Central Carolina Black Nurses Council
Legislative Briefings
These legislative briefings are compliments of Rep. Carla D. Cunningham
November 2018 Briefing
The General Assembly is in recess. We are set to return on November 27 to continue our 2018 Short Session. This is an extremely unusual late-year session that will likely feature attempts by the outgoing Republican supermajorities to pass controversial legislation while they still have the votes to override Governor Cooper’s vetoes.
In this year’s statewide contests, four constitutional amendments passed and two failed. The four that PASSED are:
- Creating a constitutional right to hunt and fish;
- Expanding existing crime victims’ constitutional rights;
- Requiring a photo identification to vote in person; and
- Capping state corporate and individual tax rates at 7%.
The two proposed amendments that FAILED are:
- Creating a new evenly-divided Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement with appointments controlled by legislative leaders; and
- Filling judicial vacancies with interim appointments controlled by legislative leaders to serve extra-long terms before the voters can vote on who fills the seat.
North Carolina also voted on a NC Supreme Court seat and three seats on the NC Court of Appeals. You may remember that Republicans have fought hard to make these elections (and all judicial elections) partisan so it’s a little ironic that Democrats won all four races. I continue to believe judges should be independent and their elections non-partisan.
All seats in the State Senate and State House were also on the ballot. Results are not final yet, but Republicans won majorities in both chambers and Democrats gained enough seats to break the current supermajorities. The likely final margin is 29 Republicans and 21 Democrats in the State Senate and 65/66 Republicans and 55/54 Democrats in the State House.
What does breaking the supermajority mean?
- No more constitutional amendments unless there is bipartisan support.
- No more special sessions unless there is bipartisan support.
- If Governor Cooper vetoes a bill, there are now enough Democratic votes to sustain that veto (and prevent the bill from becoming law) even if all Republicans vote to override the veto.
Thank you to everyone who took the time to vote and encouraged or worked to get others to do the same!
May 2018 - Briefing From NC Advocacy Team
5/16/18
Today at noon, the NC Legislature convened the 2018 Legislative Session. This year is the “short session” which means lawmakers have limitations on the bills they may consider, and their primary task is to adjust the state budget. Over the past several weeks, legislators started meeting to discuss the budget and it is expected that things will start to move quickly over the next few weeks.
We invite you to join us for a day at the Legislature. You’re the Cure at the Capitol lobby day is June 5. Registration is still open. If you haven’t registered yet, please do so now!
We will be asking lawmakers to build a healthy and strong North Carolina. It’s time to close the health insurance coverage gap for the 340,000 North Carolinians without access to affordable health care coverage. For our youth, lawmakers need to invest in strong physical education (PE) programs. All students need PE to help them learn how to be physically active throughout their lives.
Throughout session we will be in touch to help keep you informed and alert you when action is needed. Your advocacy actions make a difference. One great way to experience advocacy in action is by attending state lobby day.
April 2018 Briefing
House Select Committee on School Safety Updates
Wednesday, March 21, 2018
On March 21, 2018, the House Committee on School Safety met and heard testimony from a number of experts on how to improve our schools. Presenters included law enforcement, emergency management officials, mental health professionals, educators, and students. You can access the information presented here.
After the presentations, legislators proposed a number of ideas for consideration at future meetings. Generally, the proposals can be categorized three ways: improving the services we provide students, enhancing school security, and common-sense gun safety ideas.
On the issue of student services, North Carolina has underfunded our schools for years in a lot of ways. Just one example is school psychologists. The national standard is one school psychologist for every 700 students. North Carolina has one for every 2,100 students. The result is our students are not getting the evaluations and treatment they need for mental health, individualized education programs, social skill development, and risk assessment for suicide or dangerous behavior. Investing more for psychologists, nurses, and other ways will help school safety, but more importantly, help our students succeed and learn.
On the issue of school security, there were ideas that may be good (well-trained school resource officers), but there is also a risk in going too far and making our schools more like fortresses and not as welcoming places for learning. There is a balance we must strike. I am also opposed to bringing more guns into the schools via volunteers or teachers. That will cause far more problems than it will solve.
The final group of proposals centered on overall gun safety. I believe passing common-sense gun safety reforms will make all places in our communities safer. Sadly, we see gun violence in churches, universities, and neighborhoods. It’s far from just a school problem.
During the committee meeting the only gun safety ideas were proposed by Democrats. Hopefully, that will change and my Republican colleagues will follow the example of Florida’s Republican legislature and Governor who passed reforms in March, including raising the age for gun ownership from 18 to 21.
The committee will continue to meet and the general ideas discussed this week will start to become more detailed and specific.
What is important is that public pressure continue
January 2018 Briefing
NC Congressional Districts Found Unconstitutional
The General Assembly has drawn unconstitutional districts for Congress (twice!), the General Assembly, and local areas like Wake and Guilford counties. The three judge panel struck down the Congressional lines because Republicans drew 10 out of 13 seats to elect Republicans in a state that is relatively balanced.
The court ordered new maps to be drawn by January 24. Republican legislative leaders may appeal this order to the U.S. Supreme Court and seek to put it on hold as the Court considers similar redistricting cases in Maryland (a Democratic gerrymander) and Wisconsin (a Republican gerrymander).
GenX and Efforts to Fight Water Contamination Stall
GenX contamination of water quality in southeastern North Carolina is a problem that keeps getting worse as more research is done. Over six months ago Governor Cooper requested $2.3 million in water quality funding and around $1 million in public health funding as a first step to address this emerging crisis.
The General Assembly has not acted on this request. The NC House approved the water quality part of the request, but the NC Senate did not. House Republicans voted down the public health funding in Appropriations Committee.
So citizens in southeastern North Carolina continue to have serious doubts about the quality of the water coming out of the tap and in their wells. I will continue to push for us to take even the most basic of first steps.
Class Size Chaos Continues (With No End in Sight)
We came to back to Raleigh Wednesday, January 10, 2018 for a special session. We held committee meetings. We held a legislative session and voted on bills. What we did not do was do anything to end the class size chaos problem local school districts are dealing with all across the state.
Our legislature is requiring local schools to have lower class sizes in early grades without providing the money to pay for it without cutting other classrooms.
The result is we are making it tougher for our kids to learn and harder for our schools to work most effectively for them.
North Carolina Slips in National Education Rankings
Education Week released its 2018 report on education across the states and the news is not good for North Carolina. You can read the Quality Counts 2018 report here.
The national average grade in the report was a 74.5 or a C. North Carolina scored 70.6 for a C minus. Those marks placed us 40th nationally. A news article on the bad news pointed out as recently as 2011, North Carolina was 19th.
North Carolina did particularly poorly in the area of school financing, ranking 45th in the country. This comes as no surprise as recent budgets have prioritized tax cuts for millionaires and out-of-state over K-12 funding. That is why we have Class Size Chaos – a situation where we cannot fund lower class sizes AND special education positions like art, music, and PE.
It took years to make North Carolina a leader in the southeast in education. It has taken just a few, though, to move us backwards.