In NC budget battle, Berger says House must ‘honor their word’ on deal. House goes home
The North Carolina General Assembly, which is completely controlled by Republicans in both chambers, is in the midst of a standoff between the House and Senate.
Leaders of each chamber said they were ready to vote this week on a state budget — but not the version the other chamber wants.
The budget spends about $30 billion of taxpayer money and includes months-late raises for teachers and state employees.
Senate leader Phil Berger said those budget votes could happen if the House will “honor their word.” He said House Republicans should keep an agreement already made on the budget that would include legalizing nontribal casinos. But House Speaker Tim Moore says there are not enough House Republican votes to pass the budget with casinos.
The result: By Tuesday evening, it appeared there would be no resolution anytime soon. Reporters ping-ponged between the House and Senate as each leader — who didn’t meet with each other Tuesday and had no plans to meet — chose not to compromise.
Moore said gambling was the only issue stalling the budget.
Berger said the number of House Republican votes Moore says are required to pass the budget with casinos has changed since a prior agreement. The Senate leader dismissed the idea of putting gambling in a separate bill, saying: “I believe that House leadership needs to live up to its commitments.”
“The budget, as you know, is, is a series of compromises,” Berger said. “And those compromises result in the final product. If the compromises that have been reached in the past fall apart, then I think everything is subject to further conversations.”
Berger also said that he won’t decouple Medicaid expansion from the budget. Lawmakers approved Medicaid expansion months ago, but its implementation hinges on the budget becoming law. Berger said the Senate wants to vote on the full budget, dismissing the possibility of smaller, “mini” budget bills.
Berger said that he and Moore needed to sign off on the printing of the budget before votes could take place. Berger said he has already signed it.
“Their leadership agreed to putting the budget together under certain circumstances. Their leadership needs to honor their commitment. And if we don’t have that, then we don’t have a budget that we can vote on,” Berger said.
A few hours later, after a brief House session, Moore told reporters that Berger’s take is “not accurate on breaking any kind of agreement. Always implicit in everything that we do is that we have the votes to pass this into law. We did have a majority of the caucus. And as I made clear, clarified on there, we’re good moving forward to the budget.”
Moore said that because 30 House Republicans do not support legalizing casinos through the budget, a budget containing the gambling proposal would need at least 19 Democrats to vote for it. Moore said he hasn’t yet asked Democrats for their votes.
House Democratic Leader Robert Reives, of Chatham County, said that Democratic leadership have not been asked for their support.
“I can’t even comment on the budget. Because the problem is, we’ve not been involved in any part of the process,” Reives said about Democrats.
‘Larger than just casinos’
Asked why casinos matter so much, Berger said that at this point it’s not casinos. Instead, he said that “it is whether or not I can go back to my members and tell them that I have an understanding with the leadership in the House on a particular issue.”
“Doesn’t matter what the issue is. When I cannot do that, then it makes it very, very difficult for us to get any kind of business done. So it’s larger than just casinos,” Berger said.
Moore said he just doesn’t have the votes to include casinos.
“And I’ve advocated for it. I support it. I think it’s good policy. But we don’t threaten people in this chamber. We don’t, you know, hold things over their head. We don’t try to intimidate members. And as a result, members are free to vote their conscience here. And so when members say at the end, that they believe as a matter of conscience, they’re gonna vote no. And we’re gonna respect that,” Moore said.
Asked if he meant the Senate was threatening to withhold projects, he said no.
As for a path forward, Moore said that gambling could run as a separate bill, just as sports betting legislation did. He said the budget shouldn’t be held up on one single issue.
This story was originally published September 12, 2023 at 3:00 PM with the headline "In NC budget battle, Berger says House must ‘honor their word’ on deal. House goes home."
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