Legislative Update from Rep. Frank Iler – May 20, 2013
Many described last week as “organized chaos” in the General Assembly. The House of Representatives was probably more chaotic than the Senate, as one of our floor sessions lasted until near midnight. We acted on more than 150 bills. This seems like more than the rest of the session, which started in late January. The main reason was the “crossover deadline” of midnight Thursday. Any bills that didn’t make it across to the other chamber would be dead for this session, with a few exceptions, such as the budget bill.
Speaking of the budget, we are expecting to receive it from the Senate on Monday or Tuesday of this week, possibly by the time you read this. The budget has been the subject of much speculation, but now we will find out what is in it, and begin to analyze, amend, and probably make some changes before we pass it in a few weeks.
Another subject of a lot of controversy has been the Senate’s tax plan. Well, last week, the House came out with its tax plan. They are not the same. A lot of the comments in newspaper articles and letters to the editor have been made with incomplete and sometimes inaccurate information. We will be working on this, along with the budget for the next four to six weeks. The goal of the tax plan is to be revenue neutral, or in other words, no increase in overall taxes. We will be striving to take the income tax to zero as soon as possible without burdening our families with additional sales taxes on food and other essentials. It is a challenge, but one we believe must be done to spur economic growth and help the economy create more well-paying jobs for working families. At the same time, our retired workers, who have earned a comfortable retirement, cannot be overlooked.
The major bills that we passed or defeated last week are too numerous to list here, but I will list a few. House Bill 182 – Establish Efficiency & Cost-saving Commission will take two state departments at a time and use zero-based budgeting, so that they will have to justify their entire budget each year. This is how businesses operate, and many people are surprised that the state doesn’t. It passed 103 – 10.
A bill involving insurance fairness to the coast passed unanimously. House Bill 519 – Property Insurance Rate-making Reform, on which I was a primary sponsor, will require that the Rate Bureau use two models instead of one to forecast casualties on the coast when they file for a rate increase. They must also include actual loss history across the state. We feel that this will be fairer to the coast compared to the hurricane models they have been using. The vote was 116 – 0.
Two bills on health insurance also passed last week. House Bill 498 – Autism Health Insurance Coverage will require insurance companies to offer autism coverage. It passed 105 – 7. The other bill, House Bill 730 – Insurance & Health Care Conscience Protection was more controversial. It protects all health caregivers when they object to providing abortions. Nurses were already protected. It also provides that no city or county can offer their employees more coverage for abortion than the state health plan, which currently doesn’t offer coverage for abortion.
Bills concerning electronic public notice rather than newspaper notice were stalled in the House before final votes were taken, and may be dead for this session. There were so many other bills that I suggest visiting www.ncleg.net for more complete information on your favorite issues.