RALEIGH — Rep. John Bell (R-Wayne), now settled into his new role as the powerful House Operations and Rules chair, said taking on the new spot has “been busy.”
“I’ve gone from trying to deal with everybody’s concerns and problems to now solely focused on moving legislation and making sure that bills get vetted and they get to the right committees,” Bell said. “So, it’s different.”
Bell took over as the rules chair earlier this year and was sworn in by his predecessor, House Speaker Destin Hall (R-Granite Falls). Bell also now occupies Hall’s former office in the legislative building.
“I was really popular at the beginning of the session when I was involved in making sure people got the right committees and actually got a committee, seating assignments and offices and all that administrative stuff they wanted,” said Bell with a laugh. “And now they’re starting to get mad at me when I don’t move their bills. So, I mean, it’s a give and take.”
Bell is in his seventh term in the House and is the state’s longest-serving majority leader, having served in that role since 2016.
Bell said he’s been “very blessed with an outstanding team,” and they are learning and working through things.
And Bell has been busy.
On March 11, the same day Bell sat down with North State Journal, House Bill 375 — which would prohibit the creation and distribution of deceptive deepfakes in political campaigns without proper disclosure, especially within 90 days of an election — was filed.
Bell had earlier in the day expressed interest in using artificial intelligence in committee meeting processes.
“We should be able to use AI to be able to have it automatically done as soon as the committee meetings are with posted up there for the general public to see,” Bell said of using AI to produce committee meeting notes and transcripts.
House Bill 375 has several reporting requirements as well as misdemeanor and felony penalties for compliance failures. The bill’s primary sponsor is Rep. Harry Warren (R-Rowan).
Bell also knows there are hurdles on the horizon, particularly vetoes from new Gov. Josh Stein on more politically divisive legislation. Stein’s predecessor, Roy Cooper, vetoed more than 100 bills during his eight years in the Executive Mansion.
“Well, I am sure those bills are on the way,” Bell said.
“So far, Gov. Stein has been very open to communication and discussion,” Bell added. “I’ve talked with Gov. Stein more than I talked with Gov. Cooper in eight years already.”
Bell said relief and recovery items related to Hurricane Helene will be a priority in impending budget negotiations with the Senate.
“There will be stuff that both chambers want from a prioritization standpoint,” Bell said of the budget. “There’s not going to be a huge amount of money to throw around, just go around on special projects and big projects.
“But I think a continuation of what we’ve done in the past and then the big focus of the western North Carolina. And fixing the disastrous program known as NCORR to be able to finish out eastern North Carolina from Hurricane Matthew Florence all these years later.”
NCORR, the North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency, was created by Cooper after Hurricane Florence in 2018.
NCORR has been the subject of multiple legislative oversight hearings in recent years for its failure to get victims of past hurricanes back into a home, including some who have been waiting more than eight years after Hurricane Matthew hit the state in 2016.
After being grilled by lawmakers in November 2024, it was announced NCORR chief Laura Hogshead was no longer employed with the agency. Pryor Gibson, Cooper’s legislative counsel the former governor had tasked with getting NCORR back on track, took over for Hogshead.
Stein has discarded NCORR and created his own recovery agency, the Governor’s Recovery Office for Western North Carolina (GROW NC). The new agency has already drawn skepticism from Republican lawmakers.
One bill Bell has a vested interest in House Bill 133, which aims to protect farmland and land around military installations from purchase by adversarial foreign nations.
“For me, protecting Seymour Johnson is always front of mind,” said Bell, calling the bill for which he’s primary sponsor a continuation of past efforts of dealing with issues of wind turbines interfering with military flight paths and training routes.
“We’ve seen throughout the country adversarial countries trying to purchase land around military operations,” he said, “and so far, North Carolina has done a good job of trying to prevent that from happening.”
“We just want to make sure that we prevent it from happening, especially when you have the largest Army base in the country, one the largest marine bases in the country and the major Air Force installations. You’ve also got the Navy coming in with Cherry Point with operations there and then other new things; the F-35 is coming in there. And also you’ve got the Dare County bombing ranges, the premier training facility on the Eastern Seaboard. We have to protect those assets.”
Another bill supported by Bell that relates to Hurricane Helene relief is House Bill 251, which would prohibit political discrimination in disaster aid.
“Unfortunately, that happened in western North Carolina,” said Bell. “And it’s been very well documented about assistance denied to people or people passed over because they had a Trump sign in the yard. … I mean, that was actually brought out on national news.”
Bell said political affiliation should never be a factor in disaster response, and the first thing any aid agency should do is “try to help as many people as possible” and “not check their political registration or who they’re voting for for president.”
Following Hurricane Helene, a now-former FEMA worker leaked a text from a supervisor that told her and her colleagues to avoid engaging victims whose homes had Donald Trump political signs in their yards. Diane Criswell, who headed up FEMA, resigned on Jan. 20, just ahead of Trump taking office.
