FEB_25_Sweetpotato Speak

CAPITOL BRIEFS

The North Carolina General Assembly kicked off the 2025-2026 biennium on Wednesday, January 8, 2025.The proceedings on January 8th were mostly ceremonial to elect leadership and swear in the members of the state House and state Senate. Regular business will begin in the first weeks of February, with the Session legislature operates on a two-year cycle, with a long session in the first year and short session the next. 2025 is the long session year. A state budget will be introduced for the two-year cycle, in addition to thousands of other bills on all subjects. We expect a 2025 Farm Act to be discussed as it has become a tradition each year with Senator Brent Jackson and Representative Jimmy Dixon. We expect there to be a tremendous amount of time and money spent to continue to support recovery efforts in Western North Carolina to address the devastation of Hurricane Helene. After the November 2024 elections, the makeup in the General Assembly and our Executive Branch has changed in several ways. In the General Assembly, one of the most notable changes is the Republicans no longer have a veto proof supermajority in the House of Representatives. Republicans needed to keep 72 of the 120 seats to override a Governor’s veto if all members are present that day. Democrats were able to win some tight races in November resulting in 71 Republicans – one short of the supermajority. Despite this, we expect there to be a small group of House Democrats who are willing to engage with Republican leadership on some issues including the state budget. In the Senate, the number of Republicans remained the same at 30 members out of 50, which is a supermajority. taking off at a fast pace in late February or early March. The

By: John Cooper, Nathan Honaker & Brad Edwards

In the State Senate, leadership largely remained the same as last year with Senator Phil Berger remaining as the President Pro Tempore. Senate Democrats elected a new minority leader, Senator Sydney Batch from Wake County, who will replace long-time Democratic leader Dan Blue. In the House of Representatives, the leadership has changed completely with the departure of Speaker Tim Moore who was elected to Congress. The new Speaker of the North Carolina House is Destin Hall, the former Rules Chairman from Caldwell County. House Democrats re-elected Rep. Robert Reives to continue as Minority Leader. In the agriculture committees, the leadership remains essentially the same. Senator Brent Jackson continues to serve as the senior chairman in the Senate, assisted by Senator Lisa Barnes and Senator Norm Sanderson. Rep. Jimmy Dixon continue to serve as the senior chairman of the House Agriculture Committee. Speaker Hall added two new chairmen to the House Agriculture committee in Rep. Karl Gillespie and Rep. Howard Penny, while keeping Rep. McNeely as a chairman.

In the Executive Branch, we have several new members of the Council of State. Our former Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein is now our new Governor. The Democrats continued their streak of winning the Attorney General race with former Congressman Jeff Jackson now serving in that position. Democrats successfully flipped two other seats on the Council of State, Superintendent of Public Instruction and the Lieutenant Governor, while keeping the Secretary of State position. On the Republican side, voters re-elected Steve Troxler to a sixth term as Commissioner of Agriculture and re-elected Mike Causey as Insurance Commissioner. Republicans were also able to win three open seats for State Auditor, Labor Commissioner, and State Treasurer. The Council of State now has an even partisan split of 5-5, although Democrats control the two most powerful seats in the Governor and Attorney General. Republicans performed well in the Court of Appeals races, winning all three races to keep the balance of power on that court strongly in favor of Republicans.