House Overrides Five Cooper Vetoes Early Wednesday; two More to Come? | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: The author of this post is Dan Way, who is an associate editor for the Carolina Journal, John Hood Publisher.

    Despite vigorous arguments from opponents, the N.C. Farm Act of 2018 became law over Gov. Roy Cooper's objections. It's one of five veto overrides the House enacted during the early part of Wednesday's legislative session.

    The House voted 74-45 to override Senate Bill 711, which Republicans said was vital to protect farmers and the agriculture industry from nuisance lawsuits. Democrats said it eroded property owners' constitutional rights. The Senate voted 37-9 Tuesday to override.

    Senate Bill 325, the Uniform and Expanded Early Voting Act, also became law after the House voted 74-45 to override Cooper's veto. The Senate voted 34-12 Tuesday to nullify Cooper's action.

    The House overrode three other vetoes and sent them to the Senate for concurrence. The Senate was scheduled to come into session at 5 p.m. The override vote totals were 75-44 on House Bill 374, the Regulatory Reform Act of 2018; 84-35 on House Bill 382, omnibus insurance legislation; and 74-45 on House Bill 717, Judicial Elections Changes.

    Two of Cooper's vetoes remain in effect for now. The House took no override votes on Cooper's veto of House Bill 131, allowing bail bond forfeiture judgments to be set aside under certain circumstances, or House Bill 1055, the Retirement Complexity Reduction Act of 2018, which would save costs in the state retirement and health plans.

    Rep. Jimmy Dixon, R-Duplin, chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, asked House members to override the farm bill veto. The measure proved contentious in committee meetings and floor votes. Critics objected to a provision safeguarding farms from certain lawsuits.

    "It has no effect on any existing court cases or planned court cases," Dixon said. "It's just going forward."

    He said 12 government entities passed resolutions supporting the bill, and the N.C. Chamber of Commerce is in favor of the legislation.

    Rep. Billy Richardson, D-Cumberland, urged lawmakers to sustain the veto.

    "Of all the legislation that's been looked at in this session, this is the most harmful to individual liberties, and individual due process that I can imagine," Richardson said. "We need to be protecting those constitutional provisions, not limiting them."

    "There are better ways to manage hog waste than pumping it into a lagoon and spraying it on the land. Let's stop the lawsuits by modernizing waste management in North Carolina," said Rep. John Ager, D-Buncombe, a small-scale hog farmer. He suggested using hog waste as a renewable energy source.

    Rep. John Blust, R-Guilford, said he voted to sustain Cooper's veto because nuisance laws are "sort of a love-thy-neighbor law" allowing property owners to protect their most valuable asset - their homes - from the effects of spraying hog waste on neighboring fields.

    "Changing this law because of the exigencies of the moment is a fundamental crack in that bedrock of private property rights," and an attack on 500 years of common law, Blust said.

    In urging an override on H.B. 717, Rep. Justin Burr, R-Stanly, chided Cooper's veto message. He said it "apparently was just cut and pasted from the talking points of the Left. ... The claims, quite frankly, are unfounded," and inaccurate.

    Cooper echoed Democrats' opposition to the bill, saying it reduced the ability to vote for judges.

    Burr said no judges would be left without a seat under new judicial boundaries, and the districts needed the most help would get more money.

    "Changes are being made to several areas out east, out west, and particularly in the Piedmont to clean up ... piecemeal changes not consistent with the Bell Commission," a state body that designed standards for operating uniform courts more than a half century ago, Burr said. The legislation properly aligns district and superior courts, and prosecutorial districts, he said.

    Rep. Marcia Morey, D-Durham, a former district court chief judge, noted H.B. 717 started out as total overhaul of statewide districts, but the final version redesigned just a few districts.

    "The Courts Commission is the right place to do this," Morey said, "not do it in a piecemeal fashion."

    Rep. David Lewis, R-Harnett, chairman of the House Elections and Ethics Law Committee, said S.B. 325 was important. It expands early voting hours and the number of days allowed uniformly to eliminate voter confusion about which one-stop-voting sites are in operation on a given day.

    "There's an old saying that you could put lipstick on a pig, and it would still remain a pig. That is the case with this bill," responded Rep. Amos Quick, D-Guilford.

    County elections directors estimate it will cost more to keep early voting sites open under the bill, and could actually reduce early voting opportunities if counties can't afford to pay for expanded hours. It also eliminates the last Saturday of voting that was a popular turnout day.

    "This bill smacks of discrimination whether intended or not ... against a particular population of North Carolinians," Quick said.

    Rep. Dennis Riddell, R-Alamance, led the push to override the veto of regulatory reforms in H.B. 374.

    "It has quite a number of very important parts for businesses large and small, and for individual homeowners, and for municipalities," Riddell said.

    Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, urged members to sustain Cooper's veto.

    "I would call it our annual rollback of important environmental protections including coastal stormwater/coastal erosion protections, air permits, waste management," Harrison said. "I feel like we go through this every year, and eventually we're going to end up with really diminished environmental protections."

    Although H.B. 382 passed the House unanimously, 35 House members supported the governor's veto of the insurance omnibus bill.

    "The governor noted that there was a problem with the bond forfeiture language at the very end of the bill," said House Minority Leader Darren Jackson, D-Wake. If Republicans sustained the veto, he said, Democrats would pledge to work with them to ensure the rest of the bill would become law by the end of this week. His overture failed.