By Rob Schofield
While it will take some time for analysts and observers to generate all of the post-mortems on the 2007 legislative session, a couple of things are already clear. First and foremost, this was not, as some naysayers have claimed, a “do nothing†session. To the contrary, 2007 was a year of solid, even above-average, productivity.
Any objective look at the final results must lead to the conclusion that, for all of the unavoidable nonsense that comes from forcing 170 elected officials to co-exist in tight quarters for six straight months, lawmakers passed a lot of good and important new laws. This performance was particularly impressive in light of the coincidence of a House speaker in his first term, a governor nearing the end of his second and a Senate president pro tem battling multiple family tragedies.
A second overriding conclusion is that while overall spending was up, this was neither inappropriate or, ultimately, out of proportion with what will be necessary in order to begin to move a rapidly growing state to the place of widely shared prosperity to which it should aspire. With better targeting, improved efficiency and better distribution of the responsibility for funding government, North Carolina is well positioned to continue to expand public services and investments that raise the quality of life.
First, the bad news
Despite its many successes, the 2007 session also featured more than its share of missed opportunities and clunker bills. Here’s our top five:
- Cutting Income Taxes on the Rich – In what was by far the worst decision of the session, the legislature cut taxes on the wealthiest 60,000 households in the state by a quarter of a percentage point. This move robbed the state of one of its fairest and fastest-growing sources of revenue ($94 million next year) and significantly worsened the overall regressivity of the state’s tax code. To compound the error, federal tax law assures that around a third of the windfall for the wealthy will simply be transferred to Washington.
- No Compensation for Victims of Eugenics – Years of study, award-winning journalism, heart-rending testimony and scores of personal tragedies at the hands of state government and what do lawmakers do? Set up another study, of course.
- Stagnant Affordable Housing Appropriations – Despite growing awareness of the need for a dramatic expansion in infrastructure spending, the state’s award-winning Housing Trust Fund received only a tiny bump in recurring dollars and a cut in one-time money.
- Failing to Protect Children – Seven years into the 21st century, North Carolina lawmakers did nothing to end legal physical abuse (i.e., corporal punishment) of school children in 55 counties, the bullying of schoolchildren (particularly gay and lesbian children) or North Carolina’s lonely status as the only state to automatically try 16 and 17 year olds as adults in the criminal justice system.
- Lack of Real Public School Reform – A decade after the Leandro decision guaranteeing every student the right to an opportunity to obtain a sound basic education, reforms that would address the needs of low-income and minority children remain badly under-addressed.
- Honorable Mention – The failure of bills that would have banned smoking in public and work places, reformed the death penalty, enacted a pilot needle exchange program to limit the spread of HIV and facilitated better-regulated handguns.
And now the good
The session featured a long list of important successes – some complete and some amounting to half loaves. Here’s one Top Ten list:
- Adoption of a State Earned Income Tax Credit – Though significantly smaller than it should be, North Carolina now joins a long and growing list of states to piggyback on the federal government’s extremely successful low-income tax credit program. The decision will put around $50 million per year in the pockets of deserving, working families who need it most.
- Voter-owned Elections – The late-session decision to advance legislation enacting public financing for three statewide offices puts North Carolina near the national forefront of a movement that has the potential to wrest control of democracy from wealthy special interests. It was a truly inspired and outstanding step.
- Real Estate Transfer Taxes – The decision of lawmakers to buck the powerful realtor lobby by giving counties the authority to conduct referenda on local transfer taxes (and sales taxes) was almost as important for the message it sent to moneyed special interest groups as it was for the substance (which is probably “mixedâ€).
- Expanding Access to Health Care – Despite the overbearing presence and miserly influences of Blue Cross Blue Shield, lawmakers delivered some important, if partial, improvements to the availability of health care by mandating that insurers cover several mental illnesses, enacting a state “high-risk pool†and enacting the Kids Care program to bring coverage to more low- and moderate-income children.
- Attacking the Home Foreclosure Crisis – Legislators responded to the state’s explosive growth in home mortgage foreclosures by approving three excellent bills. The first makes the foreclosure process fairer and helps protect homeowners from abusive mortgage loan servicing. The second protects homebuyers from predatory lending practices and ensures they can afford to repay the loans made to them. Finally, a third requires notice to tenants (and an opportunity to terminate the lease) when the property they are renting is foreclosed upon.
- Voter Registration Improvements – With voter participation rates sinking to new depths, the General Assembly took decisive action by enacting a bill that will allow North Carolinians to register to vote and cast their ballots at one-stop early voting sites on the same day. The old law required voters to turn in registration forms 25 days before the election.
- Opening the Ethics Process – After several months of work by advocates on all sides of the political spectrum, lawmakers amended last year’s omnibus ethics and lobbying reform law with some additional improvements. Most notable: a provision that opens to the public the hearings that follow complaints lodged against lawmakers and other designated public employees.
- Migrant Housing Standards – After years of effort by farm-worker advocates, legislators finally gave approval to a bill that makes some modest improvements to the housing conditions under which migrant workers must exist – most notably, the requirement that every worker be provided with a mattress with a clean cover. A more comprehensive bill that would have targeted pesticide poisoning received only a hearing.
- Landfill Legislation – Though far from perfect, legislators did muster the courage to enact new landfill regulations that were not directly dictated by the solid waste industry. The legislation, which replaces a recently expired landfill moratorium, would create a $2-per-ton surcharge on trash, with the proceeds aimed at funding cleanup of abandoned dumps and hazardous waste sites and helping local governments manage their own garbage. It also establishes buffers around environmentally sensitive areas where landfills would be barred.
-  Helping Seniors – Vulnerable seniors will be better off in years to come as the result of, among other things, three bills that: set up a rating system for adult care homes, expand and improve the property tax “homestead exemption†and improve the process surrounding the recovery of estates of individuals forced to go on Medicaid – most typically when they enter a long-term care facility.
- Honorable Mention – Enactment of a “renewable-energy portfolio standard†for the state’s electric utilities (unfortunately the bill was also loaded with counter-productive giveaways to the utilities and big business); improvements to the law governing advanced directives and health care powers of attorney; and three new bills to improve the services provided to suspended public school students and children with special needs.
Rob Schofield is the director of research and policy development for N.C. Policy Watch