Legislative Update from Rep. Iler — March 8, 2023
Last week at the North Carolina General Assembly was another busy and productive week. We had over 100 new bills filed in the House and there were also dozens filed in the Senate. In the House we passed new governance for the schools of deaf and blind, increased urgency for overdue hurricane relief funds, and many local bills. I was able to cosponsor several new bills. The Senate passed the “medical marijuana bill” and sent it to the House.
House Bill 11 – Schools for the Deaf and Blind gives the schools more freedom for self-governance rather than total control by the State Bd. of Education. It passed 71 – 45 in the House and was sent to the Senate. House Bill 119 – NC Office of Recovery and Resiliency/Increase Informal Bid Threshold raises the level of the bids for relief projects to $250,000, so they can be done more efficiently. It passed 114 – 1 and went to the Senate.
The Senate passed Senate Bill 3 – NC Compassionate Care Act, which legalizes medical marijuana under certain conditions. It passed 36 – 10 and was sent to us in the House. It is a very controversial bill on all sides of the issue.
I was able to sponsor a bill to help our young drivers continue to use the limited provisional licensing system without having to wait a full year after getting a learners permit. House Bill 261 – Limited Provisional License Modification simply extends the effective date from 12/31/2022 to 12/31/2023 that this license can be earned in 9 months rather than 12 months. This is in response to parents concerned that this had expired on their young drivers.
I was among many who cosponsored a bill against Covid 19 vaccine mandates by our state agencies. House Bill 222 – No CV19 Vaccine Mandates for NC Students prevents state and local agencies from requiring this vaccine for school attendance.
It was great to see a House page from South Brunswick High School last week. Ella Moffitt, daughter of our Brunswick Bd. of Education member Robin Moffitt was sponsored by Rep. Charlie Miller. I encourage parents from North and West to apply for their students to be pages and learn more about their state government. The slots are limited, and the application is on our legislative website.
Monday night of this week we will hear the State of the State address by Governor Cooper to a joint session of the House and Senate. The rest of the week we expect many more bills to be filed, many more to come before our committees and onto the floor for votes.
Our budget process is moving forward at a record pace. We completed the presentations from the agencies last week and will proceed to get into the details in daily meetings this week, with a goal of voting the budget out of the House in early April and sending it to the Senate.