The N.C. House on Wednesday overrode Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of a lengthy bill that reforms several building codes and cuts the appointment power of the governor.
The Wednesday vote brings the tally this week of the legislature’s overrides of Cooper’s vetoes to four. The Senate overrode five bills on Monday, three of which had already been overridden by the House and became law after the Senate vote.
On Wednesday, the House took up one of the two remaining bills and voted to override Cooper’s veto with 70 lawmakers voting for the override and 40 against it.
The House and Senate are both controlled by the Republican Party, which has the three-fifths majority necessary to override vetoes when voting as a block.
Transfer of governor’s appointments
The bill passed into law, Senate Bill 166, spans over 70 pages and makes various reforms to building codes such as changing insulation requirements and prohibiting the state from requiring electric water heaters to be elevated.
The bill also reorganizes the NC Building Code Council, which currently consists of 17 members appointed by the governor to adopt and amend the state’s building codes.
Under SB 166, starting in January, the council will consist of 13 members, three appointed by the House speaker and three by the president pro tempore of the Senate. The remainder will be appointed by the governor.
House Speaker Tim Moore is running for Congress, with Rep. Destin Hall, a Republican from Caldwell County, slated to take his position next year if the caucus votes him in. Senate leader Phil Berger is running for reelection and has been serving as the Senate’s leader since the 2010 elections when Republicans won a Senate majority for the first time in decades.
Senate Bill 166 also changes who needs to be appointed to the council, cutting requirements that at least two members be licensed architects, three members licensed general contractors and more.
Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Guilford County Democrat, speaking against the override on Wednesday, said she considered taking the governor’s appointment powers to be “unconstitutional.” She also questioned Republican Rep. Dean Arp, who spoke in favor of the bill, on whether the provision cutting the requirement for architects on the council remained in the bill.
Arp told Harrison that that the architect provision was still in the bill and could not be cut due the vote being an override but he said there was “agreement to move forward in a subsequent vehicle to fix the language for the Building Code Council.”
When he vetoed the bill in early July, Cooper wrote that “by limiting options for energy efficiency and electric vehicles, this legislation prevents North Carolina’s building code from adopting innovations in construction and mobility that save consumers money.”
“This bill also removes subject matter experts from the building code council, including architects, active fire service, a coastal expert, local government officials, and public at-large membership, and limits the knowledge and practical experience of the body tasked with ensuring all buildings are safely designed,” he wrote.
Court-filed documents and eviction
Another bill, Senate Bill 445 , was also on the House calendar for an override vote on Wednesday. But it was withdrawn. This bill has various provisions including one exempting copies of court-filed documents from certain formatting requirements for paper documents presented to the register of deeds for registration.
It also makes changes to the appeals process for small claims, which are reviewed by district courts and include cases such as for evictions and where the amount of money sought in the complaint is not more than $10,000. Changes under the bill include establishing that the small claims appeal period begins when a judgment is “rendered” instead of when the judgment is “entered.”
The current appeals process allows people to give a notice of appeal in open court when a judgment is rendered or to file a notice of appeal with the clerk within 10 days after a judgment is entered, or officially recorded.
The bill also requires a judge, magistrate or clerk authorizing a person to appeal a small claims judgment as an indigent — or a person who is unable to pay for legal representation and other court expenses — to make written findings of indigency.
In his veto statement, Cooper wrote that SB 445 “creates legal ambiguity regarding when eviction orders become effective and may harm low-income individuals by making it harder for them to appeal as indigent in small claims court.”
It’s unclear whether and when that bill will be taken up for an override vote.
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