Legislative Update from Rep. Iler January 18, 2021
Last week at the North Carolina General Assembly was the first week of the 2021 – 2022 session. We were sworn in on Wednesday, the 13th, in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. We elected officers, such as the Speaker of the House, the Speaker Pro Tempore, and President Pro Tempore of the Senate. There were also some committees wrapping up their interim work and preparing for the new session.
Early Monday, it was time to head back to Raleigh, as I had a committee meeting early in the afternoon. As Co-Chair of the House Select Committee on Strategic Transportation Planning & Long Term Funding Solutions, I wanted to attend in person rather than virtually. We heard some creative presentations on funding ideas, as well as some polls on what our citizens think of various transportation funding concepts. We hope to have a report in time to file some bills in the new session and budget process.
On Tuesday, I had to be familiarized on our new software that converts our system from .net to .gov. I hope none of your emails got lost in the process, but I can now answer them more quickly in some cases, as they now go directly to my personal computer as well as my work computer. It will be better once I am used to it. Thanks to our IT department and my Legislative Assistant Carla for their patience.
Wednesday was the big day to kick off the 2012 – 2022 session by officially being sworn in and electing our presiding officers. In light of what is going on nationally, it was a day that unity was the prevailing attitude. Our Speaker, Tim Moore, was re-elected by acclimation, as was our Speaker Pro Tempore, Sarah Stevens. There was not even token opposition from the minority party, and their leader made a supportive and unifying speech. In another unifying move, the Speaker appointed several co-chairmanships from the opposition party, which is a change from past practice.
An added positive for Brunswick County was the swearing in and seating in the House of our second Representative that lives in our county, Charlie Miller, of Southport. I foresee good things from his future service, representing us in Raleigh in education, law enforcement, and other policy areas.
We adjourned until January 27th, when we can file bills and get to fulltime committee work. On Thursday, it was back to the district to catch up on meetings and emails with our Brunswick citizens. I hope to have these articles each week when we are in session.