The Sky Was Falling Legislative Update 2/27/15
By Unknown
This week in Raleigh the sky was falling! – well it was snowing!
The news
in Raleigh was dominated by snow and ice and skeleton sessions and empty
calendars. However there were a few items of interest:
Fee
Increases at the Secretary of State’s Office
Secretary
of State Elaine Marshall proposed several fee increases to generate funds for
additional investigator positions in her office in advance of anticipated
enactment of crowdfunding legislation. She proposes increasing the fee to
incorporate and LLC from $125 to $150, and increasing the fee to register as a
securities salesman from $125 to $135. Increasing these fees is expected
to generate $2.68 million per year with $1 million funding twelve investigator
positions in her office and $1.68 million in new revenues for the state’s
general fund. Legislators from both parties asked her to come back with
fee increases that only generate $1 million.
Waiting
for the Governor’s Budget
The
Governor expects to deliver his budget to the General Assembly next week.
The Governor’s Budget is typically received by the General Assembly as mere
“recommendations” and bears whatever relevance to the enacted state budget as
the legislators give it. The House and Senate budget committees will
likely refer to it but not defer to it; they work from their own budget
templates.
Gay
Marriage
in
reaction to the federal court rulings that struck down North Carolina’s ban on
same-sex marriage, between winter storms in Raleigh the Senate debated and
passed SB
2 – An Act to Allow Magistrates, Assistant Registers of Deeds, and Deputy
Registers of Deeds to recuse themselves from performing duties related to
marriage ceremonies due to sincerely held religious objection. The bill
allows magistrates to refuse to perform marriages without fear of being
fired. Current law defines a refusal to discharge a duty such as
this as a Class 1 misdemeanor that requires an employee be “removed from
office.” While the bill avoids mention of gay marriage specifically, it
would allow magistrates to recuse themselves from performing marriages by
citing a “sincerely held religious objection.” Once they submit their
objection in writing, they would be barred from performing any marriage
for six months or until they removed their objection. The bill would also
apply to registers of deeds who issue marriage certificates. Bill
sponsors insist that this bill is necessary to protect freedom of religion of
public servants; opponents warn that passing the bill could result in other
public servants refusing to perform their duties – such as performing
interracial marriages. A Senator in the Minority warned that if the bill
were taken to its extremes, clerks of the Department of Revenue could refuse to
process tax returns of same-sex couples or ticket takers at the state-owned zoo
could refuse to process family tickets for same-sex couples.
Interestingly, two Republicans voted against the bill and two Democrats voted
for it. In listening to the legal merits of the debate we pondered as to
whether they should appropriated funds to defend legal action against this bill
should it become law now or wait for the budget bill. No word on what the
House plans to do with the bill. #WWJD
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