Welcome to LWVNC's Legislative Update, distributed periodically to make members and supporters aware of key legislative actions in Raleigh, ranging from access to the ballot box to reproductive rights and more. We will rely on the expertise of LWVNC 1st VP Marian Lewin as our intrepid Voter Services leader to alert us about new bills and other initiatives. We hope you appreciate this information and look forward to your feedback. 
– Jennifer Rubin, 2nd VP and Communications Director, 

North Carolina opened the 2023 legislative session in January. This is the long session, which sets both the legislative agenda and the budget for the two-year period of this session’s cycle. The NC General Assembly is composed of 120 House members and 50 Senate members. The 2022 legislative elections have created a new balance of power in the legislature. Republicans in the Senate have a veto-proof majority, and House Republicans are one vote shy of the same.

As the legislature opened in early January, the leadership (Phil Berger in the Senate and Tim Moore in the House) have made strategic moves to strengthen their position to achieve their political agenda.

• The operational rules (HR 1 and SR 1) have been rewritten to make veto override votes more likely.
• The North Carolina Supreme Court, which flipped to a Republican majority following the 2022 elections, said Friday it would rehear a redistricting case and a voter ID case – cases that Republican NCGA leaders had lost previously. Hearings are scheduled for both cases on March 14. 
• Democratic Party caucus unity is being threatened as Republicans target Democratic lawmakers as co-chairs of key committees.

As we start our advocacy work, it’s important to consider the current reality of our legislative landscape. We need to be strategic in our outreach. We must recognize that volunteers and, more importantly, voters need to focus on a plan to protect our elections, our democracy, and our communities from legislation that will further damage us. We are going to face legislation that is driven by hate and misunderstandings. We need to be unified in order to be effective in opposing damaging legislation.

Both political parties will file hundreds of bills this cycle. Some are considered to be messaging bills, directed to their base and designed to shore up political support in advance of the 2024 election campaigns. Some issues were unfinished from last year and will reappear: Medicaid expansion, sports gambling, medical marijuana, educational funding. Gov. Cooper’s weakened veto power will encourage bills on more controversial issues: additional abortion restrictions, CRT/LGBTQ+ issues in schools, voting restrictions (photo ID, limitations on absentee ballots, attacks on election funding).

WRAL reporter Travis Fain summarized what we are likely to hear in the coming months:

“You may see disconcerting national media coverage noting that a controversial bill ‘passed first reading.’ All bills pass first reading. It simply means the bill has been filed and noted as filed on the floor of the House or Senate.

A much better sign that a bill has legs: If it gets a hearing in a legislative committee, which is a smaller group of lawmakers that hash out details on a bill. Better yet: If it passes committee. Better still: If essentially the same legislative language passes committee in both chambers.

Once bills leave committee, they must pass three readings each in the House and Senate to make it to the governor’s desk. Then the governor decides whether to and that bill into law, veto it and send it back to the General Assembly, which can try to overturn his veto, or to let it become law without his signature.”

You can follow some of these issues in the 2023 NCGA Bill Tracker file; we hope to continue tracking bills that are filed in the next few weeks. This is not a comprehensive list of all bills, but it does include voting, elections, and some other major issues followed by LWVNC.

There are a lot of bills targeted around education, health care, and specific counties and municipalities that are not included in this tracker. You can monitor the NCGA website Bills & Laws page to learn more. To learn more about when committees meet and what bills are heard, check the NCGA Calendar. Finally, this document can serve as a resource/explainer regarding following bills and the legislative process.

– Marian Lewin, 1st VP, LWVNC