The 2006 short session of the N.C. General Assembly began on Tuesday at noon and legislators hit the ground running.
Two questions are already being asked in Raleigh: how long will the session last and what will you accomplish? It is my hope that we can work together in a bipartisan way in order to get the people’s business done in a timely manner, and if that happens, I believe we can adjourn for the year in early to mid-July.
Agenda for the Short Session
My colleagues in the House Democratic Caucus and I held a press conference Tuesday morning to announce our agenda for the short session. Our five-part Plan for a Secure Future calls on the Legislature to:
1. Provide the opportunity of a lifetime — a quality education;
2. Create jobs that create strong, healthy and more prosperous families;
3. Insure our future by insuring the health and safety of our citizens;
4. Take action when the President and Congress won’t; and
5. Give people confidence in a government that works for them.
I believe that investing in education is the most important thing we can do for our people and our economy, and that remains my #1 priority. I will work to substantially increase teacher pay, provide more money for education than ever before, and make sure lottery proceeds are only spent on education.
I believe that our workers must make good wages and have health care benefits, and I will work to increase our state’s minimum wage and give state employees a long deserved pay raise. And, I believe that we should cap our state’s gas tax to give consumers some relief at the pump. We must also demand the President and Congress take action to rein in the billions and billions of dollars in profits that the big oil and gas companies continue to rake in at our expense.
The Legislative Work Ahead
Although we’ve only been in Raleigh for a few days, legislators already have a long “to-do” list — and it keeps growing by the day. As always during the short session, our biggest task will be passing the budget for the coming year. There are several stages in the budget process that will play out between now and the start of the new fiscal year on July 1. The Governor announced his budget plan on Tuesday, the Senate is expected to pass its spending plan prior to Memorial Day, and then the House will pass its version. After that, members of the House and Senate will work out the differences between the two spending plans and we will pass a final budget that sets funding levels for our schools, law enforcement, local and state governments, salaries for teachers and state employees, etc.
Legislators received some good news recently — we won’t have to deal with a budget shortfall for the first time since the late 1990s; however, we still have enormous demands to meet and we will be faced with some difficult choices. We will have to find the resources to deal with the approximately 30,000 new students at our schools and desperate need for thousands of new teachers, more cars on our roads, and soaring health care costs. Stay tuned for more updates in the coming weeks as we make progress on the budget.
We will also introduce legislation based on the work of the many study committees that have been meeting since last fall. I served on the Joint Study Committee on Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Management Recovery. The Study Committee is recommending ten bills that will address disaster readiness including money for a new state health lab, millions of doses of antiviral drugs and a fund to help meet basic needs after a disaster.
I also plan to support legislation to increase our state’s minimum wage from $5.15 to $6.15 per hour, give our hard working teachers and state employees a seven percent pay raise, protect our children from child predators, and reform our campaign finance, lobbying and ethics laws.
We have a lot of work ahead of us and I hope you will continue to let me know about the issues that matter most to you and your family, as well as your suggestions on how we can better prepare our state for the future.
By working together, we can make Northampton, Vance and Warren counties and all regions of North Carolina a better place to live, work and raise a family.