North Carolina's 2013 Legislative Session Recap: Landmark Gains For Conservatism | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Regulatory Reform

    Arguably the most meaningful advancement toward eliminating cumbersome regulations in decades was passed this year. The Regulatory Reform Act of 2013 incorporated several regulatory reforms into one omnibus bill. Most significant among those reforms is a requirement that state agencies designate their rules as either unneeded, needed but not controversial, or needed but controversial. Based upon these classifications, rules and regulations would be removed from the books. Agency rules will be reviewed every 10 years, any rules not reviewed in that time frame will automatically expire. The bill also loosens restrictions on landfills - a provision that concerned Gov. Pat McCrory. As of this writing, the bill still sits on McCrory's desk awaiting his signature.

    Racial Justice Act Repeal/Ending Death Penalty Moratorium

    North Carolina passed the "Racial Justice Act"' (RJA) in 2009. The Act allowed convicted murderers to appeal their death penalty sentence by using questionable statistical analysis to show racial bias in their sentencing. If the appeal was successful, the sentence would be commuted to life without parole. North Carolina remains the only state in the nation to pass such a law. Critics of RJA said the statistics allowed in the appeals process were often irrelevant to the specific case being appealed.

    Largely because of the vagueness and overly generous nature of allowable statistics in the appeals process, 162 of 168 death row inmates filed for an appeal in the first year following RJA's passage.

    Senate Bill 306, signed into law this session, repealed RJA completely.

    The bill also codifies a Supreme Court ruling stating that any licensed medical professional assisting with an execution cannot be punished by any medical boards. Over the last several years, there has been a de facto moratorium on the death penalty largely as a result of The North Carolina Medical Board's 2007 statement prohibiting doctors from assisting in executions - even though state law requires a doctor be present. The combination of these provisions in SB 306 should pave the way for the state to once again begin executing convicted murderers.

    Opportunities for 2014

    While much was accomplished in 2013, there is still more to be done. Following are some action items Civitas would like to see addressed in 2014:

    Tax Reform

    The 2013 tax reform bill was a major step forward for North Carolina's economy, but should not be the final step. Further tax reform issues that should be addressed include: eliminating franchise and privilege taxes, expanding the sales tax base, closing more loopholes and working toward income tax elimination.

    TABOR

    While the sluggish economy and the accompanying low rate of revenue growth currently provides a check on state spending growth, that may not always be the case in future years. The time is right to enact a sensible restraint on the growth rate of state spending, one that can rein in spending regardless of who is charge. A Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) would serve as such a restraint. A TABOR would create an annual cap on the growth rate of the state budget tied to a combination of inflation plus population growth. In order for the TABOR to be most effective, it would be best as an amendment to the state constitution.

    Corporate Welfare

    Disappointingly, the legislature did not act to curb or eliminate taxpayer handouts to politically- connected corporations. Programs like the One North Carolina Fund and the Job Development Investment Grant continue to receive tens of millions of taxpayer dollars. Such crony capitalist schemes should be terminated and the savings used to drive down tax rates. State government should not be in the business of granting financial favors to a select few companies at the expense of everyone else.

    Voter Approval Over All State Debt

    Legislation passed in 2013 will no doubt severely limit the state's ability to incur debt without voter approval. Civitas recommends, however, still more strict limitations to ensure the voice of voters can no longer be ignored on matters of state debt. The clause in the state constitution allowing for legislators to skirt voter approval should be amended in order to guarantee all future state debt be subject to voter approval.

    Teacher Salary Schedule

    North Carolina's teacher salary schedule needs to be rewritten to tie salary to educational performance and to provide local officials with the resources and flexibility to address the needs of local teachers.

    Common Core Assessments

    Student scores on state assessments will dominate much of the discussion on public education. The results should provide an opportunity to either revamp, renew or reject Common Core Standards.

    Election Reforms

    •   Pass legislation to require proof of citizenship before a person can register to vote. It is imperative that only qualified citizens are allowed to vote. Now that voter photo ID has been signed into law, it's time to take the next logical step and require verification of citizenship.

    •   Make judicial races partisan again. The people of North Carolina deserve to know this very important piece of information about all the candidates on their ballot.

    •   Require verification mailings to be mailed to voter's residence. While the North Carolina election law alludes to this requirement, it has been accepted procedure for the verification mailings to be mailed to Post Office Boxes and out-of-state addresses. When the National Voter Registration Act was implemented in 1995, allowing voters to register to vote by mail and through government offices, the practice of verifying voter's addresses was a compromise to ensure that voters lived at the physical address they entered on a voter registration form.

    Simplify campaign finance requirements and reporting. North Carolina campaign finance laws are complex and confusing. We need to simplify the campaign finance laws so that every candidate can complete their own campaign finance reports with confidence and without fear of tripping over confusing laws and rules and without the need to hire a lawyer.