House Republicans jam through energy bill in rare midnight session

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Hello. It’s Friday.

If you went to sleep at a reasonable hour Wednesday night, chances are you missed the late-night legislative session on Jones Street.

While most were getting ready to call it a night, the North Carolina House convened for a rare midnight session to complete its final vote on controversial, wide-ranging energy legislation before it could be sent to the state Senate.

House Bill 951, which would, among other things, retire some of the state’s coal-fired power plants and undercut the Utilities Commission’s authority to set electric rates, cleared an initial vote in the lower chamber just before 7 p.m. on Wednesday. The bill could immediately have been voted on again and sent across the General Assembly, but House Democrats objected to having another vote Wednesday.

That’s when reporters started hearing indications of a possible midnight vote from House Speaker Tim Moore, who said the bill’s third reading would need to happen early Thursday morning since too many members would have left town for the weekend by the afternoon. As The Insider’s Colin Campbell pointed out, it wasn’t clear why the House couldn’t wait until next week to pass the bill.

The legislative standoff culminated with this moment outside the House chamber, captured by WRAL’s Travis Fain. Democratic Rep. Pricey Harrison informed Moore she was withdrawing her objection but that another member might lodge one of their own, giving Republicans determined to pass the bill right away no choice but to convene a session after midnight.

HB 951 ultimately cleared the House at 12:07 a.m. on Thursday by a vote of 57 to 49, mostly along party lines. Two Democrats voted in favor: Reps. Shelly Willingham of Edgecombe County and Michael Wray of Halifax County. Five Republicans voted against: Reps. Mark Brody of Anson County; Larry Pittman of Cabarrus County; John Sauls of Harnett County; Larry Strickland of Harnett County; and John Torbett of Gaston County.

REP. ROSS ON UNC TENSIONS, DEMOCRATS RUNNING IN 2022

This week’s guest on the Closer Look podcast is U.S. Rep. Deborah Ross. Here are a few snippets of her conversation with Brian Murphy.

On the UNC Board of Trustees: This week, new members joined the Board of Trustees while new officers were elected. All this, while rumors swirled about the fate of UNC Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz.

“We have got to get this fixed,” Ross said. “Because the future of the state, the future of education and our reputation are at risk. We cannot expect the best and the brightest to come to North Carolina and to stay here, as long as our Board of Trustees operates in the manner that they’re operating in.”

Ross went on to say board members should be appointed in a different way, and that appointees shouldn’t be chosen for their “political loyalty,” but for their “dedication to the state and dedication to education.” She also said the board should better reflect the diversity of the UNC community. When that’s missing, she said, “you have an echo chamber and poor decisions are made.”

On what Democrats running in next year’s Senate race need to do to win: “Make it clear to everybody in North Carolina that they are listening, that their voices will be heard, and that they will be respected. And North Carolina is a very diverse, very purple state. And so making sure that people know who you are and trust you throughout the state is no easy feat.”

WHAT WE’RE READING

• Inside Facebook’s Data Wars, from The New York Times.

• One by One, My Friends Were Sent to the Camps, from The Atlantic.

• ‘Like we’re on an island’: How Missouri’s inaction allowed delta variant to spread, from the Kansas City Star.

MORE BIG STORIES FROM THE TEAM

• When Pasquotank County sheriff’s deputies shot and killed Andrew Brown Jr., they were relying on use-of-force policies developed by Lexipol, an organization 1,376 miles away in Frisco, Texas, Danielle Battaglia reported.

• In the days after Brown’s death, a bipartisan group of state lawmakers proposed changing the state’s body camera laws. Two months later, that proposal has been rewritten with input from a lobbying group representing the North Carolina Sheriff’s Association, Will Doran reports.

• U.S. Sen. Richard Burr has been incurring expensive legal bills related to the now-concluded federal investigation into his stock sales, and his Senate colleagues have been helping him financially via donations from their leadership committees, Brian Murphy reported.
  
  

• Democrats vying for their party’s nomination in next year’s Senate race from North Carolina attended a candidates forum and sought to set themselves apart on key issues, including the filibuster, policing and universal health care, I reported.

• On the same day the faculty chair at UNC-Chapel Hill called an emergency meeting because she was worried lawmakers and UNC trustees were working to oust the UNC Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz, House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate leader Phil Berger would not say whether they have confidence in him, Dawn Baumgartner Vaughan reported.
  
  

• The State Board of Elections is blocking requests from a group of ultra-conservative lawmakers to open up and inspect voting machines for modems. They could theoretically connect to the internet and be used to change votes remotely, but already are banned under state law, Will Doran reports.

Don’t forget: Listen and subscribe to our podcast wherever you usually like to listen. (Pandora, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Megaphone.)

Thanks for reading. See you next week.

— Avi Bajpai, political reporting intern for The News & Observer. Email me at abajpai@newsobserver.com.