- Some North Carolina counties and their taxpayers could see a property tax revaluation moratorium take effect and the bipartisan push to increase penalties for gang-related crime.

This is State Lines.

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(upbeat music) ♪ - Welcome back to State Lines.

I'm Kelly McCullen.

Joining me today, good friend, political analyst, Joe Stewart, Representative Ray Pickett of Allegheny, Ashe and Watauga counties.

Representative Laura Budd from Mecklenburg County joins us for the first time.

Hello, Representative.

- Hello.

- Colin Campbell, he's been here a time or two of WUNC News.

Colin, always good to see you.

- Good to be here.

- Well, since you're a seasoned journalist, we'll start with you this week.

The North Carolina budget bill negotiations could soon, soon see a breakthrough.

Good news, right?

House Speaker Destin Hall said the bill needs some administrative work, which takes some time given the legislation size.

It's a lot of paper or digital paper, at least.

I've talked to a few legislators.

They say, hey, they're like us.

They're waiting for the word a deal's been reached.

Legislative goal is to pass a budget by June 30th.

Colin, we're still at a point where there's a framework.

They've agreed on something to vote on, but is that something, a full bill or maybe three quarters of a bill?

- Well, we got the things that they were most in disagreement about, the state employee raises, the teacher raises, the status of future income tax cuts, but then all the other things need to be filled in.

And they say they're making progress.

Initially, they were looking at the week of June 15th.

Now they're saying, ah, that's a little too optimistic.

Maybe the week after that, but definitely by the end of June, we'll have something together.

What I'm hearing is some of the remaining things to deal with are they wanna put Helene Recovery funding into the final budget bill.

There's some still negotiations about this NC Innovation funding, which is this group that got a ton of state money to fund research projects at public universities.

So there's a lot of little things that they've gotta deal with, but it seems like they're getting closer.

It's just a question of when do they finally have a hundred-some page document to roll out and for the public to consider.

- Representative Budd, being a Democrat, I'm sure you're just right at the table negotiating this Republican budget.

- In fact, they gave me a seat not only at the table, but the head of the table said-- - Well, how's it gonna go?

- No one ever.

- What is it like from the Democratic side?

I must say, I talked to a few.

They go, man, we don't know.

We're waiting like you for a vote.

Call for a vote.

- We'll believe it when we see it, I think is how you have to put it.

We will believe it when we see it, but I also wanna throw something out there in the sense like why are we celebrating?

It's a year late.

People have been waiting for a year for this.

They're living on 2023 dollars in 2026, so I'm excited we're getting a budget because that means that maybe there'll be some relief, not just for Hurricane Helene victims, but also for our educators, our law enforcement, state employees, transportation, infrastructure funding, and the like, but the reality is it's a year late and celebration of what?

A failure to govern because we didn't do the job we were elected to do in the first place.

- Representative Pickett, we can run this state on continuing resolutions is basically what the state and Republicans have done for the past two years, but that mode of government business doesn't seem to be sticking.

People want a whole budget bill and anything short of that just seems to keep them upset.

- And I would agree with them, and we are a year late.

The House was firm on the raises for state employees and teachers, and we wanted to keep that, and I'm glad we finally did get it.

It was a year late, and I know continuing resolution is just a stopgap.

You need a full budget, and I hope that next year we can come to a quicker agreement between the House and Senate to get a budget on time, but I'm very proud that we did get the raises that we did get.

- Joe, if they pass a full budget and get back into that habit after 200 years, you know, after a couple hundred years of doing that way, they have to go home on June 30th and be civilians like the rest of us.

Is it a big deal we get a full budget now?

- I think absolutely, and talking to both Democrats and Republicans over the interim, a lot of reports that constituents were concerned and frustrated that a budget wasn't in place.

Many times I heard legislators say that was what the constituents said.

You have one job, and that's to have a budget.

So the fact that we are able to continue to run government, we just take the budget that we had in place, and that continues on 'til a new budget comes in place.

Doesn't create the kind of crisis that often occurs at the federal level, but that having been said, I think the opportunity from this situation is to learn going forward whatever the structure needs to be modified to make sure that in the long session, there is a concerted effort to put in place a biennial budget for the state, because we are a fast-growing place.

There's a lot of infrastructure needs.

These things have to be resolved in a timely fashion, so maybe this experience informs it going forward.

- Colin, what could the change in Senate leadership, provided Republicans maintain their majorities?

I know there's some saying there's an outside shot.

We could have at least one Democratic chamber next year.

How could that affect future budgets?

Are people laying this at Phil Berger's feet, or is this just a product of the system in Raleigh now?

- You know, I think part of the problem, we've even got this far, was all the disagreement over income tax cuts, and that's where Senator Berger had kind of drawn a line in the sand about wanting to stick to the scheduled income tax cuts that had been agreed to in the past.

Whether the next Senate leader, Senate Republican leader, has that same viewpoint is quite as entrenched, I think will be interesting to see, but it will be a totally new dynamic.

I mean, assuming Republicans keep control of the House, Destin Hall will be in his second term as Speaker.

You'd have a new leader of the Senate.

So how the two folks negotiate and how successful they are in negotiating is definitely gonna be a wild card going into 2027.

- Representative Budd, I wanna pivot from the, when you get a budget passed, say we're out by June 30th or early July, how does it affect campaigning heading to November knowing you're adjourned?

- So I think it depends on where you are in terms of what district you're running for, House or Senate, but we are so gerrymandered that so many of us don't have to campaign because we are assured of a win.

So for example, I am unopposed this time.

A number of my colleagues in Mecklenburg County are also unopposed in the House.

And the problem there becomes we don't have to campaign, which means we don't have to go out and present ourselves to the voting constituents to prove that we did our job, we did it well, and we deserve to go back.

And I think that creates a system whereby even when the best of intentions exist, you become entrenched just because you don't have to be held accountable.

- Representative Pickett, do you think those red districts that are R plus three to plus five, people think Democrats might pick off a few to be out of town, out of Raleigh?

- I think it does 'cause you have to be back in your district, you have to be, that's who votes for you.

So you have to be back there to talk to people and try to show them that what you did, you think is right.

I mean, I know the budget holdup was not good, but I think we held strong for what we thought was right to get those raises and the Helene package, we were just trying to finalize that this morning to get it in the budget.

So we're still working on quite a few provisions to get in there, but we will have one this time.

But being back in your district is very important.

- Joe, let's say a candidate has 90 days, you've worked for some of the elected leaders of the past, is that enough time to get the message out?

A budget has been passed.

If indeed you're on the side that can tout a budget being passed.

- Yeah, you talk about those marginal Republican districts, I think it'll be essential for candidates, Republican candidates in those districts to be able to go back in and localize the race, to talk about the things that were accomplished in the budget, the relative things that are important to local people that the legislature focused on this year.

There's a lot of up ballot clutter.

I mean, you have a US Senate race likely to be very expensive.

Roy Cooper now considered to be a front runner, an ambient lead of five to seven percentage points in the polls.

Still, I think a lot of money is gonna be spent there.

It's a midterm election that historically, those go against the party in control of the White House.

So I think Republicans face those headwinds as well.

So I think those candidates running state house and state Senate, Republicans in those districts that are marginal are gonna really have to focus on the issues that matter most locally to those constituents and voters.

- Another big topic concerns those few North Carolina counties that revalued properties for taxation.

They're now facing a one year moratorium if Governor Stein would sign the bill.

11 counties out of North Carolina's 100 counties would see property values frozen at the 2026 levels until 2027.

But by next year, voters, you will have decided whether to amend the state constitution to push legislators to then pass legislation capping property tax increases.

There's a separate bill moving through the state house could receive a vote next week that could exempt some of the 11 counties from that moratorium.

So now we're, counties are trying to claw back to say exempt us.

I think Buncombe County is one of them, right?

Representative Pickett?

- Yes.

- It looks like they'll get that, why?

- We pulled out-- - You're not from Buncombe.

(laughing) - Initially, we pulled out all the Helene affected counties and we used a formula that didn't include Buncombe.

So we had to put that in a bill and it's in Senate bill 474 to exempt them from this.

There's a lot of details still to be worked out on this.

The bills have not been passed.

We're waiting to see what the constitutional amendment does.

Constitutional amendment is gonna be, and I think it will pass, is gonna be in the details when we come back.

That's where the rubber meets the road of how we write legislation for that constitutional amendment.

And I hope that we're very careful because I do have a lot of concerns from my counties.

I mean, all three of my counties have been in touch with me constantly over this subject 'cause they're worried about capital projects.

Watauga just took over their EMS services.

So they're having to completely fund that now with new equipment, new personnel, and they wanna make sure that they're able to fund that.

- Representative Budd, these are Republican County commissions often calling and complaining about not being able to, dare I say, raise taxes on the property.

- I mean, so much to say about all this.

Essentially, when you go through the bill numbers and the topics, and you're talking about bill numbers and topics, the reality is this, it's a mess.

But I will say ultimately, it is what I would say is all the assistance you could possibly want short of actual help when it comes to the affordability issue that confronts so many North Carolinians.

Coming back to decide the details of a constitutional amendment that may pass, that's problematic.

This should all be thought through before the voter even gets to the ballot box.

Otherwise, it's just smoke and mirrors.

We're not really addressing the issues that confront these people.

- Colin, what does the amendment do?

I mean, I have heard legislators could simply pass a property tax cap law.

Of course, it could be repealed, but what does the amendment do that a law wouldn't?

- The amendment is very vague, the way it's written.

It just says we want to see restrictions on local property taxes.

What those restrictions are, it sounds like we won't know before the election.

And like you say, they have the power, they can't put anything in the Constitution about it, but to do these kind of things like this moratorium to address this concern about rising property tax bills right now, it's kind of an election issue.

You're taking the temperature of the electorate and maybe getting people to sort of come out to the polls because they're upset about property taxes, and then that gets either settled in November or December after the election, what it actually looks like, or maybe getting into 2027, where they actually come up with the details of how they want to restrict local income property tax increases.

- Joe, this amendment, it doesn't pass any caps, but does it provide the constitutional order of the people to tell the legislature cap property taxes, or am I missing the message?

- No, I think the point of this is the legislature is inclined to want to step in and be a regulatory authority over how much these taxes are.

Local people often are concerned, and we've benefited from the economic growth in the state.

It's made the value of our properties go up, and in many of these counties, the infrastructure needs, as Representative Budd alluded to, there are a consistent need for the investments to make sure that we're keeping up with the growth and keeping the economic standing of the state well.

It is a problem for people to see both the value of their property increase and the rate of their tax increase and not feel as though there needs to be some restraint by the state over that authority.

And we want to make sure local governments are not just seeing this as an opportunity to expand their coffers and spending at the local level for reasons that aren't necessarily entirely committed to making sure there's a provision of services and infrastructure for our local residents.

I think the bigger challenge is the state continues to grow.

We still continue to be a desirable place, 120, 125,000 new residents a year, and a lot of these counties are experiencing dramatic increases in population that do necessitate investments in infrastructure to meet that demand.

But there does need to be some restraint.

Whether or not a constitutional amendment is right, the people will decide in November.

- Representative Pickett, how can an ordinary voter know that their county is simply raising taxes to create a revenue windfall versus inflation tackle government expenses just like they've tackled the grocery bill?

- When government is involved, it's hard to convince the general public that government, they see that inflation as well.

I mean, when they start buying equipment, I mean, a dump truck costs a lot more than it did five years ago.

And sometimes it's hard to understand that, but their bills have gone up as well.

I encourage them to pay attention to your county budget.

Go to the county budget hearing.

Most of them, you can watch them live now or at least listen to them and stay informed on what they're doing and listen to them, go talk to them.

They're open, they're willing to talk to you, but their costs have gone up as well.

And that's the reason I've said, if this constitutional amendment does pass, the devils will be in the details of how we structure that to make sure that they can still get after infrastructure and things of needs.

- So it is polling very popular.

I mean, it looks like if people pass ballot, that they vote on it, they're gonna vote to do this.

What happens in that negotiation stage next legislative session?

Do you expect the urban blue counties to be involved?

- I expect them to be involved, but I wanna point out that the reason that property taxes are going up is that counties and municipalities are having to take on an increasing share of funding things that the state should have been funding all along.

We don't have a state budget.

And so now some of these measures that are coming up that we're being asked to vote on, we're telling local counties who are doing the job they were elected to do, we're gonna tie your hands behind your back because we want to tell you what to do when we didn't do what we were supposed to do in the first place.

So I think that it's important to look at the fact that it's vague, it has no teeth, it has no caps or boundary guidelines, and we're just gonna trust the state government to do it right when they couldn't get the job done in the first place.

- That's what they're asking.

A bipartisan state house.

Bipartisan state house, I must say.

They easily approved a criminal justice bill, commonly called, it's actually titled Jaleeyah's Law.

The bill would fund three state-level prosecutor jobs to focus on criminal gang activity, and gang members would receive an extra firearms charge if you used a firearm while engaging or encouraging criminal gang activity.

During trials, expert witnesses could take the stand and prove a defendant's criminal gang activity.

- Unfortunately, this is going to cost the state too much money, it's going to keep people in prison where gang education is rampant.

When they come out even worse.

Let's rethink what we're doing.

- Jaleeyah's Law provides prosecutors and law enforcement with stronger tools to investigate, prosecute, and deter gang activity across this state.

- Representative Budd, this one easily passed.

We're gonna have this, I didn't know gang activity was a huge issue worthy of a fancy bill, if you will.

- Fancy bill, this was a 13-year-old girl.

This isn't fancy.

- Take the name away from it and look at the policy.

Multi-faceted, you're hiring state prosecutors, you're gonna put people in jail longer for having the gun on them as opposed to, that kind of thing.

- So the funding piece is critical, putting together a task force, all of those things are important, we need to do those, I don't disagree.

What I think we can't do is ignore the fact that we are gonna continue to have to punish if we don't actually do something about prevention and intervention.

It's not enough for us to say, we put you in prison for a longer period of time if we could have prevented it in the first place.

So that child didn't need to die and her family didn't need to suffer if we had perhaps taken into account that early intervention and understanding how people end up in gangs.

Maybe we could have prevented it.

And so that's what I'd like to see us do in the next long session, is really look at intervention and prevention.

- Representative Pickett, these type of bills, they're complex, they read easy, they write easy.

Will this get the job done or is it just one step forward in the process of refining criminal justice?

- I believe it's a step forward.

I think there's, like Representative Budd has mentioned, there's many steps to this and there is some intervention steps that we need to imply.

'Cause gang activity has gone up across North Carolina.

We have seen it, especially in our metropolitan areas, we've seen more of it, but some of it is filtering out into the rural areas as well.

So I think it is a multi-step process and this is a first step.

And I think that's what most of the members on the floor thought.

This is a first step and we can come back in a long session and we can keep working on this.

- Joe, does this touch into organized crime as well?

Multi-state gangs.

We're not talking about gangs the way we talked about them in the '70s and '80s.

We're talking some very sophisticated operations.

- Well, in some regards, as Representative Pickett alluded to, this is a facet, at least in part, of North Carolina becoming a more urban state.

We're starting to have the types of problems that urban states have in terms of crime and criminality, but also in terms of social welfare and mental health provisions and all these other sorts of infrastructure services.

We know in all aspects of the criminal justice system, many times what keeps people out of trouble is to make sure that there are programs early in life that direct them in the right way so that they don't get involved with gangs, so they don't get involved in the criminal justice system.

We are now a state of big cities and increasingly we're gonna have to think in terms of what are we gonna do to make sure we're addressing the problems that typically states with big cities have.

- This one just flew through.

There's always a criminal justice bill that seems very popular.

- Yeah, and I think the question now is that it went through the House.

Will the Senate take it up?

We're getting towards the end of session where the Senate's kind of not that eager to put all of the House bills through committees and Berger told reporters this week that Senate committees are gonna be shutting down in the next week or so, so whether this can get across the finish line remains to be seen.

Not because people are necessarily against it, but the Senate probably will wanna take their time to look at a lot of the finer points of this and whether that happens before they adjourn for the year sort of remains to be seen, but certainly a lot of support for this bill.

- It's like your Hemp Bill, this other legislation.

Everyone's filing these interesting bills now when we know the budget's coming and they're gonna shut down committees.

So is this lawmakers in some way keeping their promise to file legislation on behalf of a voter or voters?

- I think in some parts, yes, it is, but it's also as we come into the end of the session, these things are being filed and they're getting the attention.

I think it demonstrates that, despite all the hyper-partisan rhetoric and the divide, that we really do hear from people across the state and things that are important.

I mean, Jaleeyah's law came about because Representative Bell, I mean, that's a constituent of his, they reached out to him and he listened and he took this measure.

So I don't want to detract from the good that can be done from that, but I also want to emphasize it's the first step, it's not the last step.

And I do think it is us listening to the voters, the hemp bills, the criminal law, there've been a number of them, and whether they're misguided or not.

- Should we pay attention to these late filed bills?

Now, Jaleeyah's law just needs to go through the Senate, but all these bills that are interesting, that people resonate with, at least gets their attention, we are in the fourth quarter.

Should we pay attention to some of these bills or are we setting the stage for 2027?

- Some of them we are setting the stage for 2027.

Like I said, when the budget's done, the Senate's gonna shut down.

And some of this is to get things moving for next year and some things that we need to work on.

And there's some policy out there, some good policy we need to work on.

- All right, State Representative Sarah Stevens has resigned from the North Carolina House this week.

She can now focus on her campaign for North Carolina Supreme Court.

Ms.

Stevens will be the Republican challenger for incumbent Democratic Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls.

Joe conservatives hold a five, two court majority.

I'm saying this might be the second most watched race in the North Carolina ballot this midterm.

That's why I wanted to bring it up.

It's not that she resigns, it's now the Supreme Court race.

May the fighters get in the ring.

- Well, it's particularly interesting, as you alluded to, there's only one state Supreme Court race on the ballot this year.

The partisan balance of control of the state Supreme Court is not in play in this race.

The interesting thing about the 2026 race is it's really as much as anything about the 2028 race when three Republican held seats will be on the ballot and quite possibly the partisan balance of control of the state Supreme Court is in play.

We have seen increasingly over the last several election cycles, more and more money spent by outside groups in these court races.

Generally speaking, people are not aware of who their judicial candidates are, but these races have been very competitive.

The race in 2026 between Alison Riggs and Jefferson Griffin decided by fewer than a thousand votes, really tight.

And in this contest, Anita Earle's entrenched incumbent justice, Sarah Stevens, well-known for her career as a legislator, worked on a lot of criminal justice related issues.

It will be an interesting race and it will be in many ways foretelling us what we should expect in 2028.

When we could, for the first time in North Carolina, see 100, 150, maybe $200 million spent by outside groups just on a state Supreme Court race.

- Now, Colin, why would you spend $200 million on a Supreme Court race when we're not supposed to know how these judges would rule before we elect them?

- I mean, it's just gotten increasingly partisan over the years.

Like the judges can't say how they're gonna rule, but they can certainly signal what their views are on abortion or other hot button issues that come before the courts.

And we've seen so many instances of the Supreme Court, whether it was under Democrats in the past or Republican judges in the current iteration, really making some powerful decisions about whether laws passed by the legislature are valid or not.

So there's so much interest in who gets control over the courts and particularly when we get to 2028 and the balance of partisan power in the courts goes into play.

And certainly this year is important because if Democrats were to lose that seat currently held by Anita Earls, it's so much harder for them to win a majority next time around when there's more seats on the ballot.

- How does this race affect the ballot?

'Cause you gotta go all the way down the ballot to find legislators and colleagues and local races.

This is another big race that could get very heated.

- So one, my side hustle is as an attorney.

So when you ask me that question, you're teeing it up.

So number one, I would say it's the number one most watched judicial race in the country because North Carolina is a swing state.

It is a purple state.

And so the balance of power on that court is going to be critical.

And you're right, Joe.

We're teeing it up for '28, hands down.

But I will say I am so old that I practiced law before judicial races were partisan.

And I remember being in court or sending something to the Court of Appeals and I had no idea which way the judge leaned because it wasn't important to the issue in front of the parties arguing the case.

- Doesn't it make it easier for you though if you kind of have an idea?

- Not when the judge in front of you is Republican and you're a Democrat.

(laughing) - But then you know up front.

What are we to make of this?

Is the day, Judge Bob Orr is gonna be mad at me for asking this.

Should voters just give up on the idea that a judge is being elected in a partisan race to act in a non-partisan manner?

- That's a good question.

And I don't have a good answer for it, to be honest with you.

Because I've seen it go both ways.

Because it seems that so much more is going to the courts now.

It seems that everything we do goes straight to the courts.

And so it is important to know sort of how they're gonna make that decision when you're voting on them.

How are they sort of, they sort of think more like you do and have values more like you do, or opposite of you.

So I think the voters do seem to like that.

- But how does that play into if you have a contract dispute or you have a personal injury case because you had a crash on the highway?

Your partisan leanings are completely irrelevant to that, when you are issuing a ruling on those decisions.

And what we talk about are headline-grabbing cases that come out of say the General Assembly or Leandro case.

But the reality is most cases are not partisan and they should not be in any way filtered through a partisan-- - You're right.

It's the same way you folks get blamed for being hyper-partisan and what, 80% of the time you vote 100 to five or 150.

Very bipartisan legislature statistically.

I got a couple of minutes.

I wanna hit on this.

We'll go to you, Colin.

This social media ban in the Senate.

Unanimous Senate approved limiting early teenagers from alleged addictive social media apps.

So if you're 13 years or younger, you'd be banned from these identified apps.

And if you're 14 or 15 years old, you need your parents' permission to create an account.

Legislators are defining an addictive social media app as having 10% of its users under 16 years old averaging two hours of daily use on the app while also featuring like and share abilities.

Why not just say Facebook, Colin?

- Well, there's so many apps popping up, right?

I mean, they're the ones that we as grownups deal with and like Facebook or Twitter.

And then new things that younger people are using that we don't really know how they work.

And that's kind of scary as a parent.

- Yeah, Facebook, that's for the older crowd.

Now there's a lot more shares and likes and a lot of other-- - What are you having?

- I mean, I mean, I mean, older, older crowd.

I mean, older, older crowd.

- I'm sitting right here, Kelly.

(laughing) - Is it gonna be hard on parents and social media to really keep kids off?

My daughter beat our, she beat our firewall and everything.

How do we know?

- You don't.

It's like nailing jello to a wall.

But the point here I would say is it's a conversation we really need to be having, which is where and when and at what point does social media activity become detrimental to growth, social growth.

Bullying in schools is where most of it takes place on your phones.

So why do we have phones in schools, for example?

But I think we have to have the conversation started and I appreciate that.

- 10 seconds, Mr.

Pickett.

- I think it's a great idea.

I think we've seen the screen time is hurting our children and when we took the cell phones out of schools recently, it's already made an impact.

- Last word, I got 30 seconds.

We gotta be out of here.

- You know, this is a big challenge.

It's not going away, but we gotta find some way to make young people understand how to use this responsibly.

- Make me understand how to use it responsibly.

Thank you, panelists, for everything.

Thank you for being on, Representative Budd.

Good to have you.

Hope you'll come back and see us.

Email us your thoughts and opinions because you know what, I know you have them.

StateLines@PBSNC.org.

Put some analysis into it.

I'll share with the crowd.

I'm Kelly McCullen.

Thanks for watching.

We'll see you next time.

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