Legislative Update
By Laura Wetsch and Faith Herndon
We are your legislative co-chairs for this long session. Over the past few weeks, we have seen a number of bills that will potentially impact your practice or your clients. Many of these bills are not likely to pass, but it is too soon to say which will die a lonely, miserable death in a rules committee. We will try to keep you updated, but here’s the list of bills we are watching, so far:
- Repeal HB2 (multiple versions in both chambers) – see http://www.ncleg.net/gascripts/BillLookUp/BillLookUp.pl?Session=2017&BillID=H82, http://www.ncleg.net/gascripts/BillLookUp/BillLookUp.pl?Session=2017&BillID=H78;
- Make superior and district court elections partisan again – see http://www.cqstatetrack.com/texis/redir?id=58a4002f205;
- Protect law enforcement officers for retaliation for reporting violations of law, fraud, misappropriation of state/local resources, “substantial and specific danger to the public health and safety”; gross mismanagement, waste of monies or abuse of authority; and establishing anti-harassment policy when municipal law enforcement officers report to public bodies re matters of public concern – see http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2017/Bills/House/PDF/H37v1.pdf;
- Designate an assault, attempted assault, or threat to assault as a “felonious hate crime” if against a law enforcement officer, firefighter, EMT or medical responder – see http://www.cqstatetrack.com/texis/redir?id=58a6a3514f3;
- Require criminal background checks for all applicants for teacher licensure, school personnel, and directors of nonprofits seeking initial approval as a charter school – see http://www.cqstatetrack.com/texis/redir?id=58a551df1a7;
- Modify licensure requirements for retired educators – see http://www.cqstatetrack.com/texis/redir?id=58ad3ab311eb;
- Affect occupational licensing boards (requiring board to notify the NCGA of the identity of the person responsible for reports, adding training in antitrust and state immunity, requiring that the board notify unlicensed persons that they don’t have the authority to find a violation or order that the unlicensed person discontinuing his/her current practices) – see http://www.cqstatetrack.com/texis/redir?id=58ad3ab228a;
- Study feasibility of requiring the State’s Human Relations Commission to seek status as a FEPA with the EEOC – see http://www.cqstatetrack.com/texis/redir?id=58abe93c128;
- Eliminate requirement of a permit for carrying a concealed firearm, but preserving right to post notice that firearms are not allowed on premises, prohibition on consuming alcoholic beverages, etc. – see http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2017/Bills/House/PDF/H69v1.pdf;
- Establish a bill of rights for mental health workers – see http://www.cqstatetrack.com/texis/redir?id=58ad3ab2150;
- Eliminate notice requirements for administrative rule-making to re-number, fix typos, change public contact information, correct a citation, or “change a rule in response to a request or an objection by the [Rules Review] Commission, unless the Commission determines that the change is substantial,” and changing the definition of “necessary rule” to “any rule other than an unnecessary rule” – see http://www.cqstatetrack.com/texis/redir?id=58ad3ab3542a and http://www.cqstatetrack.com/texis/redir?id=588af3b3baa;
- Increase penalties for creating, selling or possessing a fake ID; creating rebuttable presumption against pretrial release of undocumented aliens; requiring secured appearance bond for those charged with a felony or A1 misdemeanor who are released; allowing admission of record relating to immigration status without foundation or testimony from custodian – see http://www.cqstatetrack.com/texis/redir?id=589c172689;
- Prohibit discriminatory profiling by law enforcement – see http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2017/Bills/House/PDF/H99v1.pdf;
- Prohibit State contracting with companies that boycott Israel, requiring that the State Treasurer created a list of such “restricted companies,” and requiring that state entities (including NC Retirement Systems and the State Treasurer) divest themselves of stock in those companies– see http://www.cqstatetrack.com/texis/redir?id=58ad3ab35407;
- Allow government retirees to deduct their retirement benefits from their gross income on State income tax returns – see http://www.cqstatetrack.com/texis/redir?id=58a4002f369;
- More changes to DES’s Board of Review, including requirement of legal and support staff and mandatory independence requirements in performance of duties – see http://www.cqstatetrack.com/texis/redir?id=5889a22711;
- More unemployment “technical changes,” this time to deal with federal disasters and claimants’ receipt of federal disaster relief benefits– see http://www.cqstatetrack.com/texis/redir?id=5889a226671.
If you know of a bill that is not on this list, that would be of interest to the Labor and Employment Law Section, please let us know and we will add it to our pile.