8 bills worth following in the 2019 session
Published February 14, 2019
by Andrew Dunn, Longleaf Politics, February 9, 2019.
For the next month, it’s open season for new bills in the North Carolina General Assembly.
We keep an eye on all of them, but we all know that some bills are more important than others. Here are the ones worth watching in 2019.
Longleaf Politics will continue to add to this list as more important bills get filed. We’ve included links to follow the bills on the official state legislative website for your reference.
House Bill 3: Restrict eminent domain to public use
This bill sponsored by Reps. David Lewis, Destin Hall and Chuck McGrady would restrict the government’s use of eminent domain for “public use” projects, instead of the broader “public benefit.” It sounds like a minor change, but it has a major impact. Under current law, state and local governments can seize private property under eminent domain and then sell it to a private company.
The bill seeks to put this provision in the state constitution. A nearly identical bill overwhelmingly passed the House in the last long session, but the Senate version didn’t make it out of committee.
House Bill 28: Prohibit Abortions After 13 Weeks
Under current law, abortions are legal for any reason up until 20 weeks. This bill would bump that down to 13 weeks. Abortions after this point would still be legal in the event of a “medical emergency.”
House Bill 29: Standing Up for Rape Victims Act of 2019
This bipartisan bill was announced at the start of the session in conjunction with Attorney General Josh Stein. It allocates $6 million to test all of the rape kits in North Carolina’s backlog, and requires all future rape kits to be tested.
Senate Bill 28: Restore Master’s Pay for Certain Teachers
In the 2013 budget, the General Assembly began phasing out additional pay for teachers who earn master’s degrees. The rationale for that was that there is no real evidence that teachers with master’s degrees are more effective than those without them.
This bipartisan bill, sponsored by Republican Sens. Danny Britt and Rick Horner, would restore that pay for people who were eligible for it before, and for newer teachers who spend 70% or more of their time in the classroom.
Senate Bill 5: Building North Carolina’s Future
This bill would fund $2 billion worth of school construction without needing to borrow money. Read our full explainer on that here.
House Bill 37: Child Sex Abuse/Extend Statute of Limitations
This bill would allow people who were victims of sexual abuse in childhood to file a lawsuit against their abusers up until the victim turns age 45. Under current law, most civil lawsuits cannot be initiated 10 years after an incident. However, there’s lots of evidence that victims aren’t able to come forward until much later.
House Bill 5: Close the Medicaid Coverage Gap
This Democrat-sponsored bill reportedly has quiet support among many in the Republican caucus as well. It would take the federal government up on its Obamacare-era promise to expand Medicaid to able-bodied, low-income single adults.
However, Medicaid expansion remains controversial, so we’ll see how far it goes.
Senate Bill 11: ABC Regulation and Reform
Privatizing North Carolina’s alcohol sales has been on the radar for years. Could this be the year it actually makes progress?
February 14, 2019 at 7:17 pm
Norm Kelly says:
House Bill 3: It's about time. It's past time. This should have been the way it was worded from the beginning. I expect that when this was originally written, it was interpreted to mean public use. No gov't agency should be allowed to take anyone's property just cuz there could be more tax revenue from another use. Talk about greedy politicians! Only reason this would happen is if the greedy pol was getting some sort of kickback. Which is illegal!
House Bill 28: ain't going nowhere. Democrat baby-killers run the House and the gov's mansion. Democrats have become the party of baby killings nationwide. When expanded baby-killing legislation becomes law (or is even proposed) democrats stand and cheer. So with 2 of the 3 parties being democrat baby-killers, there's no way additional restrictions on killing innocent babies is going anywhere. I know some will get mad at me for being honest in how I portray democrats, but sometimes truth hurts. And if you continue to vote for democrats, you also are responsible for killing babies!
House Bill 5: expanding socialized medicine. Again, democrats are the party of socialism, regardless of how much of a failure socialism is all over the world. Democrats believe they can manage socialism because they are smarter than the average socialist. Again, 2 of the 3 parties involved love socialism, so everyone KNEW when election results came in, dems took the state house, they would be implementing socialized medicine. If it's bad for the people, and good for the democrats, count on it being implemented. And if democrats can't get the legislation passed, they WILL take it to court and have the court determine that the state must, absolutely must, expand socialized medicine in the state!
Senate Bill 11: It's long past time for the state to stop owning business. What part of state-owned business makes sense to anyone? Think of all the gov't employees that are simply overhead. Then there's the local/regional ABC boards that are nothing more than little fiefdoms; very expensive wasteful gov't fiefdoms that have virtually zero accountability. It is possible to have privately owned liquor stores that are still regulated by the state without the state having to own the business. And think about the actual economic advantage to any locale that has a privately owned store. Owned by gov't this store is nothing but overhead. It collects taxes. It would still collect taxes as a private business. Zero impact. As a gov't store, it employs gov't workers. As a private business it employs private citizens and boosts the local economy as well as the state economy. Gov't employees are covered by gov't benefits. Private business employees are covered by private benefits, at zero cost to the state. Sales tax still coming in, zero benefit money going out. Sounds like a win to me. And the state retains regulatory control of all liquor stores. Can anyone explain the upside to the state owning these businesses and having all the overhead of so many local boards? Privately owned businesses could eliminate the need for so many overhead local boards, another advantage to the state not being in business. And by allowing the state to own these businesses, it encourages socialist democrats to use this as an excuse to own other types of business. Something that should NEVER be allowed to happen.
All in all, democrat control of our state and so many local police departments does not bode well for the immediate future of our state. The direction socialists and big gov't types want to take our state (and nation) is anything but encouraging or optimistic. Can you imagine getting rid of all fossil-fuel vehicles within 10 years? The more we allow socialist pols to move our state (and nation) away from the freedoms listed in our Constitution the worse it is for individuals and the better it is for pols. Socialism fails every time it's tried, regardless of how smart the enforcers believe themselves to be. Anyone who disagrees can please document the successes of socialism around the world. Try starting with Venezuela please. Then go on to document how well the VA Health system treats our veterans. Your input to change my mind on the direction socialist baby-killing democrats are taking us is welcome. Unlike most dem pols, I'm actually willing to have your facts & figures sway my opinion. But please keep your socialist alt-left zealot feelings out of the discussion; nobody cares about your feelings.
