in many places, so it may be of limited usefulness for now, but it’s a foot in the door that we can work to improve in the coming session.
Again, these were two of my legislative priorities, so I’m happy to see them pass. The House needs to adopt the conference report next week before they become law, but we believe that will happen. More housing reform to come next year!
Elections Bills
We passed two elections bills: H384, which mainly fixes problems created by legislation we adopted in 2024; and H958 which, though not nearly as bad as some election bills we’ve seen, does some not great stuff. H384 passed unanimously. H958 passed along party lines. Here are the concerning provisions of H958:
- It cuts a full week of early voting – from 17 to 10 days - for primaries, special elections, and runoffs. Fewer days to vote matters, especially in primaries because, in a gerrymandered state like ours, primaries more often than not decide the general election winner.
- It hands a partisan official, the State Auditor, the power to audit the administration of every election. Importantly, these audits do not examine or review election results, just administration. Remember that the Auditor now oversees the State Board of Elections and county boards of elections, and that we’ve recently seen how that office politicized local board decisions to favor Republicans. So the concern is that the Auditor will use this new power in a similarly partisan manner.
- It creates a purge process built, in part, on federal data currently under litigation and known to be riddled with errors — the kind of bad data that flags people eligible to vote right alongside anyone else and can cancel your registration.
- Loosens the money-in-politics reporting rules across the board. The threshold for reporting independent spending jumps tenfold, from $100 to $1,000; 48-hour reporting doubles to $2,000; the local-candidate reporting exemption jumps five-fold to $5,000. While these changes will make campaign treasurers happy, because it means easier reporting, it’s also less disclosure and more money in the dark.
The House needs to agree to these changes next week for them to become law, and my guess is that Gov. Stein will veto H958, so the future of the bill is not at all certain.
Rest of the Year
Again, we are headed home likely until after the election. If we do come back, I’ll be sure to let you know what we do. But fear not, the work doesn’t stop, so please continue to reach out to Irma and me if we can help you.
Oh, and shout out to my constituent, Dr. Laurie Stradley, the CEO of Impact Health, for her appointment to the NC Partnership for Children!
Happy Summer!