WHAT HAPPENED: Jones Street surged back to lawmaking business after the previous week's soft schedule.
WHAT IT MEANS: The end is near? The General Assembly is by all accounts disposing of final bill considerations before adjournment, potentially July 22 -- though
a late-August reconvening is in discussion. There's also that one big piece of state governance to complete: the budget.
ON TAP: You'll recall Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed the budget that the General Assembly sent him, in part for its lack of Medicaid expansion, which
remains a point of contention between the sides. So far, efforts to override that veto haven't shown success, though Republican leaders say they're still working on it. The House passed a
supplemental funding bill in the meantime, awaiting Senate action as of this writing.
THE SKINNY: While the legislature may be concluding the current slate of bill work, activity is high and we've been following it beat for beat. In this Bulletin, we'll detail what happened with a number of bills of interest to cities and towns, touching everything from short-term rentals to electric scooters to regulatory reform and more.
After much negotiation with the League and other local government interests, a modified ordinance decriminalization bill advanced in the House Wednesday with a favorable report from the House Judiciary Committee. Now, instead of decriminalizing all local ordinances, SB 584 Criminal Law Reform would allow local governments to retain criminal enforcement of their local codes, with one major caveat: if the local government was a city over 1,000 in population, or a county over 20,000 in population, it would need to submit a report that lists of all of its ordinances that were punishable by a criminal penalty. If the General Assembly does not receive this report by Nov. 1, 2019, then that local government’s code of ordinances would immediately become enforceable only by civil penalties. The legislature instituted this reporting requirement last year, and hundreds of local governments have already complied. The bill must next be heard by the House Rules Committee. Cities and towns especially thank Rep. Dennis Riddell for his consideration of local government concerns in working to revise the bill.
A few alcohol-related bills progressed this week, including HB 536 ABC Omnibus Regulatory Reform, which passed the House with language that would allow the sale of more than one alcoholic beverage to a single patron at a time; allow the consumption of alcohol at bingo games and farmers markets; place restriction on the establishment of new Alcoholic Beverage Control boards; enable a local option for spirituous liquor tastings in ABC stores; and allow local ABC boards to deliver liquor to mixed-beverage permittees for a fee. Meanwhile, the House passed SB 290 ABC Regulatory Reform Bill, which contains language similar to HB 536 but originally pertained to distilleries. The bill has gone back to the Senate for concurrence; H536 has been referred to the Senate Rules Committee.
