2024 General Assembly Short Session Preview

Thanks for joining us this Saturday morning. The legislature is scheduled to return to session on April 24, eleven days from now. Today, we offer a preview of issues the General Assembly may take up. We’ll get right to it.

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First, a reminder on the legislature’s schedule. The state operates on a two-year budget, which informs how the long the General Assembly typically stays in town.

In odd years, legislators write and pass the full two-year budget, which takes several months. Those years are referred to as “long sessions.” The legislature often gets to work in late January and stays into July.

In even-numbered years – which are also election years – the legislature usually makes adjustments to the second-year budget to account for changes in revenue, programs requiring more or less funding, and the like. Those adjustments take less time, and the General Assembly hopes to stay in session only from late April to early July.

This year, optimists predict legislators will pass a budget measure by the end of May, allow Gov. Roy Cooper his 10 days to veto the bill, and override that veto and leave town before the end of June. The pessimists predict the optimists will be wrong again, and that some squabble or another will keep lawmakers in session into the summer. Only time will tell.

Here is a list of issues the legislature may tackle, or at least consider, during the short session.

Gaming
A brutal battle over casinos consumed the legislature last year and extended session into October. The fight ended in a stalemate, with gaming issues still left unresolved.

Senate Leader Phil Berger told reporters in February he did not expect to personally press this year for authorization of brick-and-mortar casinos, and that he was unaware of another member who would lead the charge.

House Speaker Tim Moore, for his part, expressed some optimism that legislators might legalize “video lottery terminals,” or VLTs. Sen. Berger said he’s aware of conversations, but is unsure if there would be enough time in the short session to do so. (Importantly, Speaker Moore – who is running for Congress in a safe Republican district this November – has said publicly he will remain Speaker for the remainder of this year.)

Also unresolved is the question of “iGaming” – authorizing digital casino apps and websites. Rep. Jason Saine, the senior budget writer in the House, authored an op-ed endorsing the concept last year.

Opportunity Scholarship Funding
Last year, lawmakers expanded eligibility for Opportunity Scholarships – grants that parents can spend on private schooling for their children. The new parameters make every family eligible for the program, with grant awards depending on household income (about $7,000 for each child in an underprivileged family; about $3,000 for each child in a wealthy family).

The expansion prompted a drastic spike in applications, with more than 72,000 submitted. Last year, about 32,000 students received Opportunity Scholarships. This week, Speaker Tim Moore announced his intentions to push for $300 million in additional funding to support fully funding Opportunity Scholarships, even if it includes utilizing North Carolina’s reserves.

Figuring out how to fully fund this exponentially growing program will be one of the key budget issues this session.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in the UNC System
Earlier this month, a member of the UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees suggested that the Board of Governors or the legislature would likely move to eliminate the DEI bureaucracy from the university system, just as Florida did.

Opponents of DEI say the exercise is a quagmire that envelopes students and administrators in race essentialism. That is, they’re forced to view everything – policies, curriculum, hiring, and more – first and always through the lens of race.

Supporters of DEI say the exercise is a much-needed reckoning after centuries of racism in America. Focusing on race and other disadvantaged categories of people, they say, is necessary to right old wrongs and help all groups of people succeed.

For betting enthusiasts, safe money is on seeing movement on this. 

Constitutional Amendments
To amend the North Carolina Constitution, 30 senators and 72 representatives must vote to place a proposed amendment on the ballot, and then voters decide the question. Republicans have exactly 30 senators and 72 representatives right now, which means proposed constitutional amendments are almost certainly being discussed.

Though this is a real possibility, little information and data is available for potential issues and outcomes. Insiders have flagged a poll from the Carolina Partnership for Reform (CPR) for insights into what policy ideas legislative leaders might have on their minds. As it happens, CPR polled several potential constitutional amendments last year. They include:

• Another photo voter ID requirement, presumably more stringent than the one currently on the books;
• Repealing the defunct literacy test for voting;
• Capping the maximum allowable income tax rate at 4% (down from 7% currently);
• Term limits for state Supreme Court justices (two 12-year terms);
• Electing members of the State Board of Education.

Regulatory Reform and Technical Corrections
The legislature passes regulatory reform and “technical corrections” bills almost every biennium. The regulatory reforms sometimes make dramatic changes to executive agency authorities and the rules governing important industries.

Technical corrections are just that – imprecisions in previously passed statutes that require fixing. Because the corrections usually must pass, some adopt a very loose definition for the words “technical” and “correction,” hoping to muscle a substantive law change into the bill.

It remains to be seen what, if any, new regulatory reforms and technical corrections emerge during the short session.

Thank you for reading, we hope, but this point you are are little more prepared for what to expect once short session begins. As always, if you think there’s an executive in North Carolina that can benefit from reading this, please send it along to them