North Carolina has a newly enacted budget. 18 things you should know
On Tuesday, a budget will become law without the signature of Gov. Roy Cooper. The $30 billion spending plan makes a number of important policy changes.
Tuesday has arrived. And without Gov. Roy Cooper’s signature, the state’s $30 billion spending plan will take effect.
Here are 18 things in it that you need to know:
🤫1. Lawmakers can sell and destroy their communications
A provision buried deep within the budget gives former lawmakers and all 170 current North Carolina state lawmakers the ability to decide for themselves whether to conceal, sell, share or destroy their internal communications.
“Each legislator, while in office and after leaving office, shall be the custodian of all documents, supporting documents, drafting requests, and information requests made or received by that legislator while a legislator,” the budget says. “A legislator, while in office or after leaving office, shall not be required to reveal or to consent to reveal any document, supporting document, drafting request, or information request made or received by that legislator while a legislator.”
The language has prompted outcry from news outlets, government watchdogs and transparency advocates. But there may be little they can do about it.
Brooks Fuller, director of the North Carolina Open Government Coalition, said a lawsuit could see an uphill battle since he believes there is no constitutional provision expressly giving the public a right to know about legislative communications.
“The General Assembly has the power to define the scope of the Public Records Act,” Fuller said. “When they passed it initially decades ago, they were given the authority to decide what records would be exempt, what agencies might be exempt and other circumstances that define the public’s right to know about the government’s business. … Some states have strong public right to know [provisions] embedded in their constitution, and that authority supersedes any authority of the legislatures in those states. We do not have that. Because we do not have that, it really takes a major sword out of the hands of public information advocates if they want to attack this.”
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