North Carolina Senate Democrats have filed a bill for what they call a $200 gas tax rebate. Only people with a valid driver's license would get the rebate. Senate Minority Leader Dan Blue, D-Wake, said they would not support permanently lowering income taxes for everyone. Instead, they call to use $1.3 billion or 20% out of the anticipated $4.2 billion of this year’s state surplus to pay for the rebates.
Republican legislative leaders will redraw legislative and congressional maps while still examining other options, after Democrats on the state Supreme Court found for the first time that partisan consideration in map-drawing can violate the state constitution. “We will redraw the maps,” Republican House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, said Monday. “What we’re doing right now is really...
Legislative Democrats and Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper are making it clear they will oppose the legislation to move North Carolina’s primary election date from May 17 to June 7. Legislative Republicans will vote this week to delay primaries by three weeks. It’s a move first reported by Carolina Journal over the holiday weekend. Cooper is...
Updated with news of the governor signing the budget, Senate Bill 105, 2021 Appropriations Act, into law. Gov. Roy Cooper on Thursday, Nov. 18, signed the $25.9 billion budget plan into law. It’s the first budget from the General Assembly that Cooper has signed since taking office in 2017. Both chambers passed the budget by...
As the N.C. House passed its new election maps Tuesday, Nov. 2, the Senate followed suit Wednesday, Nov. 3, passing new maps with a vote along party lines, 26-19. Sen. Ralph Hise, R-McDowell, one of three co-chairs of the Senate Redistricting Committee, said lawmakers didn’t use racial or election data as part of the criteria...
Eleven years after Republicans captured control of both state legislative chambers in the 2010 election, few Democrats remain who have ever served in a majority. Now their strategy is simple; oppose the majority. Having so few Democrats with experience in governing is making cutting a budget deal particularly difficult this year. “It is always...
Editor’s note: The Senate took a final 32-17 vote Friday morning to approve its budget plan. Senate Bill 105 now heads to the House. The N.C. Senate voted Thursday to pass the body’s state budget plan by a vote of 32-18, with four Democrats joining all Republicans in supporting the plan. Sens. Ben Clark, D-Cumberland,...
Democrats and their left-leaning allies offered the same criticism they have over every state budget Republicans have proposed over the last decade, beginning with their first budget after voters handed the GOP control of the General Assembly in 2010. Democrats say, as they have time and time again, that the GOP is not spending enough...
A measure that would keep charitable donors’ personal information private was approved in the N.C. Senate Tuesday. The 28-21 vote fell along party lines, with Republicans voting in favor of SB636. Despite assertions from some Democrats who said it could shield political “dark money” from public disclosure, the bill does not change the reporting requirements...
In Washington D.C., court-packing is a hot topic. U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., introduced a bill recently that would add four justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, taking the high court from nine members to 13. Markey rolled out the legislation at a press conference in front of the Supreme Court alongside U.S. House Reps. Jerrold Nadler,...
Addressing the N.C. Chamber of Commerce Government Affairs Summit, State Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, said the more than $4.5 billion surplus tax revenue North Carolina has in its coffers is both a “blessing and a curse.” Berger stated the $4.5 billion in surplus revenue does not include another $5 billion in federal COVID relief...
