by: Ryan Brown, LPNC Chair

During the first week of the North Carolina General Assembly session there were a significant number of bills filed. I took a look at a few of them and will rate them, according to our platform and beliefs. If you guys like this type of article, let us know and we’ll keep it up. Today we’re going to keep it short and do a quick writeup on five bills: HB5, HB9, HB11, HB14, and HB28.

Guns

First up, there were three gun-related bills, two of which were pretty good, and one not great, or superfluous, at best. 

First up was HB 5 - NC Constitutional Carry Act introduced by Representative Keith Kidwell (REP) and sponsored by another two dozen representatives. Overall, it is a good bill but still includes some disappointing things. It keeps the requirement to notify officers you’re carrying and provide an ID. If not, you’re guilty of a crime. It keeps the stipulation that you are committing a crime if you are carrying and have a single drink out at dinner with your family. And it fails to lift the ban on students or visitors carrying or owning a weapon on college campuses. Regardless, we’d support passage of this bill. On net, it is a reduction of gun laws in North Carolina.

Next, we have HB 9 - Firearm Discharge/Preempt Local Ordinance, also introduced by Representative Keith Kidwell (REP). This bill seems like a response to local governments trying to mandate how people are allowed to exercise their right to self-defense on their own property. This is a short and clear bill restricting local governments and protecting property rights. We strongly support this bill.

Finally, HB28. The Gun Violence Prevention Act was introduced by Representative Jennifer Balkcom (REP). While the intentions of this act seem good, it has no provisions to actually try and prevent gun violence. All the act does is make it extra illegal for people to commit crimes with a gun. North Carolina needs fewer gun laws. Making crime extra illegal isn’t going to help anyone.

Go to the Liberty and Legislation page to read our reaction to the bills concerning taxes.

NCGA’s Electoral “Reforms” Cheat Independent Voters

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

November 26, 2024 (RALEIGH) – The Libertarian Party of North Carolina (LPNC) Chair Ryan Brown today criticized changes to election law included a bill passed by the NC General Assembly last week as “blatantly unfair” to independent voters.

“There are more independent voters in North Carolina than registered Democrats or Republicans,” stated Brown. “But it is still impossible to appoint an independent voter to the Board of Elections.”

The NC Board of Elections (NCSBE) makes important decisions, including determining which political parties are officially recognized to nominate candidates for office, selecting which voting machines can be used in NC, collecting and reviewing campaign finance reports, specifying what types of photo IDs can be used to vote, resolving voting and candidate eligibility issues, and certifying elections.

“Denying 38 percent of the electorate any say in these important electoral decisions is blatantly unfair,” Brown continued. “The NCGA took up consideration of this law last week, but instead of fixing the problem, all they did was transfer the power to cheat independent voters from the governor to the state auditor.”

by Nathan Hohensee, LPNC Communications Intern

The government response to Hurricane Helene has been absurdly deficient. The failure to help people are as similar at the state and federal level as they are devastating to those in dire need. If only we had a similar situation from recent history that could've predicted how badly this would go.

Recovery efforts remain frustratingly slow for the residents of Western North Carolina who saw their homes, towns, families, livelihoods, and more destroyed by Hurricane Helene barely two months ago. As snowfall marks the onset of winter in the Carolina mountains, people who remain without shelter, power, heat, running water, and more are struggling for their very survival while our state and federal government devolve into another round of finger pointing, blaming, and political posturing to cover up egregious failure and ineptitude.

While recovery efforts of this scale are naturally a long process, at this point it seems like we should expect basic response measures - like shelter with heat and potable water, medical supplies, and funding set aside for this exact situation - to have been distributed to those in need as expeditiously as possible. Unfortunately, too many of the victims of Helene remain without stable shelter, basic resources, answers, or any idea of how much the government will prolong their suffering. If previous North Carolina storm relief efforts are any indicator, those waiting for assistance should expect neither the state nor federal government to provide any meaningful relief in the near future.

Helene is the third major storm to affect North Carolina in recent years, following the widespread destruction of Hurricanes Matthew and Florence on the eastern side of the state, and history as an indicator of future actions does not bode well for recovery efforts in the mountains. Rebuild NC, a program founded from Governor Roy Cooper’s installation of the North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency (NCORR) in the wake of Hurricane Florence, is sitting on a $221 million deficit with several victims of that storm still seeking the help they were promised. 

The program and restoration effort was spearheaded by Laura Hogshead, who was removed this week as director of the program, a position which she had held since 2018, following disastrous testimony(pun intended) revealing her grossly incompetent “oversight” of the recovery program. Hogshead took responsibility for the deficit, stating (the painfully obvious) that she had not been "watching the money closely enough." The North Carolina General Assembly was allegedly not notified of the fact that extra funds were needed for eastern NC until October of this year.