RALEIGH — The North Carolina General Assembly saw moderate activity during the 2024 session during an election year where Republicans saw gains nationally but lost their supermajority in the state legislature.
While Donald Trump won the state and reclaimed the White House, state Republicans maintained control of the legislature but came up one seat short of holding onto their veto-proof supermajority.
Lawmakers enacted 58 bills in 2024, including three rounds of Hurricane Helene relief totaling over $1.1 billion. The most recent round was more than $244 million in Senate Bill 382. During the 2023 session, the body passed 151 laws.
Gov. Roy Cooper issued 29 vetoes during the 2023-24 sessions, 10 of which were made during 2024. The General Assembly overrode all 29. Over his two terms, Cooper vetoed 104 bills, 52 of which were overridden by the Republican-led legislature.
Other laws of consequence passed this year included modifying the Raise the Age law to send violent teen offenders to superior court instead of juvenile court, a conference committee budget bill that included requiring sheriffs to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and more funding for the Opportunity Scholarship program.
Around 16 laws took effect in 2024, spanning everything from changes in election laws to a license plate reader program, as well as changes to the time period for holding a teen license and raising criminal penalties for certain sex offenses against K-12 students.
Two state constitutional amendments passed: citizen-only voting and requiring that voter ID be presented by all voters. State voters passed the citizen-only voting measure by more than 77% during the November 2024 election. The voter ID question will go to the voters of the state during the 2026 election cycle
Near the end of 2024, lawmakers also passed House Resolution 151, applying to Congress for an Article V Convention of States in order to propose a constitutional amendment to place term limits on members of Congress.
New leadership positions for 2025 were announced by the House and Senate in mid-November.
In the House, 37-year-old Rep. Destin Hall (R-Granite Falls) was elected as North Carolina’s next speaker of the House, replacing Speaker Tim Moore (R-Kings Mountain), who is headed to Washington, D.C., after winning North Carolina’s 14th Congressional District. Hall will be the first millennial to lead one of the two chambers of the General Assembly after making history in 2021 by being the first to serve in a top House leadership spot as chair of the powerful House Rules Committee.
Other notable changes in the House include Rep. Brendan Jones (R-Robeson) replacing Rep. John Bell (R-Wayne) as majority leader. Bell will succeed Hall as the chair of the House Rules, Calendar, and Operations Committee in 2025. Rep. Steve Tyson (R-Craven) will be the deputy majority leader, which is the position Jones currently holds. Rep. Mitchell Setzer (R-Catawba) will serve as speaker pro tem, replacing Rep. Sarah Stevens (R-Surry), who has held that spot since 2017.
Sen. Phil Berger (R-Eden) was reelected as Senate leader, a position he has held since 2011. Other positions announced included Sen. Paul Newton (R-Cabarrus) continuing as Senate majority leader, Sen. Ralph Hise (R-Mitchell) reelected as deputy president pro tempore, and two majority whips: Sen. Amy Galey (R-Alamance) and Sen. Todd Johnson (R-Union).
There were multiple resignations this year: five in the House and one in the Senate.
Rep. Jon Hardister (R-Guilford) was the first, resigning in April after more than a decade at the General Assembly. Sen. Jim Perry (R-Lenoir) left effective July 2 after previously announcing in December 2023 that he wouldn’t run for reelection in 2024. Rep. Ashton Clemmons (D-Guilford) also resigned in July to take a job in the University of North Carolina System.
Rep. Jason Saine (R-Lincoln), a 13-year veteran who was the House Conference chair and Senior Appropriations chair, surprised everyone by announcing he was leaving in August. In late November, it was announced he would be joining the Raleigh office of The Southern Group, an influential Florida-based lobbying group.
Ahead of the end of his term, Rep. Jeffrey Elmore (R-Wilkes) resigned in September. He had held the seat since 2013 but did not seek a seventh term this year; instead, he ran unsuccessfully in the March primary for lieutenant governor. Also resigning in September was Rep. John Faircloth (R-Guilford). The 85-year-old Faircloth had served for seven terms in the House.
Rep. Kelly Alexander (D-Mecklenburg) died Sept. 6, nearly three weeks after his 76th birthday.
Oversight hearings and inquiries were held throughout 2024 by the House Oversight and Reform Committee, including the Department of Motor Vehicles (NCDMV), the State Board of Elections (NCSBE) and the Office of Recovery and Resiliency (NCORR).
NCDMV Commissioner Wayne Goodwin was brought in for three hearings over the agency’s driver’s license contract, compliance with state laws, and service abilities, long wait times and modernization issues, all of which Sen. Michael Lazzara (R-Onslow) believes can be solved by privatizing the agency.
The committee also sent letters to NCSBE Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell and NCSBE Chair Alan Hirsch in July questioning why the board was blocking certain political party presidential candidates from the November 2024 ballot. The NCSBE initially attempted to keep Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (We The People Party) and Cornel West (Justice for All Party) off the presidential ballot. Kennedy, who dropped out of the race and endorsed Trump, then asked to be taken off North Carolina’s ballot just before absentee ballot printing was to commence. The request was rejected by the NCSBE as “impractical” for ballot reprinting reasons.
Lawmakers on the Committee grilled NCORR’s Director Laura Hogshead over the slow progress in getting Hurricanes Matthew and Florence victims back into permanent housing. Pryor Gibson, the governor’s legislative counsel sent in last year by Cooper to monitor the agency, also testified.
Hogshead was questioned on several issues, with lawmakers dubious about whether NCORR can handle Hurricane Helene’s recovery given the agency’s past. Just days after the meeting, at which lawmakers had called for her resignation, the Department of Public Safety announced Hogshead was no longer with NCORR and that Gibson would be taking over.
The House Oversight Committee also held a hearing looking into the operations of NCInnovation, a nonprofit that received $500 million from the legislature in two $250 million endowments to fund and support the commercialization of public university research conducted in the state.
In other legislative committee news, a House Select Committee on Hurricane Helene was created and convened for the first time in December. Additionally, the legislative America 250 Committee, which is handling celebration planning and events for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 2026, met multiple times this year.
