State lawmakers passed a sprawling budget bill into law over Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto, enacting two longstanding GOP priorities: a measure requiring sheriffs to cooperate with immigration authorities, and hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for private school vouchers.
Republicans defeated the outgoing Democratic governor’s veto — the latest in more than two dozen they’ve overridden since gaining a legislative supermajority last year — in one of the last sessions left before lawmakers adjourn in December. When they return to Raleigh in January, Republicans are expected to maintain a supermajority in the Senate, but lose it by one seat in the House.
The House took up the measure Tuesday, a busy day when House Republicans also held leadership elections to choose a new caucus leader who will serve as speaker next year, and prepared to unveil another major bill that would take away and change the powers of the incoming governor, attorney general, and state superintendent of public instruction — all offices that Democrats won earlier this month.
After around 40 minutes of debate, Republicans made a motion to end debate and proceed to a vote. The House voted 72-44 to override Cooper’s veto of House Bill 10, the “mini-budget” Republicans agreed on in September after months of budget talks. The Senate overrode Cooper’s veto Wednesday afternoon, voting 30-19 to enact the bill over the governor’s objections and require Democratic sheriffs who have resisted cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to cooperate with the federal agency, and provide nearly a half-billion dollars for vouchers.
ICE and the Trump administration
Republicans have been trying to pass ICE cooperation legislation since 2019, after newly elected sheriffs in Democratic counties like Wake and Mecklenburg vowed the year prior, during the first Trump administration, to cut back or end cooperation with the agency that enforces immigration law and conducts deportations.
After previous standalone bills were vetoed by Cooper in 2019 and 2022, Republicans tried to pass the bill for a third time once they regained a supermajority last year. The bill ultimately got stuck in negotiations between both chambers this summer. In September, Republicans said they had agreed to pass the crux of the bill, which requires sheriffs to comply with immigration detainers — requests from ICE regarding individuals who have been arrested and are believed to be in the country illegally. The detainers ask sheriffs to hold the suspects for up to 48 hours to give ICE agents time to take custody of them.
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“It’s clear where the people, not only North Carolina, stand on that issue, but the people of the United States,” Hall said Tuesday. “They believe in enforcing immigration law.”
Private school vouchers
The legislation would also provide $463 million to clear the Opportunity Scholarship backlog, as well as provide funding for those families to continue to attend a private school next year.
“There are many children who are trapped in public schools that are failing them, and they have been for generations and generations and generations,” said Rep. Tricia Cotham, a Mecklenburg County Republican. “They deserve an opportunity of something else.”