RALEIGH — The House Elections Committee approved a proposed constitutional amendment that would have candidates for governor and lieutenant governor run as a team. It also backed measures shifting elections for appellate judges and local school boards from nonpartisan to partisan races.
RALEIGH — The bill would lower the franchise tax rate — imposed on all businesses in North Carolina — from $1.50 per $1,000 to $1.35 per $1,000. It would raise the minimum franchise tax from $35 to $200. For holding companies, the bill would double the maximum franchise tax from…
RALEIGH — State Sen. Bob Rucho says the state law scheduling North Carolina’s 2016 presidential primary on the Tuesday following the South Carolina primary would not interfere with the delegate selection process in the earliest states — Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina — and he thinks North Carolina…
RALEIGH — House Bill 457 would schedule the state’s presidential preference primary on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in March. An election law passed in 2013 set the presidential primary on the first Tuesday after South Carolina holds its primary, which takes place on a Saturday. North Carolina’s…
RALEIGH — On Thursday, Sens. Bob Rucho, R-Mecklenburg, Bill Rabon, R-Brunswick, and Jerry Tillman, R-Randolph, introduced a bill that would cut the personal income tax rate over two years from 5.75 percent to 5.5 percent. It also would cut the corporate income tax rate from 5 percent to 4 percent over…
RALEIGH — A House education committee on Tuesday gave its OK to House Bill 133, a measure increasing the scholarship amount available to special needs students who attend private schools from $3,000 per semester to $4,000. It also approved a change allowing families receiving those scholarships to collect the money…
RALEIGH — Dozens of Triangle-area middle- and high-schoolers and their parents could be looking for another school next year if the State Board of Education closes the Dynamic Community Charter School — a school intended to fill a void for disabled children who have not fit in at traditional public…
RALEIGH — The new rule says that updated versions of legislation to be considered in committee — in legislative jargon known as a proposed committee substitute, or PCS — must be transmitted to committee members and to the bill’s sponsor by 9 p.m. the night before a committee meeting. House Rules…
RALEIGH — As landowners wait to see if the N.C. Department of Transportation will appeal a recent decision enhancing property rights along highway corridors, lawmakers in Raleigh have filed bills that would limit the grip of the state’s Map Act or eliminate it altogether. The Map Act’s current three-year timeframe virtually…
RALEIGH — Gov. Pat McCrory called on lawmakers to honor a promise to increase starting teacher salaries to $35,000 and included salary boosts for state troopers and corrections officers Thursday as he unveiled his $21.5 billion General Fund budget for the 2015-16 fiscal year. Budget director Lee Roberts said the…
