By Dawn Baumgartner Vaughan
RALEIGH
The proposed state Senate budget was written by those who control the chamber: Republicans. So when it came time to debate the budget on Thursday, Democrats didn’t have the votes to change it on their own.
They could end up with a say over the final budget if Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper uses his veto. But for now, all they could do was propose amendments that failed.
Four hours into the sometimes contentious budget debate, Senate leader Phil Berger, a Republican, cut off the microphone of Sen. Terry Van Duyn, a Buncombe County Democrat, after she continued speaking after he said she was out of order. She asked to suspend the rules, which was not granted. Berger said in 10 years presiding, he had not done that before.
Van Duyn later tweeted that she “was just ruled out of order while introducing my amendment to the Senate Budget to expand Medicaid in North Carolina. Some things are worth fighting for and insurance for the 500,000 North Carolinians without health care is one of them.”
Regional attacks?
Some of the debate was impassioned, as when Sen. Don Davis, a Democrat, said he’s convinced that Eastern North Carolina is “under attack” because of cuts to funding for Vidant Health in Greenville. Republicans said the cuts were a natural response to the hospital’s attempt to remove the state’s influence from the hospital’s Board of Trustees.
Meanwhile, Sen. Jay Chaudhuri, a Wake County Democrat, tried to drop the Senate budget’s call to relocate the Department of Health and Human Services — about 2,000 state employees — from Dix Park in Raleigh to Granville County.
That amendment failed, but he called out the move for the kind of commutes it would bring for residents who work further from Granville than Raleigh.
“Might as well name it ‘Relocating Raleigh,’” Chaudhuri said. He said the transfer is not based on planning or logic, but politics.
“Remember hardworking people who can’t spend hours on the road. Let’s not let our people down,” Chaudhuri said.
Sen. Ralph Hise, a Spruce Pine Republican who serves on the Senate’s HHS appropriations committee, said this week that Granville County has a lower cost of living for employees and lower costs associated with operations instead of staying in Raleigh.
“There are great benefits from moving state complexes out,” he said.
Crisis pregnancy centers
Sen. Natasha Marcus, a Mecklenburg County Democrat, objected to the budget giving millions of dollars in funding to crisis pregnancy centers.
The House budget also provides funding for a crisis pregnancy center. The centers are supported by anti-abortion groups and encourage women to keep their pregnancies, but are also criticized for providing misinformation.
Marcus said the state should not use taxpayer money to “push a conservative, religious set of beliefs.” She called them fake clinics and a threat to reproductive freedom.
Her amendment would move the money to women’s health programs. She said none of it would go to abortions.
Hise said the centers are an “incredible investment.”
Marcus’ amendment was defeated.
‘A dastardly thing’
Sen. Paul Lowe Jr., a Forsyth County Democrat, wanted to restore three positions in the office of newly appointed NC Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley that would be eliminated under the Senate budget. She is the first African American woman to hold the position, and a Democrat.
“I think it’s a dastardly thing. We have a first African American female chief justice,” he said. Lowe said taking away positions from her office now seems morally wrong.
“I’m just going to leave it there because I’m getting really emotional,” Lowe said. “The last thing I want to do is cuss in this chamber, but it’s wrong.”
Republicans said that the positions in Beasley’s office were not filled when they started drafting the budget.
Senators endorsed the budget with a vote Thursday but still have to vote on it once more, which is scheduled for 9 a.m. Friday. Then the Senate and the House start their own budget negotiations before they send a final budget to Cooper.
As Published in the News&Observer. Click here for the original article.
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