Restrictions on transgender bathroom use won't get NC Senate vote before deadline
SENATE BILL ON BATHROOM USE WON'T GET A VOTE
Republican Senate leader Phil Berger said Tuesday that Senate Bill 516 would not come to the floor this week, which means that the bill likely can't be taken up by the House this legislative session.
The bill had been compared to House Bill 2, the controversial 'bathroom bill' that banned transgender people from using bathrooms different from those matching the sex on their birth certificates, and was later repealed. SB 516, called the 'Women's Safety and Protection Act,' would require restrooms in public schools and other facilities 'only be used by one designated biological sex at one time,' The N&O previously reported.
'First of all, I would say that the comparison of that bill to House Bill 2 is an inapt comparison,' Berger told reporters after the Senate session. He continued: 'I don't see at this point the runway exists for that bill to be passed by the Senate between now and crossover on Thursday.'
— Dawn Baumgartner Vaughan
But a bill dealing with transgender health will
While that bill is not moving, another one dealing with transgender people met the legislature's deadline.
House Bill 606, which passed the House on Tuesday, would extend the window for individuals to sue over gender transition care received as minors, giving them until age 28.
It bans providers from requiring liability waivers for such care and prohibits state funds from covering gender transition procedures or related drugs for minors and prisoners.
Meanwhile, a separate bill dealing with gender-affirming care is moving forward in both chambers and is expected to receive a Senate floor vote Wednesday. Korie Dean has the details on that measure, which would write into law that a parent's refusal of such medical care for their child could not be considered abuse or neglect. Nor could opposition to such treatment be grounds for denying adoption or foster placement.
— Luciana Perez Uribe Guinassi
RULING LEAVES JEFFERSON GRIFFIN WITH A CHOICE TO MAKE
After six months of legal battle, a federal judge handed down a ruling this week that could end the contest for a seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court.
In a 68-page ruling, Chief U.S. District Judge Richard E. Myers ordered state election officials to certify the election results as they were at the end of the canvass period, with Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs reclaiming her seat by 734 votes, Kyle Ingram reports. This comes after her challenger, Republican Jefferson Griffin, contested the results of the election and more than 65,000 ballots.
But Myers' orders aren't final. He is giving Griffin seven days to appeal the decision.
Griffin hasn't said yet if he'll do that.
The News & Observer asked Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger on Tuesday afternoon if Griffin should concede the election to Riggs.
'I'm not going to call on him to make any particular decision. That's the decision that he and his team have to make,' Berger said of his fellow Republican.
So where does this leave voters wondering if their ballots count?
'This means, absent a successful appeal, that all voters whose ballots were challenged by Mr. Griffin will remain in the count, without any requirement for further action by those voters,' the State Board of Elections said in a statement on Tuesday.
— Caitlyn Yaede and Dawn Vaughan
NO MEDICAL MARIJUANA FROM SENATE DURING CROSSOVER
While the House is fast-tracking a flurry of bills this week through committees and floor votes before the Thursday crossover deadline, it's more methodical in the upper chamber.
The Senate passed a series of noncontroversial bills Tuesday in a session lasting less than an hour.
Senate leader Phil Berger said a bill impacting pharmacies known as the SCRIPT Act is a 'pretty big priority of ours,' and was expecting a floor vote for Senate Bill 479 on Wednesday. SCRIPT stands for Supporting Community Retail Pharmacies and Improving Transparency.
'Beyond that, I think we've probably taken care of most (legislative priorities) other than the things that will be incorporated into the budget — which, there's a pretty good idea of what they are, based on the budget that was sent to the House,' Berger said.
But a previous big issue for the Senate, legalizing medical marijuana, isn't expected to go through the Senate this week, Berger said.
That doesn't mean it's dead. Senate Rules Chair Bill Rabon likely has other plans for it. It has long been a Senate priority.
Senate Democratic Whip Jay Chaudhuri, of Wake County, said that medical marijuana could show up in the final state budget, or may need to originate as a bill in the House. In previous sessions, it was House Republicans who blocked medical marijuana from passing.
Chaudhuri also noted that the Senate's work was less controversial this week and all session — at least as of Tuesday — compared to the House.
'I think crossover, during my time in the Senate, has probably been slower and less chaotic than in sessions past. But as we all know, the longer we go into session, the more chaos that may ensue,' Chaudhuri said.
— Dawn Baumgartner Vaughan
NC ELECTIONS BOARD TO VOTE ON NEW DIRECTOR, FOLLOWING GOP TAKEOVER
The State Board of Elections, which flipped to Republican control for the first time in nearly a decade last week, is expected to vote on an executive director on Wednesday.
Karen Brinson Bell has led the agency since 2019, having been unanimously reappointed to a third two-year term in 2023. That term ends next week.
Though the board could reappoint Brinson Bell to another term, they may be more likely to replace her with a new director given the change in the board's partisan majority.
Republicans have criticized the State Board of Elections for years, with lawmakers sometimes hauling Brinson Bell into legislative hearings where they questioned her decision making.
For over a decade, the governor has had the power to appoint members to the State Board of Elections, traditionally giving their own party a 3-2 majority.
But last year, Republican lawmakers passed a bill stripping the governor of that power and transferring it to the state auditor, a position which had just been won by a Republican for the first time in 16 years.
A panel of trial judges struck down those changes as unconstitutional last month, but the state Court of Appeals reversed that ruling just one day before the change was set to take effect.
Using his new powers, State Auditor Dave Boliek appointed a Republican majority to the board last week.
That board will meet for the first time Wednesday at 10 a.m., when members will be sworn in and will elect a chair and secretary among themselves, in addition to voting on an executive director.
— Kyle Ingram
TILLIS SPLITS FROM TRUMP ON ED MARTIN NOMINATION
Sen. Thom Tillis opposed a nominee of President Donald Trump for the first time in his second term this week, speaking against Ed Martin's nomination to serve as the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.
Martin is currently serving in an interim capacity, but that expires at the end of the month. Senate confirmation is required for him to hold the role permanently. Tillis told reporters he disagrees with Martin over his support of defendants accused of raiding the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Tillis said he would support Martin's nomination if he were to serve in any district other than the one where the Jan. 6 attack occurred. But Tillis went on to say he doesn't believe Martin's nomination will even get a hearing. It was absent from the Senate Judiciary Committee's agenda this week.
Danielle Battaglia has the full story.
WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT PARKING CHANGES COMING TO DOWNTOWN RALEIGH
The Council of State, made up of 10 elected officials including the governor, approved several changes to parking in downtown Raleigh, Dawn Baumgartner Vaughan reports.
There will be rate increases for state workers — $5 per month — with no more reserved spots for the thousands of state employees who drive to work.
Rates would be imposed for visitors who park in state government lots after hours or on the weekends. These lots are currently free during these hours.
The state will open more lots downtown to the public.
These changes come at the request of the Department of Administration, overseen by Gov. Josh Stein, which cited 'efficiency initiatives.'
An audit revealed that spots reserved for state employees typically do not exceed 50% capacity on any given day. The last increase in these rates was in 1979.
Republican Labor Commissioner Luke Farley was the only council member to vote in opposition to the monthly rate increase Tuesday. The new policies will go into effect July 1.
WHAT ELSE WE'RE WORKING ON
Some law enforcement personnel are lobbying for two companion bills — House Bill 50 and Senate Bill 320 — that would allow experienced officers to retain their badges and retirement benefits if they defer retirement. These measures seek to address a 'staffing crisis' of experienced officers, who currently forfeit retirement benefits for every year they do not retire. Virginia Bridges has the details.
Homelessness is on the rise in Wake County — up 27% from last year, Anna Roman reports. A recent study found a homeless population of 1,258, with more than 150 children among those unhoused in the county.
Today's newsletter was by Caitlyn Yaede, Kyle Ingram, Danielle Battaglia, Luciana Perez Uribe Guinassi and Dawn Vaughan. Check your inbox tomorrow for more #ncpol.
Not a subscriber? Sign up on our website to receive Under the Dome in your inbox daily.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hill
11 minutes ago
- The Hill
Trump is undermining his own law that prevents mass atrocities
The Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 2018, which overwhelmingly passed across party lines in the House and Senate, institutionalizes atrocity prevention in the U.S. government. This includes legally mandating an interagency atrocity prevention coordination body, requiring training for foreign service officers on the prevention of atrocities, requiring an atrocity prevention strategy and, critically, annual reporting to Congress on the government's efforts. But this law is being ignored, to America's detriment. Democratic and Republican administrations have agreed for almost two decades that preventing mass atrocities around the world is a central foreign policy interest of the United States. In 2011, President Obama declared mass atrocities prevention a core national security interest and a core moral responsibility of the United States. In 2019, the Trump administration stated that it 'has made a steadfast commitment to prevent, mitigate and respond to mass atrocities, and has set up a whole-of-government interagency structure to support this commitment.' In 2021, President Biden said, 'I recommit to the simple truth that preventing future genocides remains both our moral duty and a matter of national and global importance.' Preventing genocides, crimes against humanity, war crimes and ethnic cleansing is so central to America's own values, interests and security that in 2018, Trump signed the Elie Wiesel Act with strong bipartisan support. This law was groundbreaking, making the U.S. the first country in the world to enshrine the objective of presenting mass atrocities globally into national law. Yet today, this law and the work it advanced are under dire threat. What will Congress do about it? Mass atrocities are an anathema to American interests. Large scale, deliberate attacks on civilians shock the conscience. They undermine U.S moral, diplomatic, development and security interests. Preventing mass atrocities not only advances American interests, but it also strengthens our international cooperation and global leadership while advancing a peaceful and more just world. Most importantly, America should help prevent mass atrocities because it can. It has the tools and capabilities to help protect civilians and prevent the worst forms of human rights violations. It cannot do this alone, as there are many reasons why atrocities take place, but it can have an impact. And in today's world, this work is more important than ever. While the nation's atrocity prevention systems aren't perfect and there are certainly failures to point to, there has also been important progress and successes that risk being erased, making it even less likely that the U.S. will succeed at its commitment to protect civilians and prevent atrocities. The Trump administration should have submitted its Elie Wiesel Act annual report to Congress by July 15 — this didn't happen. The report is a critical tool for communicating to Congress and the American people what the U.S. is doing to advance this work. It is a mile marker for what has been done and what the needs are. It creates an opportunity for experts outside of government to weigh in. And it allows Congress to conduct oversight over the implementation of its law. But not only was the report not submitted by the normal deadline, nearly all of the U.S. government's atrocity experts have been subjected to reductions in force, forced to accept reassignment or retirement or placed on administrative leave. Key offices in USAID, the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the Intelligence Community and more have been eliminated or hollowed out. Without these experts and the offices that employed them, the U.S. lacks the expertise and systems to, at a minimum, fulfill its legal mandate under the law, let alone to effectively prevent, respond to and help countries recover from mass atrocities. In response to this glaring violation of U.S. law, a group of former civil servants who served as the experts on atrocity prevention in the U.S. interagency wrote a shadow Elie Wiesel Act report, which was presented to congressional staff in a briefing last month. These are the people who served in the Atrocity Prevention Task Force and who, under normal circumstances, would have written the annual Elie Wiesel Act Report. Civil society also would have made key contributions, both during the writing and roll-out of the report. None of that is possible now. But the work and imperative to prevent atrocities is still critical. When it enacted the Elie Wiesel Act, Congress knew that 'never again' doesn't happen simply because good people serve in government. True atrocity prevention requires institutionalization and incentivization in our governance system in order to compete with other, very legitimate foreign policy objectives. So why isn't Congress acting when this administration has completely destroyed the ability to address these core national security issues? We hope lawmakers will read this shadow report and critically engage with the questions that it raises. Why has the U.S. government's ability to prevent mass atrocities been attacked? How does this breakdown affect U.S. interests? What does this mean for countries around the world? What can be done to protect what's left and rebuild? And what is Congress willing to do about it, in defense of the law it passed and in line with its oversight duties? To do any less is to abdicate the promise of 'never again.' The world deserves better. And so do the American people. Kim Hart was the global Human Rights team lead at USAID and part of USAID's Atrocity Prevention Core Team. D. Wes Rist was an Atrocity Prevention policy advisor in the Department of State's Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations. Both were government employees until April and served in both the Trump and Biden administrations.
Yahoo
40 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Law journal article proves that citizen ballot questions are under attack
If you've ever suffered from that nagging feeling that the Legislature is systematically trying to undermine your right to petition something onto the ballot, you're not alone. I've had it, too. We need to start trusting that gut feeling. It turns out we weren't wrong. That's exactly what the Republican majority in the Legislature has been trying to do. It has just been proven by three authors of a South Dakota Law Review article: 'Have Recent Legislative Changes in South Dakota Made Using the Initiated Measure Process More Difficult?' It seems the answer to the question in the title of the article is yes, and how. You can find the article on the Law Review's website. Be warned: at 40-some pages, it's not an easy read. There are footnotes strewn about and readers may struggle with some of the world's ugliest charts. However it still tells a compelling tale of how, since 2017, the Republican super-majority in the Legislature has been whittling away at the rights of citizens to petition measures onto the ballot. Republicans may scoff at the article as so much whining from the left as two of the authors are well-known Democrats: activist Cory Heidelberger and former State Sen. Reynold Nesiba. While a Republican byline would have been nice for the sake of balance, there's no disputing the truth of the facts they have compiled. These bills were filed and are there for anyone to look up. Their paper gets particularly interesting when it goes about listing the Legislature's 14 worst bills designed to cut back the rights of citizens to petition an initiative onto the ballot. Those range from insisting on a larger font size on petitions to make them unwieldy, to allowing petition signers to later withdraw their names after the petition has been submitted, and a couple of attempts to raise the vote total needed for passage of the initiative beyond a simple majority. Some of these attacks on our rights were defeated at the ballot box; some were challenged in court where they fell short of being entirely constitutional. Sadly, some were enacted into law. At least now, through the work of the article's authors, the grim history of the war on ballot initiatives in South Dakota is summed up in one place. Unfortunately, while that history has been chronicled, the siege still continues. The authors go on to mention seven petition-related bills and five constitutional amendments submitted in the 2025 legislative session, 10 of which, they say, sought to curtail the rights of citizens to initiate ballot measures. When legislators want to amend the state constitution themselves, they have to convince a majority of their colleagues to send the amendment to voters. This legislative quest to get on the 2026 ballot through constitutional amendments comes from the same party that tries to curtail voter access to the petition process by claiming that voters have ballot fatigue with so many issues to decide on Election Day. This ignores the fact that in each case, more than 17,000 South Dakotans applied their signatures to petitions, a sure sign that there are plenty of people who think the ballot issue is something that should go before voters. This years-long attempt to curtail the initiative process is nothing more than a means for the Republican super-majority to solidify its power by cutting off people they don't agree with from access to the ballot. Republican efforts aren't trying to make the process better or more secure. They're just tired of beating back attempts to legalize marijuana and abortion. The irony here is that in the Statehouse, no piece of legislation is ever blocked. Sure, there may be some arm-twisting that could lead to a bill being tabled or withdrawn, but each bill is handled in the light of day. These same Republicans who are so upright and transparent with legislation are working overtime to have darkness descend on the ballot box. Their attempts to slow or stop citizen access to the ballot initiative process is a sign of the power that citizens wield. The recent law journal article has proven that this notion that our rights are under attack is more than just a gut feeling. We now have a historic record that spells out the way Republicans have been trying to take away the power of citizens to petition their government. This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Law journal article proves that citizen ballot questions are under attack
USA Today
41 minutes ago
- USA Today
'They're trying to rig the system': Sen. Padilla says Dems should fight fire with fire
California's Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla said his party should be willing to fight fire with fire, in light of Texas' potential, controversial gerrymandering plans. "If Republicans were confident on their policy agenda, they'd be eager to defend it with the people and to defend it at the ballot box next November," Padilla said in an Aug. 3 interview on NBC's "Meet the Press." "But they know they're in trouble," he continued. "And so they're trying to rig the system to hold on to power." The California senator was referencing Texas Republicans' proposed new map of their state's congressional districts, following President Donald Trump's urging that the GOP find a way to flip as many as five seats in next year's midterm elections. "Just a very simple redrawing, we pick up five seats," Trump told reporters on July 15. Padilla likened Trump's ask of Texas Republicans to his request during his first term in office that a top Georgia official "find 11,780 votes" to put him over the top in the Electoral College for the 2020 election. Redistricting in the middle of the decade, rather than every ten years after new census data is collected, is rare. And the pushback from Democrats across the country has been widespread. Blue state leaders have threatened tit-for-tat responses, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has suggested redrawing his state's map to counteract Texas' efforts. (Newsom faces the challenge of a bipartisan redistricting commission, which oversees California's maps, unlike Texas, where lawmakers dictate the boundaries.) Some California Democrats are wary, warning that a redistricting arms race could spiral and erode trust with voters. In response to those concerns, Padilla told NBC he believes it's appropriate for the Democrat-controlled state to evaluate its options. "The ideal scenario," he said, "is for Texas to stand down. They don't have to do this; they shouldn't do this. But if they were to go forward and deliver Trump his five additional Republicans ... the stakes are simply too high" for Democrats not to respond. Padilla also addressed recent comments from his fellow Democrats about the state of politics and American democracy, including Sen. Cory Booker's call for his party to "have a backbone." "It's time for us to fight. It's time for us to draw lines," Booker said from the Senate floor on July 29. Asked whether Booker's defiant approach was the appropriate stance for Democrats under the Trump administration, Padilla said, "Look, I think the extreme way in which this administration is conducting itself calls for higher and higher profile ways of pushing back." After announcing that she would not be running for California governor in 2026, former Vice President Kamala Harris appeared on CBS's "The Late Show" with Stephen Colbert. In her interview on July 31, Harris told Colbert, "Recently, I made the decision that, for now, I don't want to go back into the system. I think it's broken." Padilla agreed, in part, with Harris' take, saying, "I think the system is under duress." "Democrats are doing our part to try to stand up and push back," he added.
