- [Donna] This week, the North Carolina State Legislature exercises its political muscle.

Lawmakers present a state budget heavy on policy.

They override Governor Cooper's veto and the Director of the SBI testifies under oath about political pressure coming from the governor's office.

This is "State Lines".

- [Narrator] Quality public television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you who invite you to join them in supporting PBSNC.

[dramatic string music] ♪ - Welcome to State Lines.

I'm Donna King.

Joining me today is former North Carolina Attorney General, Rufus Edmisten, Representative Jason Saine, "Wilmington's Morning News" radio host, Nick Craig and political reporter for "Anderson Alert", Bryan Anderson.

We've got a lot going on this week.

Thank you for being here.

Let's start off with the veto.

This week the North Carolina General Assembly voted to override Governor Roy Cooper's first veto of the year's legislative session.

This is the first override since 2018.

The override was of a Cooper veto on a bill that established safe gun storage laws, repealed the sheriff's pistol permit law, and allows parishioners to conceal carry in church services even if there's a school on that property on these other days of the week.

Of course, this is a topic that we talked about the last time you were here, Bryan.

Tell me what your thoughts were.

There was a really contentious debate or lack thereof on the floor there.

- Yeah, I had my crystal ball.

I should be a fortune teller with this one.

So basically what happened is in order for a bill to become law over Cooper's objection, it must have veto proof support in the Senate, which Republicans have, and in the House, Republicans are one seat shy.

But they can also override the governor if two people are absent.

Three democrats were absent.

Cecil Brockman, Tricia Cotham, and Michael Wray.

Why was Ray absent?

We don't know.

Cotham says that she was absent because she suffers from long COVID and had a medical condition she had to attend to.

And Cecil Brockman said he had to go to urgent care.

So those are the razor thin margins you have to work with as Democrats and that's what allowed this bill to become law.

- It was very interesting.

Now, representative Saine, tell me about the mood there on the floor.

You were there.

- So it's always intense when there's an override.

One, you gotta make sure everybody's in their seat because it is, as as Brent said, it's close by a vote or if some people are absent.

So you gotta make sure that your own folks are there.

You kind of saw that and heard that I think in the speaker's voice that just everyone's checking, everyone's checking.

Make sure everyone's in their seat, is your seat mate there?

And then of course it's usually quick because it's been debated and it's been debated multiple times through committee.

It's passed both houses.

All we're doing is just saying, no, we don't agree with the governor and we've got the votes to do it.

- Sure, sure.

Now there was debate about the debate, right?

It looked like Robert Reeves was objecting to it but it had been through committee.

It had been debated the first time around.

Was this part of the rules process?

- Well, part of it is, is that as a minority leader, he doesn't like it when his governor's being overridden.

And he's certainly allowed to make a statement one way or the other.

There's rules and there's ways to get that out there.

So I think he found a way to do it.

I had a few folks in my caucus upset that that happened.

But I said, look he's gotta be the leader of his caucus too.

So it's just part of the process.

- And this was a long time coming, Nick, the pistol permit for sheriffs.

It's that individual sheriffs could or were capable of picking and choosing who got it.

I mean, it seems like this is a bill that has been tried before and has failed.

- It has.

And I think the interesting thing to note about this is I believe one of the only reasons this was so contentious now is because a couple of sheriffs in some deep blue urban counties across this state decided that they wanted to play politics with pistol purchase permits.

That's why this bill made its way to the general assembly.

I truly believe, and I'm not in the legislature, but if all of the sheriffs were following the law as they should have been and not shutting down pistol purchase permits during COVID I'm not even sure the general assembly would care about it right now, to be honest with you, Donna.

Actions have consequences and the consequences was a veto override to those actions.

- Very interesting.

Now, law enforcement, long career.

Tell me what your thoughts are about this.

- Well, my thoughts are first that I like the idea that the sheriffs handled that, cuz there's one last touch at getting some insane person from getting a gun.

But the problem was, as Representative Saine knows, some sheriffs just couldn't do it.

And people were worried about backlogs and the veto it's...

I remember when the governor had no veto power in North Carolina.

- Right.

- And we were the last one in the nation to do that.

And it's sort of right now, one vote away from like it was several years ago that the veto power does the governor no good.

But you've gotta remember this state has had a long time fear of executive government.

Even back in the colonial days North Carolina wanted to keep executive power under control because of the tyranny of the royal governor.

So it doesn't surprise me.

- Well, I gotta say just on the history of the veto, the reason that the governor has a veto is he was the architect of that bill in 1995.

And unlike most states that have a two-thirds threshold, North Carolina has a three fifths threshold and he was the architect of that bill as well.

- Sure.

Now, Brian does that indicate you think a rough session ahead for the governor?

- I mean, it indicates that.

You have razor thin margins and you can't afford to have absences if your Democrats or one person cross party lines.

And we could very much see this just being the beginning of overrides.

There's election bills, there's education bills, there's a deaf and blind schools bill on the governor's desk.

So this could be just a sign of many things to come.

- Sure.

- Now, let's don't even mention the budget, that's coming up next.

- Right, right.

Yeah, exactly.

[pair laughing] Well, and that's a big one.

We're gonna be talking about that in just a second.

But, when we're talking about the concealed carry on school properties that have a church.

This is something that has come up particularly with Nashville and we saw some tweets that really got a lot of criticism saying, this is not about politicizing what happened in Nashville.

This is about concealed carry.

But can a church that has a school say you can't bring a gun?

I mean, that's still on the table.

- So, what's happening is when they're having church services, as we've seen that that has happened that there's been shooters at churches, making sure that those rights were there, that congregations felt like they could protect themselves.

And incidentally on the pistol permit part of that, I ran the companion bill in the House.

Something that felt very seriously about, because yeah I lived next door to Mecklenburg.

Mecklenburg sheriff was not getting it done.

I mean, I got my pistol permit purchased in no time.

It was very easy to get.

Easy in the sense that I went to my sheriff's office it was processed and had my concealed handgun permit very quickly.

So when you look at that, we wanna make sure that, you know, citizens have, you know, rights all across the state, not just one county, where one sheriff might pick and choose.

Plus we've had so many advances in the background check system, in the NICS system, that it's, you know...

It was a bit antiquated anyway.

But that doesn't, you know, stop the politicization of what we were talking about.

But it does mean, as we look to the future and as we looked at what the rest of the session will look like, it is a razor thin majority or just short of a super majority for us in the house.

We only need to pick up one vote.

There are Democrats who vote with us all the time on 90% of the issues.

So finding, you know, one or two or three folks to vote with us or looking at when someone's not there.

I mean, that's part of the the political game that's always played.

So it will set up a session that will be interesting.

I think it just means that the governor will be very picky in which ones he wants to veto.

- Absolutely.

And now the budget that we were just talking about that, that is a huge piece of news that came out this week.

So one of the things that came out this week, also something that you've been working on, is online sports betting.

So that bill passed the statehouse.

House bill 347 would legalize sports betting in North Carolina, tax its revenue at 14%.

The Lottery Commission, under this bill, would be responsible for issuing licenses and regulation.

The bill would also create a fund to attract some major events to North Carolina.

So you've tried this before, Representative Saine.

Fill me in, I'm coming right back to you, 'cause I know that this is something you've carried for a while.

- Been a big week.

Budget and sports wagering.

So as a budget chair, it's been a little tiring.

But, nevertheless.

Sports wagering, we had had it out for two years, considering in the senate and the house.

Last session we came up just short.

One of my co-sponsors last year had to be away because of a family emergency.

To lose it by one vote doesn't... Of course, don't blame him.

He had to be where he had to be.

And had another supporter that had to be out of town for his business.

And quite frankly, he needed to be where he was at.

So it probably would've passed last year.

We had a lot of time to let it marinate during the interim.

Bringing it back, making sure that we had our vote count.

Plus we had a lot of new members, you know, with a few retirements and you know, some people changed their mind on it.

I think part of it is, you know after it's there long enough and they see what's happening in Virginia, in Tennessee, as those who are going to bet on sports will find a way to do it.

We just felt like North Carolina should get a piece of that action because otherwise we're building schools and roads in Virginia and Tennessee.

- Sure, sure.

But there are critics, right?

You know, this has been a long time coming and people have opposed it.

- Yeah, I've heard from a couple of listeners, specifically that seem to be beside themselves about sports betting, yet you bring up the point that well we have the North Carolina education lottery, you go into any bar and there's keno that's running 24/7.

I just don't think this is an issue anymore, Donna.

And I'm so glad that this bill is finally making its way through.

As a younger conservative Republican, this is just not even on my radar as something that's controversial.

If you've watched any sports over the last five plus years, every national commercial is one of the big major betting apps and you're seeing a whole bunch of states fall in line on it.

And I think this is great for the state of North Carolina.

If people wanna gamble, they're already doing it illegally and the state's not getting a cut.

So if it's gonna happen, let's do it legally, let's do it in a way in which you actually can get your money back, instead of using some weird overseas site to do it.

I think it's a win-win for everybody.

- So I remember the lottery.

Do you remember the fight about the lottery?

You know- - I certainly do.

- Right?

This really surprises me that this- - And the lieutenant governor at the time breaking the tie, Beverly Perdue.

- Right.

- Uh-huh.

- Now do I have a deal for you?

[panelists chuckling] And congratulations on getting it passed, because the days of hypocrisy...

It's just hypocritical in so many other ways.

And you mentioned the, I call it family gambling.

That ought to be regulated too, by the way.

And let families have their own little video and other kinds of gambling.

But horse racing.

- Right.

- Absolutely.

This is a state imbued with wonderful horses.

My wife has had one for years and they're more expensive than a kid, I can tell you that.

[panelists chuckling] That would create jobs.

Plenty of jobs.

You have the Pinehurst, you have Tryon.

You have people that grow hay.

Workers that work at a racetrack.

Work on that one, my dear friend, because that is a job creation and something the king of sports shall live on, if you make it a memorial to it.

- Are you gonna register as a lobbyist right now?

- Absolutely!

[panelists chuckling] Absolutely.

- Well, as it comes back, I think from the Senate you'll see horse racing added.

We really just got down to the wire on the timing and getting the language exactly right.

So we took it out, only to come back with... Those that are working on it in the Senate, I think they'll add that back in.

So it's coming.

- Sure.

- Wonderful.

- But Brian, I gotta ask you.

You know, there's been some current controversy over this 14%.

What happens with that cap?

You know, we've of course been pushing to lower taxes for corporations and individuals.

What are your thoughts?

- Yeah, so there were amendments that had called to raise a 14% tax all the way up to 51%.

Then I believe the high 30s was a proposal.

The senate also is considering a 6% additional tax.

But regardless of what the number is, the money is going to 10 universities.

I think 2 or 3 million for the Department of Health and Human Services for gambling addiction.

But one of the main criticisms that I heard of the bill, was not necessarily whether or not sports gambling should be legalized, but the process itself.

There were 17 different amendments, all 17 were voted down.

And I'm not a lawmaker, I don't see what happens behind the scenes, I'm not aware of private conversations.

But I can't recall a recent time where you've had 0 for 17 batting average.

- Well quite frankly, you know, we were pretty clear as we went through with our colleagues.

And it's a bipartisan bill by the way, 52 sponsors of both parties and plus the four bill sponsors, main sponsors themselves.

The majority leader and I on the Republican side, and then Zack Hawkins and Ashton Clemmons on the Democrats side, who shepherd the bill.

We purposely within our own caucuses asked for input.

"What can we do to make this bill better?

What would help you be more comfortable with it?"

Even if you were "no", you know, please give us your ideas.

So that process was elongated and it was on purpose and it was intentional.

So when I said it on the floor that it's been a very intentional process, it was painstaking to do.

But you know, late hour, the amendments that came on the floor, quite frankly were really designed just to kill the bill, what we call catfish amendments.

So that, you know if one got accepted, they would basically try to, you know, that would be the flood gates opening up and trying to destroy the bill.

And that's really what was going on.

And that's okay, it's part of the process.

But really every one of those folks who offered amendments had had every opportunity to have a say so in the bill.

- I love hearing that sort of inside baseball on how all those things work.

Speaking of a painstaking process, let's talk about the budget.

The proposed state budget made its first appearance this week.

Republican leadership talked about how they plan to spend your money, your tax dollars.

Beyond the numbers though, however, that budget contains a lot of policy, including limits on state money used for abortions, expanding the opportunity scholarships, and requiring that academic materials that are used in the classroom be posted, or at least accessible to parents.

It also prohibits private money being used to conduct elections.

So, this was really interesting to me.

Craig, I'm gonna come to you first.

Or, Nick, I'm gonna come to you first.

I was actually surprised by the number of pieces of legislation and policy that may have been in it.

Do you think this was a, you know, swap for Medicaid expansion we saw get inked last week?

- I think so, but I think the most surprising thing on this is that this happened in late March.

I'm not sure that that's happened in any sort of recent years here in the state of North Carolina.

There is a lot of policy in it, and this is gonna be, I think, quite the battle over this budget.

There's a lot of other good stuff outside of the policy.

10% increase for teachers, 7.5% for state employees over the next couple of years.

But as you mentioned, and has been talked about on this program and political shows all across the state, Medicaid expansion, at least as it is right now, does not happen without the governor signing this budget.

And that's gonna be quite the battle for him.

He's fought for Medicaid expansion as long as he's been in the governor's mansion.

And, could you imagine a situation in which he's got it, it's right there, it's dangling in front of him and he vetoes the budget because of policy items that are in it?

That would be detrimental to him.

- Sure, sure.

Tell me what your thoughts are about this budget.

I know you found some good things.

- You're paying bus drivers.

- [Nick] Yes, sir.

- I have a family of bus drivers, and the budget has this strange thing about the school of public policy over at UNC.

I would like to know what that is.

I'd like to teach in that school, because what we need to do is to tell people to be tolerant and be empathetic, and I want you to talk a little bit about that if you have time about it.

- [Kelly] Absolutely.

- I don't understand really what that school is about to do 'cause that's all incumbent of us in public life or private life to be decent human beings, have something to say that's worthwhile, but also the law enforcement of the budget.

I like that part.

It's about time we did something for law enforcement and prison guards, for goodness sakes.

How in the world could you ever encourage someone to be a prison guard?

It's beyond my mind as what they go through and how little they get paid.

- Sure, there's a lot of salary.

Yeah, there's a lot of salary increases for law enforcement, teachers.

Tell us a little bit about it.

- Well, quite frankly, if you're gonna be competing with the private market, and we are.

I mean, there are jobs out there, as we know.

And so the state government has to at least be somewhat competitive.

There's some benefits to working for the state, certainly.

But at the same time, when we're having to compete with the private sector for that talent pool, one, we wanna make sure that we get good, talented people working for the state.

We owe it to taxpayers, that we do the best job that we can with their money.

But, in turn, means we need to pay those folks.

We need to pay 'em well.

You know, nobody's getting rich working for state government.

And it's like I say about legislators, if you are, then you're doing it wrong.

But, our highway patrolmen who are out there every day, I mean, just think about what they go through, what must flash in their mind at every stop they make.

Of what are they approaching when they go to that car?

Hopefully, it's just me on the highway that they see again speeding.

[Kelly laughing] But it can be so much more and so much more dangerous.

And so, we wanna make sure that these folks who are really putting their lives on the lines, when you talk about the guards, I mean, who would wanna do that?

And that's a tough job.

So, we know that.

We've got some things that are innovative.

When we talk about that school and having civic discourse, unfortunately, we don't get to have these conversations most times in society right now.

It's mostly people yelling at each other.

So finding ways to have a reason discussion and doing more and being more assertive and making sure that that's something that we keep at the forefront.

I don't think there's anything wrong with doing that.

But this budget, really keeping it on time has been quite the challenge.

We've been in the room, you know, 12:30 at night.

There's all these memes, you know, "What I do, what my mom thinks I do, what the public thinks we do."

[Kelly and Nick laugh] They talk about the smoke filled back rooms.

Well, there's no smoke anymore, and it's just really that government lighting in a very bland committee room.

But just going through, I mean, we've got a $28,000,000,000 budget.

It's a big state.

We have to be very intentional when we look at every area.

Whether it's justice and public safety or health and human services, or education, and just making sure that we're trying to get it right.

And then also remembering, this is just the start of the conversation.

You know, the governor had his budget.

We've certainly worked with areas of state government, seeing what their needs were, and having those discussions.

Senate's gonna have a much different opinion, I am certain of that.

So then we end up in conference and seeing where we can get to, and then if the governor's gonna actually sign it.

So there are so many still moving pieces, but we're glad, at least, to get it done early.

We can at least enjoy Easter break and come back.

- This spring is gonna be something.

Tell me what you noticed in the budget there.

'Cause a lot of policy, too.

- Yeah, two things.

There's been discussions about tax cuts, and the main tax cut that I saw in the budget was lowering the tax rate to 4.5% a year ahead of schedule.

That was really the only change for the personal income taxes that I saw.

Biggest thing of note to me, a big thing of note to me, it's a big budget.

- [Kelly] Sure, sure.

[laughs] - Abortion.

There's this bill, House Bill 533.

Not a serious proposal, unlikely to become law, but there are portions of the budget, like you said, that will affect abortion.

Unless you're the victim of rape, incest, or the health of the mother is at stake, state dollars wouldn't be allowed to go to providing abortions.

So there is a serious part of this budget that deals with abortion.

There's also $22.5 million in the budget to go to two anti-abortion groups.

One group is called the Human Coalition, they get $10,000,000 over two years.

And on their website they advocate for ending abortion city by city.

So, there is a non-serious abortion proposal, and there is a serious abortion discussion in this budget.

- Very interesting.

Alright, well there's so much more to talk about.

And I know, like you were saying, the conversation's gonna go on through this spring.

One thing that really caught my eye this week was some testimony by the SBI director.

He came in to talk to lawmakers.

One of the things that is in the budget, there is a shift in that SBI and it moves some of that authority and makes it more of an independent agency.

So now, instead of reporting to the governor through the Department of Public Safety, it would be dramatic testimony from the SBI director on Tuesday in a legislative committee where he asks for this change the SBI director said that the governor's senior staff had too much influence over the agency, and he said that he was, quote, intimidated and they asked for his resignation and threatened an investigation.

So this was a really surprising turn of events.

And normally when you see these committee hearings, you know, things are, you know, pretty bland and it's, you know, a gavel and discussion.

And this was a moving testimony like I saw emotion and some pretty serious accusations leveled against the governor's office.

You were Attorney General and they moved this SBI program out from under the Attorney General's office moved it to DPS.

Tell me what your thoughts are in reading about this.

- Well, they didn't move it when I was there, because I had good relationships with the legislature.

Now, first of all, I don't think the SBI should have been moved anytime from the Attorney General's office.

I view the SBI as almost all law enforcement now as getting almost paramilitary.

I don't like any agency having total independence.

There must be accountability somewhere.

Now, I'm gonna get to the nitty gritty.

A lot of sheriffs talked to me and they were disappointed that they didn't get SBI help as quickly as they thought they could because of some kind of bureaucratic snafu in Raleigh.

The governor's office was concerned about a workforce that was composed of various demographics of society.

So there were some legitimate complaints that I got from former FBI agents, SBI and sheriffs.

And I don't know the nitty gritty, but I think that maybe we're looking at this from a little one-sided thing because after all, his term would be up I think at the end of May, a 10-year appointment.

And I don't believe you ought to have any agency that has the power of the SBI has that's independent and not accountable to somebody and it should be, especially an elected official.

- Sure.

So, you know, this was in the budget.

We've talked a little bit about this.

What did you think of these hearings and these accusations that the SBI director leveled?

- Yeah, hearings are boring and mundane speaking as a reporter.

[group chattering] They're not emotional interior.

- Right.

- Generally speaking.

- Sure.

- But the SBI director had accused based the governor's office in his words of clear intimidation saying that he faced threats to resign.

And the dispute is basically the governor's office has appointment powers and based on the track record of the legislature at times trying to strip him of certain appointment powers, that's obviously an issue that the governor's office is very sensitive to and really wants to exercise.

But at the same time there's a strong desire for a State Bureau of Investigation to be this independent, apolitical body.

The question now really seems to be less of should they be independent or not but how do we make them, how do we give them the ability to do their job without political interference while also having some form of oversight?

- Sure.

Representative Sean, tell me your thoughts.

- I think that grabs it exactly.

You know, having some more independence so that politics is not brought into this.

We do want an SBI that is not, you know, based upon the political whims of the day, right.

Now, it's a political process to get there.

And this is the start of the discussion as you see the testimony and as you pointed out, it's very emotional.

There are things happening.

So getting to the bottom of what's happening is part of it.

It is an ongoing conversation.

So it's a negotiation.

I mean, this is just as we put what we put into the budget and as we are having these hearings, it is at some point in time will land on something that hopefully we can pass into law and get there.

But I think these real serious discussions absolutely must be happening.

You know, when you think about a citizen legislature, that's great in most terms.

However, you know, it doesn't mean that we get an incredible oversight over everything all the time.

So having these very intentional hearings like this and that's the purpose of that committee is to really get down to the nitty gritty and find out what is happening and then see how we can best fix that or make it work for our citizens and make it something that people trust, that people will have trust in for a long time to come without the politics.

- Sure.

Sure.

Nick, we're running out of time.

- Sure.

- But tell me your thoughts on this.

- It's interesting that nobody knew who was actually gonna be testifying at this hearing until literally it happened - [Host] Secretive.

- Yeah, it was very secretive.

So I thought that was very interesting.

And the real question is why, if you're gonna intimidate the SBI director presumably there's a pretty good reason to do it.

- Sure.

- So I think that's kind of what everybody's kind of waiting and looking at.

- Sure.

Certainly we will be watching this very closely.

It is in the budget separating the SBI, making it an independent agency and moving the crime lab into it.

So we'll be following that really closely.

That's all for us.

Thank you so much for tuning in.

Join us next week for 'State Lines.'

Have a good weekend.

[bright music] ♪ - [Narrator] Quality Public Television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you who invite you to join them in supporting PBS NC.