Legislative Roundup
Several weeks ago the NC House voted 71-43 to pass Senate Bill 10, which calls for dismissal of more than 100 members of the state’s public boards and commissions and allows the governor and/or the legislature to replace them with their own appointees.
All but three Republicans voted in favor; no Democrats supported the bill. A number of House members expressed the concern that this reorganization could leave commissions without the expertise and knowledge of sitting members, while also replacing some experts with representatives from the very businesses and industries that the commissions are supposed to regulate or oversee.
Democrats in the House have filed a bill that would prohibit the NC Department of Transportation from issuing drivers licenses with a pink strip identifying young immigrants who qualify for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
Under the federal law, passed in 2012, young people who were brought here illegally as children by their families are allowed work permits and long-term residency as long as they have clean records, have stayed in (or finished) school, or have served in the armed forces.
The state law, supported by Governor Pat McCrory, is designed to highlight the fact that they are not citizens; civil libertarians, advocates of comprehensive immigration reform, and other groups have described the plan as a way to stigmatize Hispanic residents and undermine DACA.
Voter ID is back on the horizon in Raleigh as legislators work to draft a voter ID bill and bring it to a vote. Such a requirement would likely infringe on access to the polls for senior citizens and low-income people without drivers licenses, as well as young voters. By some estimates as many as 600,000 NC voters would be disenfranchised under the bill.
Also two weeks ago, Gov. McCrory signed into law a bill that rejects Medicaid expansion in the state, foregoing healthcare coverage for more than half a million NC citizens, tens of millions in economic benefits, and 23,000 thousand new jobs.
