[bright music] - [Kelly] House Republicans passed their version of a budget bill as Senate leaders vote to control who runs the DMV.

And voters, you could decide multiple state constitutional amendments.

This is "State Lines" ♪ - [Announcer] Quality public television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you who invite you to join them in supporting PBS NC.

[bright music continues] ♪ - Welcome back to "State Lines."

I'm Kelly McCullen.

Joining me today to my right, Public Relations Consultant, Pat Ryan, Representative Maria Cervania of Wake County, Representative Allen Chesser of Nash County and WPTF Radio host, Steve Rao, occupies seat four.

Hello, everyone.

- [Rep. Cervania] Hello.

- A lot of topics, they accuse us of never getting through the entire show because we stick on one topic too long, maybe this week 'cause I wanna talk about this house budget.

The State House and Senate budget stalled out about two weeks ago.

It seems publicly that no deal on any new budget is a likely outcome.

So House Republicans passed their version of a budget bill this week.

Something promised by State House speaker, Tim Moore.

The budget bill would spend $31.7 billion.

It would offer $135 million towards supporting childcare services called the Childcare Cliff.

State employees would get an extra 1% point of a pay raise over what's currently scheduled.

And starting teacher pay would rise to "44,000 bucks a year.

Representative Chester, from $39,000, that's just a few of the highlights.

That's what the headlines grab, you know, kind of reaching that, how many pages is it?

Hundreds of pages of bill and outcomes of budget.

Why pass a House budget when the Senate says, "If you do it, we're not gonna look at it?"

- Well, I think it's just part of a normal negotiating process.

Obviously, negotiations behind closed doors fell apart, and so just fall back to what the process normally is, where the House passes their version, the Senate passes their version, and hopefully we get into a Conference Committee report on it.

If not, we do have a budget.

It's important to understand that this is not a budget, this is a budget correction or an adjustment of a budget.

The budget already exists.

We passed that last year.

So, it's just laying our priorities out, and so a continuation of the conversation, putting it out in the public, let the public see where the negotiations are and go from there.

- Representative Cervania, what could be, what should be, what might be?

what do you say from the Democratic side?

- So I do agree with my colleague that it is a good effort to go forward because we need to actually have that conversation and bring everybody to the table.

I think that our chamber had done that and it's been good.

We now have a Senate version and hopefully it does bring it into conference.

But I will say with the top topics that you had talked about, 1% increase in state employee raises, that doesn't even match inflation.

And so I don't even know how our state employees are accepting that in terms of is it really a increase in salary?

$44,000 as a base salary for a teacher doesn't even in many of our counties even meet the median income of that county.

And here in North and in Wake County, it's $20,000 if not more below the median average income.

So, if we're trying to actually keep our state employees, keep our teachers, we need to do better.

So, ultimately, this is not a budget that's serving our North Carolinians.

- Said like a good Democrat, Pat, but you know what?

This budget debate, there's so many bills.

I can listen to the Republican and go, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah."

And I listen to the Democrat and I can go, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah."

But they can't get together, now I won't say they can't.

They won't get together.

Why not?

- Well, it's kind of a tale as old as time, for, I don't know, 10 years now, maybe, the House has traditionally been the body that wants to spend a bit more, but the Senate has been the body that wants to spend quite a bit less.

You know, I would just say that for the last 13 years, the state of North Carolina has been one of the healthiest fiscal states in the country because of low taxes and low spending that the majority has put forward.

You know, the result is super majorities in both chambers.

Best state for business two years running.

That's the philosophical argument on the Senate side.

And I think there's sort of a convergence of interest here that may point towards no budget adjustment at all as sort of the most rational outcome here.

Senator Berger will have a new Speaker to negotiate with next year.

Obviously there won't be a billion dollars more in spending, which is one of the Senate's priorities.

So, I think all signs are sort of pointing towards maybe the outcome here is not much happens for the rest of the year.

- But Republicans went with a list of school vouchers.

They wanted to address the childcare cliff.

They got their voters genned up and excited about the legislative agenda, and then so easily just goes, "Ah, no deal, we're going home."

- I don't know if it's.

- Are you playing your voters with that?

- No, I don't know that it's easy to say that.

There were certainly trade offs inherent in that.

I think that the global question is, remember, next year's spending figure will be based on this year's spending figure.

And so there's more than just a one-year difference in spending a half billion dollars more.

It sort of cascades throughout the years and the decades.

So it's a big philosophical question of just the amount of spending and growth in the state budget that historically the Senate has been trying to be as lean as possible.

And so this is just a continuation of that.

- Steve, what's your take?

I mean, you've been locally elected, you're around all sorts of movers and shakers from town level all the way up to Congress.

How hard is a deal to reach, and is it okay sometimes to walk away and say the best deal is no deal?

- Well I think, first of all, I agree with Representative Cervania.

I just think the costs from housing and groceries and gas is just so much higher to deal with that.

I mean, I went to the grocery store recently.

I paid $12 for a box of cereal.

Couple, I mean $75, just four or five items.

So you think about $44,000, is that enough to live on to recruit the best teachers?

I think at the end of the day, I tend to be an optimist.

I think that some of the things I like is promoting 135 million for childcare, the fact that they do want to increase pay for teachers.

And I think where can you invest this billion dollars of surplus for North Carolinians?

So walking away from it, I would like to see the legislature focus more on education, training.

You know, just a few weeks ago I hosted John Chambers, former CEO of Cisco, to talk about AI and the aggressive rapid pace of innovation.

And the thing that John said that was really troublesome to all of us is how quickly AI is displacing jobs faster than we can replenish them, and how important it is for companies and community colleges and even K through 12 to educate folks for the jobs of the future.

So I would like to see this general assembly say, how do we do that?

And I think there's a lot of things we can come together on.

So hopefully, this is, the fun part's the sausage making, right?

I'm on the general assembly, but hopefully compromise is in the works and we can see a budget that makes sense for all North Carolinians.

- Representative Chesser, without a budget would there be any appetite for taking the high level items that were so discussed by your leaders, setting with standalone bills, finding a way to fund them in the absence of an overall state budget, bill adjustment?

- I think that's the whole point is being in on every conversation.

We should probably mark down this episode though, 'cause I think for once you've got all four panelists in agreement that the Biden economy is not doing well in prices and inflation.

That's what I've just heard is everyone's complaining about inflation and not being able to keep up with it.

And I think everybody agrees with that at, on this panel.

- I think it's an excellent point, Representative.

- Oh, I do not agree.

- You know, you, the email machine cranks up if you mention the words Biden and Trump on this show.

- [Representative] You're welcome.

- But inflation is a real deal.

12 bucks for a box of cereal.

Steve, I thought $7 for a box of Cheerios was a lot.

- But I will have to give a plugin for the president, unemployment's to three and a half percent.

- No.

- Inflation starts not only in this two year timeframe.

- I knew it, I knew it.

We have Washington weekenders.

You watch that show for that kind of analysis.

Well, there's no hurry to adjust our state's budget.

There could be a rush to authorize state constitutional amendments in time for the 2024 ballot, Representative Cervania.

Republicans in the House want a state constitutional amendment clarifying that only US citizens can vote.

We could see a constitutional amendment addressing voter identification and Senate Republicans could be preparing an amendment that would lower the maximum cap on North Carolina's income tax rate.

Credit to WREL and Raleigh Representative Cervania.

They say the details of the tax cap still privately discussed within the GOP ranks.

You're not in those meetings.

I would be willing to bet a nickel on that, but three constitutional amendments as if we need more fuel to make us turn out in 2024.

- You can have a whole show on these three constitutional amendments, but I'm going to try to hit it.

- It's a good idea.

- Yeah, exactly.

But I'll try to hit the highlights.

So photo ID.

Representative Chesser and I are on oversight and reform and we brought in director Brinson Bell in.

Voter ID fraud or cases that are against what the fair and correct elections would be, were 10 out of the 8 million registered voters, 10 substantiated cases.

So I'm gonna do quick math here.

That's 0.000000 percent that were substantiated cases of all suspected voter fraud.

And that doesn't isolate for voter ID.

So I'm not sure what we're trying to do here when it comes to voter ID.

Let's go to American citizens being the only people eligible to vote.

Let's be clear.

Our constitutional law says that American citizens are the only people who can vote.

And in the past 10 years that I've been involved or living in North Carolina, I've not heard of any efforts, local, county, state level of wanting any elections, having any other people be able to be eligible to vote.

In the past 10 years, our Republican party has been the majority.

- What about the other one?

Tax cap.

- Okay, but let me finish that point first.

- Okay.

- If we ever have an election anywhere in North Carolina that allows non-American citizens to vote, I would have to question the Republican Party.

We're in a Dillon Rule state, the state legislate, it would have to go through our state legislation.

I'm not sure that would even happen.

So last on the income tax.

7% to 5%, and it goes back to the budget.

We are not bringing in a surplus.

In fact, our revenues coming in from our taxes are lower than in history, where we have a reserve that was 200 million dollars, in the billions actually I should say, at least 2 billion if not more, to now we are projecting it to be 98 million to be reserve.

We are not bringing in revenue, and now we're gonna lower our cap of income tax from seven to 5%.

It's as if we're putting all our bills underneath a bed and ignoring it, and then getting a job to earn less to pay for those bills.

- Look right at representative Chesser.

You're eyeing me with that.

This is his team.

- And then taking any money.

Yeah, and then taking any money that we have to go to the country club to pay for those kids' private.

- Oh boy.

All right, Representative Chesser, the floor is yours.

You could pick which one of these three.

- Well, first let's talk, just talk about the process by which why you would bring something up.

It's not unusual.

It's not the first time that we have brought our state constitution to align with the federal constitution as far in this case, this will be with voting rights.

And what we've done is the voters have already decided that they want this.

It was a, it's a constitutional amendment as is.

We're just expanding upon what the voters have said they wanted.

And when you get to the tax portion of it, again, a legislature cannot pass anything that limits the ability of a future legislature, but the people of the state can.

And so what we're trying to do is give the people of the state the opportunity to say how high they want their tax burden to be in the future.

And so I support the people of the state.

If they don't want it, they can vote it down.

If they want it, we'll have it.

- So to just jump in there.

So I think it's an excellent point, Representative Chesser.

And I know, Steve, you wanna jump in here too.

So, on the question of the tax rate, I believe we've had something like eight or nine, barring Covid, consecutive budget surpluses.

- And I think we still have one, even though our spending is higher than it's ever been.

- Right.

- We're still having surpluses.

The surpluses may be smaller.

- So I think that may suggest that we're taxing too much instead of spending too little.

But in my mind, sort of these Constitutional amendment questions come down to really a basic question of what kind of democracy we want to have.

Because the Constitution isn't my Constitution, it's not your Constitution or yours.

It's the people's document that decides how they're governed.

All of these potential amendments poll above 70%, some in the eighties.

And so if that volume and proportion of the people of this state would like to see those words added to their governing document, it seems to me that they should have the chance to do so.

- Steve, all I need is a minute on this.

I think that, you know, my biggest concern, well, I love political theater, right?

Most of the theaters are closing, but I love watching this kind of thing going on.

But I think that at the end of the day, to me, it just, my problem with it is that it doesn't make sense if it's already illegal in North Carolina to ban voting.

I mean, for non-citizens to vote, then I don't really see the necessity of amending the Constitution, you know?

And so I think that we should just, you know, and also the income tax, well, it could be that, and the concern I have is that if the court decisions don't work in the favor of what the Republicans want, they can amend the constitutions and then they can have the law of the supreme law of the land.

So I'm fine with the amending, making these amendment but I think we have to look at the policies behind them and make sure that it's really what we wanna do at this time.

- But I would just point out one quick rebuttal is it's not the legislature that amends the Constitution.

It's the people.

- [Representative] Oh, it's the people.

- It's the people that amend the Constitution, we can't amend it.

- So you agree to vote.

- We solely put it on the ballot.

Let the people amend it if they choose to.

- What are we amending when it's already on our constitution - That's a good point.

- that American citizens are the only people who can vote in our elections?

What are we amending?

- The state constitution.

- It is in the Constitution.

It's already in the state constitution.

- Well, if it goes to the ballot, we'll have, if all three go to the ballot, to your point, this is where PBS North Carolina can shine, we can deep dive onto proposed constitutional amendments.

- We'll see what the people decide.

- Yes.

- Let the people vote.

Yeah, well, senators who are fed up with customer service at North Carolina's Division of Motor Vehicles have successfully approved House legislation to allow them to confirm future DMV leaders, the state transportation secretary hires DMV commissioners, the bill would make governors submit a commissioner for Senate approval.

Democrats and the Cooper Administration opposed the idea legislators can't hire the DOT secretary.

Steve, the DMV commissioner, works for the Secretary of Transportation who can't be affected by anything legislators want to do.

How does it work?

- Well, I mean, I think, you know, if we're gonna go put appointees through confirmation processes, that's fine, but I think before we do that, we have to look at the reasons why.

In my opinion, first of all, I want to thank the hardworking people of DMV, the state employees.

They work very hard and there are areas where DMV, in my opinion, has gotten better.

Carrie, Durham DMVs I've been to, along with Representative Suvania, they've been run really effectively.

You can get your vehicle registration inspection done at the same time.

So I think the most important thing is to look at the staffing levels and also the process.

So I think the first thing is that I disagree with Senator Lazara to say that, well, making this person now report to the Senate, whoever the DMV Commissioner is for the next governor, is gonna solve the problem.

I think you have to look at the process.

And that's on the Secretary of Technology.

So whoever the next governor picks, I think you have to look at the drawing board of how do you make process better?

The only thing I'll add to that before I let my other colleagues talk is that I think part of that process is automation and technology.

I mean, we need to have an AI strategy in North Carolina.

We can use predictive analytics to get.

- But we're talking about the DMV hiring, the DMV commissioner.

- Well.

- And I get technology and I get the plug for the DMV.

- Hire.

- If somebody's telling these senators that they're not happy with their local DMV office, that's just a fact.

- But if they're not happy with a local DMV office, it's up to the Secretary of Technology to put the processes in place and have the commissioners that can do this.

And you have to have the staffing levels adequate.

I don't think it's fair to just to point the finger.

You gotta look at the culture of the organization and the process.

That's all I'm saying.

- But you know how easy doing that is.

I can point at you.

I'll point at you.

Pat, what's the deal with DMV?

I mean, we all need DMV.

We all like to drive.

They do a great service for the state.

And yes, in fairness, people do talk about their local DMV office for being slow.

- Sure, I mean, it's, to me, I don't see this as big of a controversy as it's being made out to be.

Senate confirmation of important executive positions is very common in federal government.

It's been in North Carolina government for the last eight years, and the DMV has some major issues.

So to me, legislators, I think see a potential avenue to add another layer of accountability to the organization using something that's relatively common, Senate confirmation of appointees.

- But Democrats, Servalia may say that's another layer, something, it's not accountability.

We can describe it in other ways, but however, it is a proposed solution to what is a perceived problem that Senators and some House members are hearing about.

- So two things on this.

Let's have a civics lesson here.

We have three branches of government, and we're a legislature, and the DMV's under the governor's executive branch in a, like very low, like many layers underneath the Department of Transportation.

So we need to look at what we're really trying to do, but it goes back to process.

And when you try and the end user and what their experience is, you don't solve that by having the Senate appoint the commissioner of the DMV.

You solve it by process mapping, look at the whole business model of DMV, and trying to benchmark, mark improvements, make solutions.

- And this is gonna continue.

We have a growing state, more and more people coming in.

So how do we staff it and provide that customer service center?

- Well think about this Representative Chasser.

If I go to DMV and it takes 'em an hour and a half to get my driver's license renewed, I can just call all your office up and complain to you because it would be, wouldn't it be your fault, right?

- Well so this is actually interesting 'cause they brought up process and a civics lesson.

And so what we're, what this would actually do is give the appointment to the governor who by default has the authority to make the appointment because the Secretary of Transportation is an arm, an extension of the governor.

And so when you're looking at process, let's look at what's happened with the lack of process currently.

Our DMV commissioner now violates state law and assumes that the legislature would be amenable to a law change after the violation occurs because he doesn't have any accountability within the general assembly at all.

So he takes what I believe is a gross misreading of a current law, exempts himself and his department from state procurement processes and continues to violate law, I mean, including the real ID act.

That's federal law.

That's not even state law.

And I think if there is this extra layer of accountability where he does come to the general assembly for confirmation, then he'll build relationships within that building and want to talk to us prior to violating the law to get a law changed.

- I'll give you the last word on this, it's your topic.

- So, Representative Chesser's not including the fact it is a governor's appointment, but the Senate has to appoint it.

So it's not exclusively... - Appointment and confirmation are - - To confirm... - completely separate things.

- Confirms the governor's choice.

- Yes.

- Right.

- But why, when there's like, that's multiple layers where let's trust our Department of Transportation secretary to be able to do that.

But I'm gonna go back to process.

We have general counsel, we have different checks and balances.

I, you know, we need to bring in people when they're not abiding by law, I get that, but there was a correction on that.

There's a law process happening in place to make a correction on what you are describing.

And we need to trust in our processes when it comes to state law to handle those things.

We can't pinpoint it on just one person because they did that.

There's many parts of this process that might have faltered.

- Yeah.

- All right, well, the house passed legislation last week, maybe the week before, to unanimously ban a drug that's commonly called gas station heroin.

And while they were at it, they were trying to rewrite some laws to regulate hemp derived products that are currently legal and for sale.

The Senate raised the ante this week by, yes, doing all that, but including medical marijuana legalization in the legislation before passing it.

The medical marijuana issue has long been supported by Senate Rules Chairman, Republican Bill Rabon.

House Speaker Tim Moore has said in the past, "There aren't enough Republican votes to pass medical marijuana."

But I will say, Pat Ryan, if you just bring it to a floor vote, I'm willing to bet there's a majority of the house would approve it.

- Yeah, I'm a medical marijuana hardliner here.

So, to me, first of all, medical marijuana polls through the roof.

It's like an 85% issue, majorities of all parties support it.

But second and sort of more personal to me, the sponsor of the bill, Senator Bill Rabon, should have been dead 25 years ago.

He had a very, very serious form of cancer.

He underwent a brutal regimen of treatment.

So if anybody has earned the right to have some credibility on this question, to me it's Bill Rabon.

So it's wildly popular among voters, right?

In my opinion, it's the right thing to do.

And the person leading the charge knows firsthand how debilitating some of these illnesses can be.

So add it all together and I'm extremely pro medical marijuana.

- As a policy discussion though we can go into opinions of what marijuana means.

It means different things to different families.

And I'm gonna say addiction for marijuana, of course not, but it's all a personal journey with that.

Bill Rabon's personal journey has moved medical marijuana to the forefront of the very conservative Senate majority.

Representative Cervania, your thoughts on this as a policy, put something that Republicans all wanna ban and you add something to legalize that they say they can't pass.

- Right, I mean, this I think is the topic that we're probably all going to agree upon, and it's a benefit for our state in so many ways.

I mean, if people have concerns about the quality, the ability to help people in usage, why not work together on making sure that we have boards and scientists who are able to make sure that we have a good product that will help many people like Senator Rabon with their health issues, their health conditions.

Also, it's an economic development driver.

Like we are trying to transition some of our agriculture into different spaces.

This could be an option for them as well.

And then also, you know, there's an argument about taxation.

This could bring in a level of income for North Carolina.

- Representative Chesser, a Wake County vote from a Wake County representative would be an easy one because the population here would probably be more progressive than, say, down east or over in the eastern part of the state.

What would your voters say about this medical marijuana legalization?

When I was a kid, it would be heretical and I go back to the country, I don't feel that way about it anymore, but that doesn't mean anything.

- Well, I don't know if you guys know this, I had a pretty heated primary and the two issues that I was attacked on was my support of medical cannabis and my supposed, which is accurate, support of the casino legislation.

But I still got two thirds of the vote.

This is not the issue that voters are gonna vote against conservative Republicans for.

Now, will it upset some of the base?

Probably, but I think it's an opportunity, and it's incumbent upon me right now to dispel some of the rumors that are being used against it, which is that this is a gateway to recreational.

Absolutely not.

Since 2012, and that number is important because that's where the statistic 22 a day comes from, with veteran suicides, that's why I focus on 2012.

But since 2012, 24 states have legalized, excuse me, medical cannabis.

Only two since then have gone to recreational and both of those through ballot initiative, which is not present in North Carolina.

If you wanted to transfer from medical to recreational, you would have to come back through the General Assembly to do so in North Carolina.

- Steve, last word, we have about one minute.

- Yeah, I think, the other issue I would talk about is, you know, crime and, you know, the investment of police resources.

I think, you know, legalizing marijuana would help us focus our police officers not on arresting people for marijuana, but gun violence, the terrible violence we've seen.

Revenue, tax revenue would be great.

And entrepreneurship, I mean, former Governor Perdue's son, I think, Garrett Perdue formed a cannabis company.

So at the end of the day, I think we're all in agreement, let's legalize marijuana.

For the gas station heroin, I think opioids, we gotta go after it hard.

28,000 North Carolinians have died from opioids.

Attorney General Stein negotiated a lot of settlements.

So I agree, let's make that happen.

- Final word, does Bill Rabon finally get his medical marijuana passed, is this enough?

- I think so.

- All right.

- Oh, I hope so.

- There you go.

Well, thank you Pat, Maria, Alan, - - Thank you.

- Steve, thank you so much for being on the show.

More importantly, thank you for watching us here on "State Lines."

Email your thoughts and opinions to that fine email address right there on your screen, statelines@pbsnc.org, I'll read every email.

I'm Kelly McCullen, thanks for watching.

I'll see you next time.

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