Support from key House Democrats for the GOP-authored budget is eroding, putting into question the legislature’s ability to override a veto by Gov. Bev Perdue, if it comes. “They don’t have the votes to override, and they know it,” said Rep. Dewey Hill, a Whiteville Democrat. Hill was one of five House Democrats who helped legislative Republicans enact their own budget last year over Perdue’s objections. Full story here.
Perdue has not said what she will do about the $20.2 billion budget that she says falls short of meeting critical needs. She plans to hold a press conference on the budget at 10 a.m. Friday.
Other political headlines:
--North Carolina risks losing control of the health insurance marketplace it has to establish under the federal law the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Thursday if it hesitates to authorize it much longer. The state is also assessing the financial impact of adding more than half a million people to the Medicaid program as a result of the court’s ruling.
--The health care ruling leaves many questions unanswered and produced a mixed reaction on the street.
--With more than 10,000 volunteers already signed up, Democratic National Convention organizers say they’ll end registration Saturday so they won’t run out of jobs for people.
--Gov. Bev Perdue on Thursday vetoed the bill that would have undermined the Racial Justice Act, the 2009 law that allows death-row inmates to try to convert their sentences to life in prison without parole by using statistical proof of racial bias in their trials. “As long as I am governor, I will fight to make sure the death penalty stays on the books in North Carolina,” Perdue said in a statement released late in the afternoon. “But it has to be carried out fairly – free of prejudice.”
