Long Session of General Assembly Gets Rolling | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article is by Barry Smith and Dan Way, who are associate editors of Carolina Journal.

GOP governor, General Assembly have lengthy wish lists

    RALEIGH     Gavels in both the House and the Senate are set to fall at noon as the General Assembly begins its 2013 session in earnest.

    Gone is the ceremonial first day, when lawmakers trekked to the state capital three weeks early to elect their leadership and take care of perfunctory ceremonial duties.
North Carolina General Assembly in May, 2012: Above.     photo by Stan Deatherage
    Now, the real work begins, with legislators prepared to tackle a $20 billion general fund budget, reform the tax code, and push through new election laws that are almost certain to include a photo identification requirement to cast a ballot.

    Also expect efforts to reform the state's educational system in a way that focuses on technical education and more options for parents and local schools. Mix in further regulatory reform and you'll have a good preview of what to expect out of Raleigh by the time lawmakers adjourn, likely around the middle of the year.

    "We're going to continue to focus on I believe policies that are going to help us grow the economy and hopefully continue a positive path toward economic recovery in the state," second-term House Speaker Thom Tillis, R-Mecklenburg, said at a Tuesday press conference.

    "First and foremost we've got to worry about the budget," Tillis continued. "But we don't have to worry near as much about the budget as we did two years ago when we had a structural deficit approaching $3 billion."

    Both Tillis and Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, say North Carolinians should expect lawmakers to adopt major tax reform this year.

    "We intend to move forward this time with a tax reform package," Berger said during an earlier press conference.

    "Our tax is antiquated," Tillis said. "It's probably approaching -- some of the fundamentals of it -- 50 years old."

    The exact form that tax reform will take hasn't been revealed.

    However, parameters mentioned by GOP leaders include broadening the sales tax to include services while reducing or eliminating corporate and personal income taxes.

    Tillis said that legislators and new Republican Gov. Pat McCrory will have to make sure the new tax system doesn't replace one complex system with another that's filled with complexity.

    Lawmakers are expected to tackle changes in the state's unemployment insurance program quickly. A proposal approved by an interim committee in early January and expected to be introduced today would shorten the number of weeks unemployed workers could receive benefits and reduce the maximum weekly amount of benefits.

    Sen. Floyd McKissick, D-Durham, has said he hopes some form of compromise would be worked out before the new unemployment insurance proposal becomes law.

    This year, the GOP-dominated General Assembly also will not have to face a governor from the opposing party as it did two years ago. Former Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue chose not to seek re-election. McCrory, who lost to Perdue in 2008, was elected governor last fall.

    Energy exploration, jobs initiatives, and regulatory reforms are high on McCrory's agenda for coming months, and he plans to issue some executive orders to pursue those aims.

    The governor gave few specifics about his ambitious agenda, deferring details to a State of the State Address he plans to deliver in two to three weeks.

    "At that time I'll be discussing in detail some specifics of how I'm going to implement some of the goals we have in the areas of education, energy, tax reform, regulatory," he said Tuesday in a telephone interview.

    Three weeks into his first-term, the Republican governor said his administration is working to extinguish "short-term, operational fires of a very broken system of state government" and reverse systemic neglect and decay of government infrastructure that hinders progress.

    McCrory said he has asked State Auditor Beth Wood to launch sweeping performance and financial audits to identify problem areas. And he took a swipe at Perdue over her inaction in that realm.

    "I've asked [Wood] to do as many audits as she can as quick as possible to help us evaluate where the breakdowns are in the system, something that the previous governor was attempting to dissuade the auditor from doing," McCrory said.

    "I'm doing just the opposite. We want someone to dig down deep ... and there are more audits to come," McCrory said. Some administrative audits are complementing Wood's work.

    "We're uncovering things every day. My Cabinet secretaries as they're getting their feet on the ground are uncovering things in every department, some budget transfers, some total information systems breakdowns and inefficiencies," he said. "The system was much more broken than we ever anticipated."

    But as he attempts to shore up a government foundation, McCrory is making progress in some areas. Without revealing names, he said he nominated on Tuesday afternoon three candidates, including a chairman, for the State Board of Education. The General Assembly could approve them as soon as Monday, he said.

    He said he also would nominate four or five people for the N.C. Board of Transportation this week, but declined to reveal who they would be.

    McCrory is recommending the state not accept a federal extension of unemployment insurance benefits, but rather pay back a $2.5 billion federal loan as quickly as possible.

    He said an extension would increase the debt, "which has put a tremendous pressure on small businesses to pay those taxes," and has not helped to reduce unemployment.

    McCrory said he has "gotten closer" to decisions on expanding Medicaid enrollment and whether to create a state or federal health care exchange as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. He is "leaning a certain way" but won't say in what direction.

    "The dilemma with the feds is they don't understand their own bill that they passed and they're kind of making it up as they go along," he said. On Monday he joined in a teleconference with 15 other governors to discuss what's working, what's not working, and in what areas the feds are issuing waivers to the Obamacare requirements, McCrory said.

    "These are multibillion-dollar decisions which will have ramifications for decades, and I want to make sure I have all the facts and information before I make a recommendation to the legislature," he said.

    His budget director, revenue secretary, legislative liaison, and policy experts are working with teams from the House and Senate on a tax reform recommendation, which could come in two to three weeks, McCrory said.

    "We'll probably be issuing some executive orders" on regulatory reform at the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, and in the area of energy exploration, he said.

    McCrory wants to create a compact with South Carolina and Virginia to establish a process for offshore gas and oil exploration, and "speed up a parallel track for inland gas exploration," policy development, and identification of business connections to determine the marketplace potential.

    While McCrory has said he could accept a voter ID bill that falls short of calling for a strict photo ID requirement, both Tillis and Berger say that they expect the ID card to require a photograph.

    "The mechanics that we're putting into place are ones that will allow easy access to a government-issued ID at no cost to the citizen," Tillis said.

    Education reformers can expect a sympathetic ear in the state capital this year. Berger, who pushed through some of his proposed education reforms last year, said that he'd like to see some reforms in the state's teacher tenure law. Tillis spoke of looking at ways to help traditional schools transition into charter schools or even remove some of the red tape that traditional public schools must navigate.

    Lawmakers also could have a handful of proposed constitutional amendments on their plate this year. Among those are measures protecting property owners from eminent domain abuse and making a worker's desire not to join a labor union a constitutional right.