Dear Friends,
Sorry for the long absence – things have been flying fast and furious here in the last month. But the bill filing deadline was Tuesday, so things will settle down some as we now begin the heavy lift of moving our bills through the legislative process. Today, I’ll give a brief update on several things and then talk about some of the bills I’ve sponsored this year.
Updates
This is old news now, but we should still celebrate that we passed and Gov. Stein signed into law H47, which is the first Helene Relief bill of 2025 and the fourth overall. With this bill, we’ve appropriated over $1.5 billion for relief efforts. This bill is perhaps the most important since it provides funding to get started the process of rebuilding homes and repairing private roads and bridges. With this funding, Gov. Stein’s administration can begin hiring contractors and creating the program to accept and process applications for this funding. These efforts will get $1.4 billion from the federal government in the form of CDBG-DR funding later this year, but H47 gets the ball rolling.
As with the other relief bills, this one did not contain grants for businesses, revenue replacement for local governments, or additional rental assistance. I will continue to fight for these in future bills.
Also last week, Gov. Stein introduced his budget for the next two years. It makes strong investments in state personnel, education, and working families. For more detail, see here. Now, this budget is far from the final budget, and legislative leaders will not use this even as their starting place because their budget will include pending tax cuts. You should know that the state Office of Management and Budget predicts the tax cuts will put the state in a budget deficit starting in 2026 that will only grow worse each year after that. Unless that revenue is replaced somehow, we will have to start cutting programs and staff. Republican leaders say this won’t happen, so we will soon see how they plan to deal with the revenue reduction.
Legislatively, we have passed several controversial bills in the last month, including the following:
- S50 eliminates the need for a concealed carry permit and lowered the age for concealed carry to 18. This means people will no longer have to apply for the permit, go through an eight-hour course on laws governing guns, gun safety, and how to load/unload and shoot the gun, and then pass a test. There is a similar bill in the House, so chances are good that something will pass this year. In the Rules Committee, I got a little feisty when responding to another senator who suggested that we don’t require anyone in any other context to go through any education before exercising a constitutional right. Well, he’s not quite right about that.
- S261 eliminates the interim goal of reducing carbon pollution from utilities by 70% by 2030. Functionally, that deadline had already slipped to 2035, but the Senate voted to do away with it altogether, though leaving in place the 2050, 100% carbon neutrality goal. I was one of three senators who helped negotiate H951 in 2021 that established those goals, and I led our advocacy against S261, but to no avail. Hopefully, it will get stuck in the House.
- S58 restricts the ability of the NC Attorney General, currently Jeff Jackson, from challenging presidential executive orders. Ridiculous, as AG Jackson’s work so far may ensure billions of federal dollars continue to flow to NC, saving jobs and helping North Carolinians.
- S227 eliminates diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in public schools. There is another bill that does the same in higher education, but we have not heard that yet.
Finally, we’ve had several advocacy days here this year – doctors, nurses, social workers, teachers, etc. This past Tuesday was Rainbow Repro Day that celebrated both women’s reproductive freedom and LGBTQ equality. I am the lead sponsor on several of these bills and you can see my comments at the press conference here. I also appear in this piece speaking against a new and worse version of HB2.
Legislation
Every session, legislators introduce two different kinds of bills: those they really think could and should be adopted, and those they know won’t be adopted but are important statements (otherwise known as “messaging” bills). I have a number of both kinds, and this week I will share the bills I am going to spend the rest of session really trying to get passed.
Housing: Republican Sen. Tim Moffitt and I have introduced four bills that will make it easier to build housing, thus helping address our perpetual housing shortage.
- S492 would allow for construction of multifamily buildings up to 32 units with only a single staircase rather than the normally required two. Two is the standard for fire safety, and I’ve already heard opposition from our firefighters, but several cities in the US and Europe have adopted these building code changes with no ill effect on resident or firefighter safety.
- S495 would require most local governments to allow accessory dwelling units (ADUs) in all residential districts.
- S497 would allow more middle housing through the construction of a multifamily building of up to six units in all residential districts.
- S499 would allow residential construction in any commercial/office/retail zoning districts, thus allowing more housing near jobs.
Healthcare: I am a primary sponsor on three bills, two of them with Republicans, all of which stem from our collective experience as a community during and after the sale of Mission Hospital.
- S532 – For the second time, Sens. Burgin, Corbin, and I introduced this bill to govern the process by which hospitals and healthcare systems merge, creating the kind of transparency and opportunities for public input that we never had in the Mission deal. It also gives the Attorney General, the State Treasurer, and the State Auditor each a role in reviewing the proposed deals and imposing conditions to ensure the cost, quality, availability, and accessibility of healthcare do not diminish in the wake of the sale.
- S673 creates whistleblower protections for healthcare professionals and makes clear that non-disclosure agreements cannot prevent these professionals from disclosing information related to patient safety, ethical violations, or illegal activity. The bill also prohibits noncompete clauses for healthcare professionals who work for hospitals and hospital systems.
- S570 clearly prohibits the Corporate Practice of Medicine in NC by restating the type of business entities medical practices must be and by banning the “strawman” or “friendly physician” structure that big healthcare companies and private equity have used to get around state prohibitions on the corporate practice of medicine. This bill will be challenging to move forward, but the two physicians in the House, both Republicans, are supportive and plan to introduce it there as well.
Second Chance: These bills are intended to reduce the barriers for people coming out of prison who are trying hard to rebuild their lives. Honestly, only the first of these has a chance of passing, but I’m listing the others here because they also need to happen someday.
- S564, the Public Safety Through Food Access Act, would lift the ban on SNAP/TANF benefits going to people convicted of drug related felonies. Currently, NC law doesn’t allow most of these people to access to these food programs, which only increases the risk of recidivism.
- S334 would repeal the antiquated, harmful drug tax law that keeps people in debt for failure to pay taxes on illegal drugs. You read that right – NC requires people in possession of illegal drugs to obtain a stamp from the Dept. of Revenue, which of course no one does. Then they get hit with the tax liability for failure to acquire the stamp. The NC Justice Center has more information if you’re curious.
- S529, the Second Chances Success Act, would eliminate just a couple of the dozens of fines and fees people involved in the criminal justice system have to pay, again, making it hard for them to get ahead. It also prohibits extending someone’s probation solely for failure to pay the $40/month probation supervision fee.
I am also working with Sens. Moffitt and Daniel to pass S131, which would change some tax rules to give Buncombe County about $12 million more revenue than they would otherwise have this year. Note that this bill will need to be amended to clarify that the school capital funds can only be used for school operating or capital, not just anything.
That’s it for now. More next week!
Julie
