NC General Assembly Adjourns 2024 Legislative Session For Final Time, 2025 Session To Begin In January
By The North Carolina General Assembly adjourned the 2024 legislative session “sine die,” or for the final time, on Friday, December 13, with plans already set for the 2025 legislative session to begin in early January. Despite the 2024 session being a legislative “short session,” NCGA members met almost every month in 2024 and passed a total of 58 bills (which has been summarized by NCGA staff). The NCGA did not pass a new state budget package this year, but because the NC legislature operates on a biennium basis, lawmakers are expected to pass a full state budget package for 2025-2027 in the upcoming legislative “long session.”
As in the past few legislative sessions, North Carolina will continue to be governed by politically split legislative and executive branches in 2025, with a Democratic governor and Republican-controlled House and Senate. Unlike in immediate past sessions, however, the 2025 NC House of Representatives will not have a Republican “supermajority,” or control of at least two-thirds of the chamber, which allows a chamber to easily override a gubernatorial veto when all members vote in line with their party affiliation.
The supermajority power can have significant implications, as reflected in veto statistics compiled by NCGA staff, which show that during 2019-2022 when Republicans did not have a supermajority, Governor Cooper vetoed 49 bills, none of which were ultimately overridden. In comparison, since Republicans gained a supermajority in both chambers in 2023, Governor Cooper has vetoed 28 bills, all of which have been overridden, including the recent third Hurricane Helene recovery bill, SB 382 (S.L. 2024-57), which makes changes to the statutory powers of various incoming state government officials, agencies, and boards.
Following the House vote on December 11 to override the veto of SB 382, Governor Cooper and Governor-elect Josh Stein filed a lawsuit against Republican leaders, contending a portion of the new law violates the separation of powers established in the NC Constitution. At the time of this article’s publication, the lawsuit was still pending.
Elizabeth Yelverton is the NCASA Legal Affairs & Policy Manager and the Legislative & Ethics Chair for the NCBA Education Law Council.