On Monday, North Carolina Senate leaders introduced a bill that would “bring much-needed balance and accountability to unelected boards and commissions,” according to a press release from Senate Leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham. Republicans have a supermajority in the state senate and what has been coined a “working supermajority” in the state House. House Republicans only...
Mitch Kokai, John Locke Foundation senior political analyst, discusses the debate in the N.C. General Assembly over school calendar laws. Kokai offered these comments during the Feb. 24, 2023, edition of PBS North Carolina’s “State Lines.”
Legislative leaders filed a motion Tuesday to take part in a federal lawsuit challenging North Carolina’s restrictions on abortion pills. Lawmakers took that step after N.C. Attorney General Josh Stein announced he would not defend state law in the case.
North Carolina legislators are planning a new push to legalize online sports betting in 2023. The Tar Heel state’s neighbors, Virginia and Tennessee, have already legalized online sports betting. In contrast, South Carolina and Georgia have refrained. Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, said he thinks there will be enough support this year for a sports...
State Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, wants to remove the state's Jim Crow-era literacy test for voters. It "ought to be out of our constitution," Berger said. In 1900, during Jim Crow, the literacy test requirement was added to the state Constitution.
Sen. Bill Rabon, R-Brunswick, has filed the NC Compassionate Care Act (S. B. 3), a bill that legalizes medical marijuana. It was the first bill filed in North Carolina’s state Senate on Wednesday, the first day of bill filing. Sens. Michael Lee, R-New Hanover, and Paul Lowe, D-Forsyth are also primary sponsors. Earlier this year,...
Having enacted major reforms of North Carolina’s tax code, regulatory system, budgeting process, transportation funding, and education system over the past dozen years, what should the General Assembly do next? Phil Berger wants to double down on the legislature’s impressive record of conservative policy innovation. “We must build on that success so future generations of...
Donna King, Carolina Journal editor-in-chief, discusses top leaders of the N.C. General Assembly for 2023-24. King offered these comments during the inaugural Jan. 13, 2013, edition of PBS North Carolina’s “State Lines.”
Asheville’s Mission Hospital will soon have a new competitor in Western North Carolina. That’s good news: when a single hospital system dominates a market, that rarely works to the advantage of patients, employers, or physicians. The bad news here, however, is that it was a state agency that chose which hospital network will build the...
Donna King, Carolina Journal editor-in-chief, asks Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, about potential abortion legislation in the 2023 N.C. legislative session. This exchange took place during the Nov. 25, 2022, edition of PBS North Carolina’s “Front Row with Marc Rotterman.”
North Carolina’s top legislative leaders believe a federal judge should dismiss a lawsuit that aims to add unaffiliated voters to the state’s elections board. House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, and Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, filed a motion Friday to dismiss the case Common Cause v. Moore.
