Category: News

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: 

1. 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. 
2. 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. 
3. 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. 
4. 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! 

Dear Friends –

This week turned out to be budget week. We learned that on Monday night, saw the two budget documents, totaling over 1300 pages, on Tuesday late morning, and took our first vote about 24 hours later. If you’re thinking, “Wow, that’s fast! How can legislators possibly know everything in the budget?” you’re right: it is fast (although normal for the NCGA) and we can’t know everything. We rely on our colleagues and the legislature’s non-partisan staff to help us understand the provisions, but we were all still learning about other provisions after we voted. It’s no way to pass the single most important piece of legislation we adopt.

So, what’s in the budget? Is it good or bad? How did I vote? I’ll highlight some items below but, as usual, the budget is a mix of good and bad. I will say that this was the least bad budget I’ve seen in my six years here and, even though we could be doing so much more, I voted for it.  Interestingly, the votes for and against the budget were bipartisan, not something we often see. The Good Let’s start with the fact that we have a budget for the first time in over 1000 days. That alone is pretty good, but there’s also more. Here are some things near and dear to me:

• Another $700,000,000 for Helene relief – private road and bridge repair, local government capital grants, cashflow loans, temporary relocation assistance funding for families whose homes are now being rebuilt, dam repair/removal, wildfire mitigation. It’s never enough, but what’s there is all good.
• Much needed support for childcare that answers the call from advocates
• Funding for food banks and Sunbucks that help feed kids during the summer
• Funding for land conservation, trails, and parks
• Funding for wildlife crossings – more than has ever been awarded before
• Hundreds of millions for water and wastewater infrastructure
• Funding for the Housing Trust Fund and workforce housing loans

The Wish It Were Better In my comments on the floor, I paraphrased Job and said this budget giveth and it taketh away. We did some good things, but they were either not good enough or the good came at the expense of something else. Here’s what I talked about:

• Funding to restart the Healthy Opportunities Pilot, which uses Medicaid dollars to help people address their upstream needs on housing, transportation, and food. BUT it’s not enough. WNC built a large and effective network to implement this program that served over 13,000 people and actually saved money on medical care. The legislature cut this program last year and has now funded it at only $9 million– a far cry from the $87 million it had before. This drop in funding also leaves over $200 million federal dollars on the table.  But at least HOP can get started again.
• We funded the additional costs for the SNAP/food stamps program imposed on the state as part of the federal HR 1 last year, so close to 1.4 million people in NC will continue to receive food stamps. BUT, we did not fund the increased administrative costs to counties, which will cost over $200 million annually across the state – an unfunded mandate from the feds and no help from the state. The state will also begin withholding sales tax from counties that have a high error rate, costing counties another $150 million annually.
• We put more money toward legal representation for poor people in criminal cases, BUT we took that funding away from groups like Legal Aid and Pisgah Legal Services that represent poor people in civil cases – domestic violence survivors, people trying to stay housed, Helene survivors trying to navigate a complex system.  Who will represent these people now?
• There is new money for attorneys in the Attorney General’s office, BUT those positions are time limited and are only so they can begin moving death row inmates more quickly toward execution. NC hasn’t executed anyone since 2006, and the system continues to be unjust and racially biased.
• We increased the tax on sports gambling revenue, BUT we also now allow gamblers to itemize and deduct their losses on their income taxes. AND we legalized prediction betting platforms, taxing them at a much lower rate and giving them a sweetheart deal. I predict sports gambling in NC will move to these platforms to take advantage of that sweetheart deal, and the current benefits NC realizes from sports gambling will evaporate.
• We increased the budget for every area of state government, BUT we cut over 700, mostly unfilled positions. Certainly, some of those could go, but there is no recognition that many of these were unfilled because of the state’s low salaries and that agencies need more people to serve our growing state.
• We gave raises to state employees across the board, including teachers, state troopers, and corrections officers who were woefully underpaid. Our starting teacher salary is now about in the middle of the 50 states rather than far below. BUT mid-level and senior teachers didn’t get as much, we gave out a lot of bonuses in place of larger increases, AND these raises were not retroactive to July 2025.
• We delayed the scheduled tax cuts, BUT they are still scheduled to start in 2030, going down from the current 3.99% to 2.99% in 2033, putting our fiscal future at risk.

Bottom line, this budget fills a huge and current need to bring our state spending up to date, and it funds Helene recovery at a significant level, and that’s why I voted for it. BUT there is still so much we need to do, can do, and should do. This is a budget born of a scarcity mindset rather than one of abundance, despite our abundant resources and abundant needs. Even outside of our reserve funds, we are sitting on $3 billion we could put to work today relieving economic pressure on North Carolinians, making food, healthcare, housing, and childcare more available and affordable; investing more in education and infrastructure; paying state workers what they are worth and filling empty positions rather than cutting them. We won’t get those investments now, but I will continue to advocate for them as long as I’m here.

Hemp

We also voted on the conference report for H358 that brings some regulation to the wild, wild west that is modern day hemp/CBD sales.  I got emails for and against this bill, and I ended up voting for it for the following reasons:

• The two provisions that become effective immediately are: 1) a ban on sales of these unregulated, intoxicating, possibly toxic products to people under 21; and 2) a ban on the sale of synthetic kratom. No one can reasonably object to keeping intoxicating products out of the hands of kids or banning a substance as dangerous as synthetic kratom. Natural kratom remains legal under this bill.
• The other provisions in the bill that would ban the sale of all intoxicating hemp products (but, importantly, not non-intoxicating CBD products) and make a number of substances illegal, do not become effective until November and December. That is when we will know whether these products will be banned at the federal level. If they are, then they would be banned here too. If they aren’t and congress adopts a reasonable regulatory scheme for their sale, we could do the same here.

So to be clear, nothing will be banned immediately if this bill becomes law. Your business will not be required to close and you can still access the products you use until this fall when there is a decision at the federal level. And we will keep kids from legally purchasing these products at the corner store – something we should have done years ago. Between now and the end of the year, I promise to work with my colleagues to prepare a broader set of rules regarding product labeling, testing, and transparency that we could put into place when we know what the federal government plans to do. I will note that the House adjourned today without voting on this conference report, so it has no chance of becoming law until the end of July and, if they don’t take it up, it won’t become law at all. Legislative Schedule We adjourned today until the week of July 27. When we come back then, we might vote on more veto overrides and more conference reports, as there is still legislative business to do.  I would anticipate we would be here only a few days and then adjourn again until after the election. Until late July, have a great 4th of July and do your best to stay cool!

Dear Friends – The legislative session has flown by with few fireworks since our first week when we saved the state’s Medicaid program.  We’ve passed some bills and a few have become law, but most are still caught up in negotiations or waiting games between the House and Senate. The big question, of course, is if or when we will see a budget. It seems somewhat certain that we will see a budget, but the date keeps getting pushed back, and now we expect it after the July 4 holiday.  We expect the budget to contain a mix of good and bad, as it always does – the only question is how much of each. Meanwhile, I’ve been working on my priority issues of housing and healthcare. Housing  The Senate just concurred on the Parking Lot Reform bill, which prohibits local governments from imposing mandatory parking minimums except in coastal counties. This is a huge step toward enabling more housing as it will facilitate more infill residential and commercial development, especially on small lots that could not handle current parking requirements. Some other housing provisions I’ve advocated, including allowing residential development in retail and commercial zoning districts and allowing the construction of accessory dwelling units (ADUs or granny flats) in residential areas, are included in the House version of the annual Regulatory Reform Act. That bill needs to be reconciled with the Senate’s version, which does not contain those provisions, so it remains to be seen if they will become law. I have also started the process of bringing together housing advocates from across the political spectrum to develop a common housing agenda for next year’s long session. I am hopeful that we can get some good things done next year. Healthcare  Several provisions I crafted are in S978 that passed two senate committees this month.  These provisions include whistleblower protections, limitations on non-disclosure agreements, and a ban on noncompete clauses for healthcare providers who work for hospitals. These provisions passed the Senate last year but fell victim to negotiations with the House, and that may happen again this year as well. Like the Energizer Bunny, however, I will keep going and going and going until it gets done. Next year, I will reboot my healthcare consolidation bill that addresses many of the issues our community experienced during  the sale of Mission Health as well as a revised and improved bill limiting the corporate practice of medicine in North Carolina. Other News and Office Visits  Earlier this year, the NC League of Conservation Voters awarded me their Senator of the Year award. NCLCV is a strong partner to legislators who care deeply about environmental protection, and I am grateful for their recognition.

As always, I meet with a lot of people when I’m in Raleigh. Here are some of those groups, and I again say thank you to those who make the trek from WNC to advocate with legislators. Oh, and we had a visit from a few Carolina Hurricanes who brought the Stanley Cup for us to see!

Lexi McGrath, Winner NC Art Educators (NCAE) NC Academy of Family Physicians

Land of Sky Realtors NC Association of Nurse Anesthetists

NC Academy of Physician Assistants NC Land Conservationists

NC Home Care & Hospice Advocates NC Stanley Cup

NC Obstetrical & Gynecological Society NC Dental Society

NC College of Emergency Physicians Asheville Area Habitat for Humanity

Town of Marshall Mayor Aaron Haynie Ryan Cody

Asian American Advocacy Day

NC Fire Fighters Day

I’ll be in touch again after July 4 to talk budget. Until then, I hope you all have a safe, relaxing, and fun Independence Day holiday! Julie

Hello Friends! It’s April, which means we are back in Raleigh for the legislative short session. We will be here probably through June, and we have several critically important things to do in this short period of time.

I’m happy to report that we did two of them yesterday:

1.     We fully funded the current fiscal year’s Medicaid program by appropriating an additional $319 million. We failed to do this last fall due to a spat between the legislature and Gov. Stein over how much funding was required. Turns out, the Governor was right, so we have now given the program what it needs so that the state can continue to pay doctors who treat Medicaid patients.

2.     We adopted a new funding mechanism to maintain Medicaid expansion and continue insurance coverage for the 690,000 people covered under the state’s Medicaid expansion program. This needed to happen because of the need to cover the administrative costs of tracking new work requirements imposed in last year’s federal HR1 and the self-imposed limitation to our Medicaid expansion program that no state dollars can be used to pay the state’s 10% match. Currently, the state’s match is funded by hospitals, but HR1 put limitations on that structure, putting our Medicaid expansion program at risk. The state, working closely with the NC Healthcare Association, worked out a new funding mechanism that should ensure Medicaid expansion remains intact.

This bill also includes some really problematic provisions, such as creating more administrative work for state DHHS employees and reporting undocumented individuals who apply for benefits to federal officials, rather than just denying the applications as they do now.

The third big thing we have to do this year is pass a comprehensive state budget – something we have not done since 2023. While we have passed several mini-budgets that address certain state expenses, we are the only state in the country that did not adopt a comprehensive budget last year. The failure to adopt a budget came down to differences between the House and Senate leadership over scheduled tax cuts and funding for a children’s hospital, and it is unclear the degree to which these differences will continue to derail budget talks. Gov. Stein proposed his budget on Tuesday, but it will likely have little influence on a final budget.

The fourth priority is another Helene relief bill. Gov. Stein proposed his Helene bill, which appropriates almost $800 million that has already been set aside for other things. I think his priority list is just about right.

The final big issue we have to tackle is how to fund the additional administrative costs of implementing SNAP (food stamps), also imposed by HR1. The last estimate I heard was that these additional costs run over $400 million annually. If we don’t find that money, 1.4 million people – including 600,000 children – will lose food stamps. That would be a devastating outcome for our state.

Trickle-down Deficits

I will note the dynamic we are seeing here:

• The federal government creating a number of costly, unfunded mandates that states must fulfill.
• Our state is struggling to find that funding because we are on track for a budget deficit starting in a couple of years due to the planned tax cuts. Those tax cuts also mean that the state has less money to make available to local governments for all sorts of things.
• Local governments across the state are struggling with increased costs of continuing basic services
• Now, the state is talking about limiting property taxes, which are the primary source of income for local governments.

It is unclear to me how federal and state leaders think local governments can keep basic services going without sufficient funding. I know lots of people like the idea of limiting property taxes because property values are increasing and property taxes are likely to as well, but I encourage you to think carefully before jumping on the bandwagon to limit property taxes. Limiting property taxes means local schools will get less money; teachers will get smaller pay supplements; firefighters, police officers, sheriff’s deputies, and other government workers will get smaller raises, if any; government services like trash pickup, parks maintenance, and recreation leagues, may be reduced.

At the very least, if the legislature is going to limit property taxes, then they need to give local governments more options to generate revenue, such as special sales taxes and a food and beverage tax. Asheville could generate millions of dollars with those additional sources of revenue.

North Carolina is the third fastest growing state. To me, that means we are in a time of abundance that could enable us to do important things like repair our schools, expand healthcare services, improve public safety, fund child care and expand early childhood education, and generally get out of the bottom of the barrel in things like teacher pay, per pupil spending, state trooper pay, correctional officer pay, and others. But none of that can happen if the current scarcity mindset continues.

My Priorities

My priorities in this short session are a couple of local bills for Woodfin and Weaverville, as well as statewide policy to expand housing and improve healthcare. More about those in a future newsletter.

Feel free to reach out to Irma or me if you need our help, and come see us while we’re here! I visited with several groups from WNC this week (see below), and would love to see you to. I will also refer you to my legislative website for information that might be helpful.

All the best,

Julie

Hello friends –

It’s been awhile since I sent any information about Helene recovery, but there are some important application deadlines coming up that I want to share. Please feel free to share the information below with your friends and neighbors who still need help recovering from Helene.

I also want to take a minute to comment on the murder of Charlie Kirk that happened on Wednesday. He and I did not likely agree on much, if anything. And I would put his voice in the category of those who are hateful at worst and unhelpful at best. Our public political discourse should not be filled with hate toward any one person or any group of people, and I wish everyone who takes that approach would act differently. But nothing he said can justify his murder, and his death further imperils all of us who spend our lives speaking publicly on politics or controversial issues. As a society, we have to re-learn how to disagree, even vehemently, without hate and certainly without violence. Simply put, we have to do better.

Julie

Upcoming Helene Recovery Program Deadlines

NC Private Road & Bridge Reimbursement Program – open for applications up to 6 months.

Oct. 28, 2025 – Deadline to apply for the next round of Small Business Infrastructure Grants (SmBIZ), which will be awarded on Oct. 30. Applications are open for this rolling grant opportunity for local governments.

Oct. 31, 2025 – Deadline to submit Residential Mitigation Intake Letter of Intent through the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program.

Dec. 1, 2025 – Deadline to apply for Infrastructure Advance Assistance through the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program.

Dec 31, 2025 – Deadline to apply for assistance with repairing or rebuilding homes impacted by Hurricane Helene through the Renew NC Single Family Housing Program.

Dear Friends,

Most of you know about the rollbacks of climate-related programs, research, and incentives by the Trump administration. It is a huge step back for our country, but there is still time to take advantage of these programs before they go away. So if you’ve been thinking about going solar, buying an electric vehicle, or upgrading your home with cleaner, more affordable energy, now is the time to act. You can save thousands of dollars up front, while also lowering your monthly energy bills for years to come.

Here are just three major tax credits that are good through the end of the year:

• EV Credits: Find out which new and used EVs still qualify for federal tax credits of up to $7,500 until September 30, 2025.

• Residential Clean Energy Credits: Claim 30% of the total cost of solar panels, battery storage, and geothermal systems if you buy by December 31, 2025.

• Energy Efficient Home Upgrade Credits: Make home energy upgrades, like insulation, windows, or efficient electric appliances, by December 31, 2025 to claim the credit.

See below for the full list of tax credits and when they expire.

For cities, towns, school districts, nonprofits, and other non-taxable entities: The federal government has opened a new pathway called elective pay (sometimes called “direct pay”), which allows you to receive the full value of certain clean energy tax credits as a cash payment. Click here for more information about elective pay.

Despite these big steps backward, let’s all do what we can to make progress toward a cleaner, more affordable future together.

All the best –

Julie

 

Hello friends!

We are now three weeks after the official adjournment of the General Assembly, so I want to provide you a brief wrap up of the session as well as talk about what’s happening now and what we anticipate over the next few months.

Session Wrap Up

While the legislature did pass two Helene relief bills, bringing the total state dollars allocated to $2.1 billion, and three of my legislative initiatives became law, over all it was a disappointing session. We passed far fewer bills than ever before, and most of that work happened in the last two weeks of session in June. This reduced volume makes it much more difficult to get anything passed, especially for Democrats. We also failed to pass a new state budget, that would have been in the $32-33 billion range, though we did pass a $1 billion mini-budget in July that funds some necessary things.

That mini-budget, however, failed to include funding for the Healthy Opportunities Pilot program, which has provided critical support for food, housing, and transportation for over 37,000 low-income families in NC, including over 10,000 people in WNC. Those services have now ceased, harming not just the service recipients but also the nonprofits that were delivering those services and WNC farmers who were providing tons of local food. The mini-budget also did not fully fund the state’s Medicaid program, so reimbursement rates for physicians and services will be cut, likely further reducing the providers who care for Medicaid enrollees.

The legislature also overrode most of the 14 bills Gov. Josh Stein vetoed. The Senate overrode 13 bills due to the Republican supermajority, but the House overrode only eight. The vetoes not overridden by the House – three DEI bills, a bill allowing concealed carry without a permit, and a bill requiring increased cooperation by state law enforcement agencies with ICE – remain on the table for possible overrides later if the House majority can catch enough Democrats absent to override. The final bill not overridden by either chamber was put into a new bill with the offending language removed, and that bill passed both chambers. Gov. Stein recently vetoed one additional bill, but neither chamber has met since then.

Sadly, one of the bills overridden repealed the state’s interim 70% carbon reduction goal originally established in H951, passed in 2021. I was deeply involved in the drafting and passage of that bill in my first term, and it is truly a step back for our state. Thankfully, the final goal of carbon neutrality by 2050 remains.

My Legislative Victories

I entered this session with three main priorities: passing legislation to make it easier to build housing, to reign in the corporate practice of medicine, and to reduce barriers for people coming out of prison. Again sadly, none of these initiatives moved forward. Some of my healthcare efforts were included in a Senate bill, but they were removed in final negotiations with the House.

That said, the three legislative initiatives below did pass.

1. I was successful in securing the de-annexation from the City of Asheville of a piece of property located about two miles outside of the city limits. This request came from a constituent whose business was destroyed by Helene who will use this property for his new office. (And yes, de-annexation requires an act of the legislature!)

2. Senator Moffitt and I worked hard to get additional general fund revenue for Buncombe County to reduce the tax increase they adopted. This is a temporary shift in school capital funds that can now be used for school capital or operating, giving the County more flexibility to fund our schools.

3. Thanks to the dedication of one of my Republican colleagues, Sen. Benton Sawrey, a provision I originally introduced last session related to establishing paternity finally passed. This change will fix a problem that has kept thousands of NC children from inheriting property from their fathers after their fathers die without a will and when the parents are not married. This problem came to me from a friend whose partner died without a will, leaving her with a young daughter. While they thought they had done everything required to establish his paternity, they were tripped up by a small and antiquated but important requirement that resulted in the daughter not being able to inherit anything from her father and all of his assets going to an adult child. Again, this particular requirement has disadvantaged thousands of people over the years, but our efforts removed it, making inheritance easier under these circumstances. I am grateful to my friend for bringing this to my attention and giving me the chance to fix it for others.

I will not let go of the other priorities but, again, since so few bills moved this year, it was hard for any of them to get traction.

What’s Next

The adjournment resolution we adopted at the end of July allows legislative leaders to call us back once a month until next April when we reconvene for the short session. While the House might go back into session in an effort to override the remaining vetoes, the Senate is not likely to reconvene unless there is a thaw in the House-Senate impasse on the budget. Until they can agree on the level of tax cuts, we will not see a budget this year. Hopefully, there will be some kind of resolution before next April, however, because next year we will need to pass a budget to address the new federal requirements for the SNAP (food stamps) program and Medicaid that begin in 2027. There’s been some good writing on this, but here’s a quick summary:

– NC will have to find $420 million annually or we will lose SNAP benefits for 1.4 million North Carolinians, including 600,000 children. Buncombe County has 29,000 people receiving SNAP. Even if we fund this, about 90,000 adults in NC will lose SNAP benefits due to changes in eligibility at the federal level.

– The new federal work requirements for Medicaid recipients will cost the state $150-$225 million to monitor.

– Since the funding formula for Medicaid expansion has changed, we will need to change our law to maintain Medicaid expansion. If we don’t, the 670,000 who joined Medicaid in NC in the last two years will lose their health insurance.

– Due to the work requirements and other federal changes to Obamacare over which we have no control, over 600,000 others in NC stand to lose health insurance.

We must act to continue providing food and healthcare to low income people, disabled people, the elderly, and children. But acting will require the House and Senate to resolve their budget differences. Whether and how they will remains to be seen.

What’s Happening Now

Not going to Raleigh every week means I get to be in Asheville and Buncombe County every week, meeting with folks, attending events, and working on more local issues – Yay!!!! Since July, I’ve worked on the UNCA woods controversy and the recent I-26 controversy, and I continue my work to hold HCA accountable for the care happening at Mission Hospital.

I also continue work on my main legislative priorities, looking for new paths and new partners to move things forward next year or in 2027. And the stream of email from constituents needing our assistance is never ending. So even though I’m not in Raleigh on a weekly basis, I’m still working hard on your behalf every day.

If you have a problem with a state agency or have a question or want to meet with me, please contact us and just ask. I will also remind you about my new legislative website that has resources and old newsletters that could be helpful as well. Thank you again for the privilege of representing you. Oh, and see below for some photos of groups that came to visit Raleigh earlier this year!

All the best –

Julie

Dear Friends –

Last week I shared descriptions of the bills I am going to work hard to pass. This week, I’ll share the “messaging” bills I’ve introduced that have no chance of moving forward. As I said last week, we introduce these because we feel strongly about an issue, it’s an important issue for our districts, or we want to send a message about the policies we would adopt and the state we would build if we were in charge.

But first, I have a new legislative website that is in addition to my NCGA webpage. This has additional information you might find helpful, plus all of these newsletters, so please check it out and share it around.

Also, we are coming up on some Helene-related deadlines you need to know.

·       April 7 – Deadline to apply for FEMA Individual Assistance, which can be used to pay for housing, repairs, and other needs caused by Helene.

·       April 7 – Deadline to apply for FEMA Public Assistance, which can help local, tribal, state government agencies, and certain nonprofit organizations offset costs associated with response and recovery.

·       April 27 – Deadline to apply for SBA Physical Property Disaster Loans, which can help WNC renters, homeowners, and business owners whose property was impacted by Hurricane Helene.

·       June 30 – Deadline to apply for SBA Economic Injury Disaster Loans, which are available to small businesses, small agricultural cooperatives, and most private nonprofit organizations.

There is also lots of data about how far WNC has come in the recovery. I’ve pasted some below, and here is a dashboard where you can check the continued progress.

·       More than 4,500 families received temporary housing support.

·       More than 1,300 roads repaired and reopened by the crews and contractors of NC Dept. of Transportation, including I-40.

·       More than 5.3 million cubic yards of debris cleared from right of ways helping first responders save lives and allowing people safe travel within their communities.

·       More than 97% of water and wastewater systems have been restored.

·       $150 million in loans to NC home and business owners through the Small Business Administration.

·       $20 million in state-funded grants and $15 million in philanthropic grant funding through the WNC Small Business Initiative.

Not Likely to Pass Legislation

S94 – Repeal the Death Penalty.  This is a personal passion – my first job after college was working against the death penalty for Amnesty International USA, and I have been committed to the fight ever since.

S166 – This bill should be titled, “A Ban on the Ban Banning Bans.”  This is in response to the enactment two years ago of a ban on local governments adopting ordinances to regulate food packaging like styrofoam and plastic bags. Asheville and Buncombe were poised to do just that, so this is an important statement for our community.

S199 – Housing Support for Hurricane Impacted Areas. This allocates $150,000,000 to the NC Housing Trust Fund for use in rebuilding homes in WNC. If any of this is actually allocated, it will be through the budget, so that’s where I’ll look for this in a couple of weeks.

S326 – Economic Security Act.  This does a number of things to support working people and families, including raising the minimum wage to $22/hour, requiring paid sick leave and family leave, mandating equal pay for equal work, and reinstating the child tax credit and earned income tax credit.

S381 – Equality for All.  This ensures equality for members of the LGBTQ community in all areas – housing, employment, public accommodations, education, banking, etc.

S398 – Prohibit Weapons at Polling Places. Enough said.

S406 – Allow ERPOs (Extreme Risk Protective Order). This is a red flag law that would allow a court to temporarily remove weapons from someone who is determined to be a danger to themselves or others. It would also allow law enforcement to remove weapons from a person who is the subject of a domestic violence protective order.

S407 – Prohibit Defense Based on Sex or Gender. This would prevent defendants in homicide or assault cases from claiming as a defense that they acted out of a belief or perception of the victim’s sex, gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity.

S438 – NC Adopt ERA.  Again, enough said.

S518 – Mobile Home Park Act. This gives residents of mobile home parks additional rights, including the right to form homeowner cooperatives.

S553 – Save More Tatas Act. This would create parity in insurance coverage for advanced breast cancer diagnostic imaging, like ultrasounds and MRIs, that are recommended for women with an elevated risk of breast cancer and/or dense breasts. This bill is personal for me since I have an elevated risk and get MRIs every year rather than simple mammograms. I pay for those MRIs whereas I wouldn’t pay for regular mammograms, and this bill would fix that.

I am a primary sponsor on several other bills, but in a supporting role, and I’ve cosponsored many, many more bills. You can see all the bills I’m supporting here.  I’ll keep you updated as any of my bills move forward on the long journey of becoming law. And here’s a fun flashback on how we learned how a bill becomes a law!

Julie

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

Dear Friends,

As you likely know, North Carolina was recently awarded $1.4 billion from Congress that will flow through the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development. This pot of money is called Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery or CDBG-DR, for short. It can be used for many purposes. You may also remember that the City of Asheville will receive a direct allocation of $225 million in CDBG-DR funding that is separate from the State’s pot.

Both the State and the City have to develop Action Plans that describe how they will spend the money they receive. The City is hosting public meetings, and you can find out more information about those here. The State is just starting its public input process, and below are the meetings scheduled for around the region. You can also find more information here on the Dept. of Commerce’s website.

I hope you can get to one of these meetings. The focus of the spending will be housing, infrastructure, and rebuilding the economy of the region, but there is more in the details.

Tuesday, Feb 18
2:00pm – 4:00pm
Isothermal Community College, Business Sciences Building, Room 15
286 ICC Loop, Spindale

Friday, Feb 21
10:00am – 12:00pm
Haywood County Historic Courthouse, 2nd floor, Waynesville

Monday, Feb 24
11:30am – 2:30pm
Office of Land of Sky Regional Council, 339 New
Leicester Highway, Suite 140, Asheville

Tuesday, Feb 25
10:00am – 12:00pm
High Country Regional Council Office, 468 New Market Blvd., Boone

Thursday, Feb 27
1:30pm – 3:30pm
Western Piedmont Council Office, 1880 2nd Avenue NW, Hickory

Friday, Feb 28
10:00am – 12:00pm
Centralina Regional Council Office, 10735 David T
Taylor Drive, Suite 250, Charlotte

All the best,
Julie