When Republican Sen. Kevin Corbin, R-Franklin, announced during a March 25 listening session at Southwestern Community College that he intended to file a bill addressing the health care coverage gap, he also said he hadn’t quite formulated the particulars of it because he wanted to introduce something that would pass the Republican-controlled legislature.
With the insertion of specific language into placeholder bill S530 on April 5, Corbin along with co-sponsors Sen. Jim Burgin, R-Harnett, and Sen. Joyce Krawiec, R-Davie, will now get his chance to see what the Republican appetite is for incrementally closing the gap for a very important demographic.
HAYWOOD COUNTY, North Carolina (WLOS) Two mountain lawmakers want Haywood County to be designated as North Carolina’s elk capital. Rep. Mark Pless (R-District 118) and Rep. Mike Clampitt (R-District 119) have introduced the bill in the General Assembly.
It has been 20 years since elk were re-introduced into Haywood County’s Cataloochee Valley, part of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Clampitt said it’s appropriate to identify Haywood as the state’s elk capital, a designation that will also help promote tourism. He said the bill is just starting in committee.
Wildlife biologists estimate the initial herd of 25 elk has grown to about 200.
Carolina Journal is taking a brief look at each new member of the General Assembly 10 in the Senate and 11 in the House. We look at where they’ve been, what they’re doing now, and what we might expect them to do as lawmakers.
The 2021-22 session began in late January. Expect COVID-19 and the ongoing fallout from the pandemic to be top priorities for lawmakers, who are crafting a new budget for the biennium. They’ll also draw new legislative and congressional maps for the next decade based on fresh census data. Each legislator, too, has their own priorities.
Equal Rights Amendment introduced in General Assembly
More than 40 years after it first took up the matter, the North Carolina General Assembly may consider finally ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment first passed by Congress in the early 1970s.
“The Equal Rights Amendment symbolizes the unpacking of equality. We’re in this space right now where we’re talking about equality and what it means to be an inclusive society,” said Dr. Ameena Zia, a Mills River-based social impact consultant and appointed United Nations representative at ECOSOC, the Economic and Social Affairs Council, since 2015.
Last summer, Americans commemorated the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which finally gave women the right to vote. Last fall, they saw the first woman and woman of color elected to the office of the Vice President.
State report calls for greater police transparency
A task force founded by Gov. Roy Cooper in the wake of violent protests after the police killing of Minneapolis man George Floyd last summer makes dozens of recommendations to strengthen and support North Carolina’s law enforcement community, including several that would lead to greater transparency by law enforcement agencies.
“It’s high time that North Carolina’s open government laws move out of the basement and into the vanguard of the best open government states in the country,” said John Bussian, a Raleigh intellectual property and media attorney.
Currently, state laws make the disclosure of disciplinary records of state employees especially police and teachers difficult or impossible, which can perpetuate the hiring and continuing employment of so-called “bad apples.”