Just when you think you’ve seen everything in the North Carolina General Assembly, lawmakers find a way to surprise you. Today, something new (to me, anyway).
— Bryan Anderson
🧑⚖️ Roll Call
- The Rules Committee bends the rules
- Stein signs a mini-budget…
- …and vetoes a school vouchers bill
- The saga of the shrimp trawling ban
Exception to the Rules Committee
After a long day of veto overrides last week, one House member rose with an unusual announcement.
“The Rules Committee will have an extremely brief meeting right here around the desk immediately after session,” Chairman John Bell of Wayne County said on the House floor on July 29.
Then the group gathered around his desk. There was no committee room or way to view the proceedings online. I was standing about 10 feet away, and I could barely make out what lawmakers said.
In less than six minutes, Rep. Reece Pyrtle of Rockingham County presented a bill aiming to address long lines at the DMV, and the gathered lawmakers voted it out of the committee.
“That’s the first time I ever experienced that,” Pyrtle said. “I just did as I was asked and shared the information on the bill.”
It wasn’t until the meeting ended that an email notice went out about the gathering, according to records obtained by The Assembly. Some lawmakers and political observers wondered why House leadership allowed this unusual process for a seemingly innocuous two-page bill that the Senate couldn’t even consider for another month.
The House Rules Committee is the most influential panel in the chamber since it’s the final stop before bills make their way to the House floor.
North Carolina’s open meetings law states that “each official meeting of a public body shall be open to the public, and any person is entitled to attend such a meeting.”
Legislative officials say that threshold was met because Bell made a public announcement about the meeting on the House floor and anybody in the public viewing gallery who wanted to attend could have stayed put or walked to the chamber floor to hear what was happening.
While transparency advocates and government watchdogs agree the letter of the law was likely met, they say the spirit of it wasn’t.
Pate McMichael, director of the North Carolina Open Government Coalition, said House GOP leadership showed “very poor judgment” and ought to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
“Do they have a legal right to hold a meeting on short notice at a place of their choosing? Yeah, they do,” McMichael said. “But that’s not the standards they’ve been setting for themselves.”
Bell said last-minute Rules Committee meetings on the chamber floor “used to happen all the time.”
According to the House Rules Office, former Rules Chairman Tim Moore held meetings on the floor five times, while ex-Rep. David Lewis did so at least once. Elections and finance committee meetings have gathered inside the chamber as well.
House Speaker Destin Hall said that he never held meetings on the floor when he was rules chairman and that he worked to make the legislature more accessible through video streaming.
“It’s probably better to do committee meetings in the committee room,” Hall said.
He added, “It’s not something that I think we want to make a practice of just having committee meetings in random places across this complex, and I don’t think it’s going to become a pattern or a practice.”
— Bryan Anderson
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The Itsy Bitsy Budget
Gov. Josh Stein on Wednesday begrudgingly signed what he dubbed a “Band-Aid budget.”
While the spending plan addresses some of the state’s most pressing needs, including DMV funding and adjustments to teacher pay based on years of service (but no base salary raises), it’s a fraction the size of a typical two-year budget.
“We have so much going for us here in North Carolina, but we cannot just rest on our laurels, do the bare minimum, and expect to continue to thrive,” Stein said in a statement. “The General Assembly needs to get serious about investing in the people who make this state great.”
While the mini budget passed with strong bipartisan support, it includes a number of items Democrats disliked, such as the D.A.V.E. Act—a priority of Senate leader Phil Berger that would create a DOGE-like entity led by Republican State Auditor Dave Boliek.
The new Division of Accountability, Value, and Efficiency has until the end of the year to send lawmakers a report recommending state agencies/divisions/offices that should be dissolved and government positions that should be eliminated.
The measure also gives the North Carolina State Board of Elections $15 million for IT enhancements, $1.5 million to hire private attorneys, and $1.2 for new political appointees in senior management roles.
— Bryan Anderson
Stein Vetoes Bill Opting into Federal School Vouchers
In late July, the General Assembly’s Republican majority raced to pass a bill that would commit North Carolina to participating in the federal school voucher program authorized under President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill.
The state was poised to be the first to opt in to the program—a long-time goal of the school privatization movement—until Gov. Josh Stein hit the brakes. On August 6, he vetoed House Bill 87.
In a statement this week, Stein said he supported school choice, but, “Cutting public education funding by billions of dollars while providing billions in tax giveaways to wealthy parents already sending their kids to private schools is the wrong choice.”
Read our explanation of the voucher program here.
— Carli Brosseau
The Rapid Rise and Fall of N.C.’s Proposed Shrimp Trawl Ban
Last-minute changes made to legislation in the state Senate in June would have banned all shrimp trawling in the state’s inshore waters and within a half-mile of the shoreline for four years. The backlash was swift and effective.
After a hastily organized lobbying campaign from shrimpers and their allies, the legislature put the trawling ban on ice—for now. But the dust-up stirred longstanding tensions between commercial and recreational fishermen and fueled frustrations with how Senate leaders handled the whole affair that haven’t faded.
“I understand you intend to revisit this issue and pursue a ban on shrimp trawling in the future,” Dare County Board of Commissioners Chairman Bob Woodard wrote in a June 30 letter to Senate leader Phil Berger, a fellow Republican. “If that is the case, I respectfully ask that you do so with transparency, fairness and a willingness to hear all voices—especially those directly impacted.”
— Corinne Saunders
Upcoming Birthdays: Sens. Phil Berger, Bob Brinson, and Vickie Sawyer on Friday, Aug. 8.
Let us know what’s on your radar at politics@theassemblync.com.