Legislation passes despite vetoes as Dems defect in NC House

Legislation passes despite vetoes as Dems defect in NC House

Tuesday morning, Gov. Josh Stein called the North Carolina General Assembly’s veto override votes a “divisive” distraction and called on the Republican-controlled legislature to instead pass a budget. State lawmakers did end up passing a “mini budget” bill in the Senate later that afternoon, but not before voting to override eight vetoed items of legislation during a legislative session that fractured the House Democratic caucus and challenged the political clout of the first-term governor.

State Republicans scraped up just enough Democratic defectors in the House to reach the supermajority needed to force those eight bills into law without Stein’s approval.

In both legislative chambers 60% is the threshold required to override a governor’s veto of legislation. Republicans hold a supermajority in the Senate, but are one member shy in the House of Representatives. However, a small coalition of conservative Democrats spoiled moderate and liberal Democrats’ hopes of sustaining Stein’s vetoes of the legislation in the House.

The four Democrats who voted with the Republican majority on one or more of the override votes were Carla Cunningham, D-Mecklenburg; Shelly Willingham, D-Edgecombe; Nasif Majeed, D-Mecklenburg and Cecil Brockman, D-Guilford.

Cunningham also drew criticism from her Democratic colleagues Tuesday for an incendiary floor speech in which she accused immigrants of “destabilizing” communities.

The most controversial of the newly-passed legislation will allow private school teachers to carry firearms, require law enforcement to work with federal immigration agents, expand the power of the Republican state auditor, eliminate a state goal to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and allow lawsuits against medical providers over gender transition treatments.

A more detailed breakdown of those bills and how state representatives voted on each piece of legislation follows:

  • H.B. 193 allows authorized employees and volunteers at private schools to carry firearms, permits concealed handguns at dual-use school/worship locations during religious services, increases penalties for assaulting or threatening public officials and provides new protections for relocated law enforcement shooting ranges. The Veto override passed 72-48. Willingham was the deciding vote on this legislation.
  • H.B. 318 requires local jails to notify ICE and temporarily hold prisoners when an immigration detainer and administrative warrant are issued and modifies pretrial release conditions to include an immigration status inquiry for certain offenses. Veto override passed 72-48. Cunningham was the deciding vote on this legislation.
  • H.B. 402 makes it harder for agencies run by governor appointees to enact regulations by requiring legislative approval if the estimated cost exceeds $20 million in five years. Veto override passed 73-47. Cunningham and Willingham were the deciding votes on this legislation.
  • H.B. 549 expands the state auditor’s power to access records of state agencies and groups that receive public money. It also authorizes the Department of Revenue to forcibly collect certain debts owed to state agencies if the auditor identifies them as fraud or mismanagement. Veto override passed 72-48. Willingham was the deciding vote on this legislation.
  • H.B. 805 was once a bipartisan bill targeting revenge porn that was changed to include several controversial provisions decried as harmful to transgender people. Veto override passed 72-48. Majeed was the deciding vote on this legislation.
  • S.B. 266 eliminates a previous state goal to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from electric public utilities while keeping the long-term goal of carbon neutrality by 2050. It also changes how utilities charge customers for fuel and related costs. Veto override passed 74-46. Cunningham, Majeed and Willingham were the deciding votes on this legislation.
  • S.B. 416 prohibits state and local government agencies from forcing nonprofits to provide personal information about their members, volunteers or donors, and prevents these agencies from publicly releasing such private information. Veto override passed 74-46. Brockman, Cunningham and Willingham were the deciding votes on this legislation.
  • S.B. 254 gives more control and rulemaking authority over charter schools to the Charter Schools Review Board and reduces the role of the State Board of Education. Veto override passed 74-46. Brockman, Cunningham and Willingham were the deciding votes on this legislation.

Two additional House bills were on the agenda but left unconsidered. Those included H.B. 96, a bill addressing squatters that included an unrelated amendment that would prevent local governments from regulating pet stores. That pet store provision was the reason Stein vetoed the bill.

The other is H.B. 171, a bill which targeted diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in state and local governments.

House Speaker Destin Hall, R-Caldwell, has maintained that vetoed legislation set for an override vote will linger on the agenda until Republicans determine they have the majority needed to pass.

Four more controversial bills passed override votes in the Senate without issue but might face an uphill battle in the House. That legislation includes S.B. 50 which would allow people over 18 to carry a concealed handgun without a permit, S.B. 558 and S.B. 227 which target DEI in schools and universities and S.B. 153 which is another bill requiring law enforcement to cooperate with ICE.

Speech on legislation draws ire from colleagues

Cunningham was the lone Democrat holdout for the vote on H.B. 318, the bill which requires jails to check the immigration status of detainees and potentially hold them for longer if they are not citizens.

Stein called the bill unconstitutional in his veto message and cited past federal court rulings that local law enforcement officers cannot keep people in custody solely based on a suspected immigration violation.

NC Rep. Carla D. Cunningham, D-Mecklenburg, speaks out in support of overriding Gov. Josh Stein’s veto of immigration detention legislation. Screen image.

In a floor speech on Tuesday, Cunningham defended her position on the legislation and derided immigrants in a major break from the rest of her party. She said the country’s immigration system has been “exploited and abused” and accused immigrants of “destabilizing” communities, all while invoking her ancestry as the descendant of American slaves.

“Yes, I was degraded for my vote,” she said. “Yes, I was called racist for my vote. And, yes, (it) was said I was trash.

“However, I figured it out. They want me to stop elevating my ancestors’ history. They want me to be silent in my country. They want me to line up to hand (out) their priorities while my people and communities continue to struggle in our country.

“It was my ancestors who came over as slaves, built this country with a strain on their backs. Their sweat poured from their bodies in the rice fields, the cotton fields and the tobacco farms for this country. Lived as servants, and was the footstool — I said the footstool — for far too many feet to step on. So today, if you ask me to line up behind another group of people to raise awareness about their plight, I unapologetically say no.”

Rep. Marcia Morey, D-Durham, a former judge who is one of the more progressive members in the House, rebuffed Cunningham’s remarks about the immigration detention legislation in a response on the floor.

“We all agree we want safe communities,” Morey said.

“That’s no longer the issue with this bill — it is scapegoating. It is scapegoating immigrants. Research has shown us that the immigrant community is less likely to commit crimes than the US citizen. That is a fact. We need to work towards finding solutions, not creating divisiveness and ignoring community concerns. This is furthering an anti-immigrant agenda no matter the cost. And when police act as immigration agents, witnesses or victims of crime are going to be less likely to report crime.”

Cunningham’s speech also drew criticism from Senate Democratic Leader Sydney Batch, D-Wake, who called the rhetoric “ridiculous” and “absolutely uncalled for.”

Batch told reporters that she expects an apology from Cunningham, but she fell short of calling for more serious disciplinary action against the seven-term incumbent. Cunningham did not respond to a request for comment before the publication of this article.

Mini budget passes Senate, but still work to do

The Senate reconvened in the afternoon to vote on a mini budget bill, which emerged out of negotiations between the House and Senate earlier that day. The two chambers had previously been deadlocked over disagreements about tax policy and raises for teachers.

This newest appropriations legislation, H.B. 125, is not a full spending plan for the next two fiscal years, but it does include key components of the previous budget proposals.

Those include step salary increases for public school employees, a $600 million infusion into the state’s Medicaid program to address potential changes in federal funding, $142 million for a crop-loss program and $3 million for additional DMV positions.

All but two Senate Democrats voted for the legislation. One of those “nay” votes was Sen. Natalie Murdock, D-Durham, who told reporters that the bill “doesn’t go far enough” and called for additional disaster relief funding in the wake of Tropical Depression Chantal, which battered her district earlier this month.

Batch said she appreciated the progress the chamber made in passing a budget, but agreed that the bill falls short of meeting the needs of North Carolinians.

“It keeps the lights on for only a little bit longer,” she said.

The House is likely to pass the budget bill later this week and send it to Stein’s desk. After that, Republican leadership said there will be very few voting sessions between then and the start of the short session in April 2026.

“What we’ve done is address sort of the more immediate pressing concerns that are out there,” said Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger, R-Rockingham.

“We will continue to have conversations between the House and the Senate to see if there are other matters that we would be able to agree to take up, but that’s where we are.”

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