NC Senate wrote coronavirus bill in private, and Democrats object

The N.C. House and Senate took different approaches to transparency in their COVID-19 response. The House publicly formed committees, met via video conferences and gathered input from their constituents.

But the Senate kept its proposals under wraps until filing a 51-page COVID-19 response bill on April 28, the first day of the session.

The NC Insider asked all 50 senators about their involvement in the weeks leading up to the session’s start. Views on the process split almost entirely down party lines. Senate Republicans said it was a collaborative effort where both parties worked together.

Senate Democrats said they did not know what their Republican colleagues had been doing and that they’re frustrated by the lack of public input in the Senate’s bill. Despite that, 19 of the Senate’s 21 Democrats did co-sponsor the bill.

Senate leader Phil Berger’s spokesman Pat Ryan said the Senate took an approach similar to its regular budget process.

“Members spoke with their constituents, stakeholders, and each other over the course of several weeks to develop proposals,” Ryan said. “As each member developed his or her own suggestions, they were shared with committee leaders and then with chamber leadership, always with an eye towards including consensus items and excluding controversial items.”

Ryan added that the goal of Berger and Senate Minority Leader Dan Blue “was to provide every member, from the most senior Republican to the most junior Democrat, the opportunity for substantive input.”

Sen. Chuck Edwards, a Henderson County Republican, said there weren’t formal meetings, but various senators and legislative staff members spent their days in conversations about how to tackle the pandemic. Edwards said that Berger and Blue, D-Wake, told the senators to funnel any ideas through the chamber’s subject-oriented oversight committees, though he said those committees never met.

Sen. Joyce Krawiec, R-Forsyth, said like the Democrats, the Republicans also broke into groups. She said the chairs of the groups came together to bring their final ideas to Senate leadership.

While Senate conversations happened behind the scenes, the House had divided its members into select committees to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. The House’s four committees, made up of both parties, each met at least once a week and gathered information from the public.

“Those were public meetings,” said Sen. Wiley Nickel, D-Wake, “and that would have been a great way to go. We wanted to do that but the Republicans didn’t.”

Sen. Natasha Marcus, D-Mecklenburg, said Democrats were left to form their own working groups to prepare for the short session. “Senate leaders did not provide a public, formal process for discussion of the issues so we worked as a caucus on various issues,” Marcus said.

Several Democratic senators said Blue, D-Wake, asked Sen. Gladys Robinson, D-Guilford, to divide the 21 caucus members into working groups. Robinson said she divided the Senate Democrats into groups that included health; education; elections; economy and business; and unemployment and small businesses.

She emphasized that she formed “groups, not committees” with senators who had interest in certain areas. “That was kind of the process that we did -- gather information, talk to people, etcetera, which is not out of order.”

Ryan said it makes little sense that the Democrats say they created their own working groups, but Republicans stopped them from holding public meetings.

Edwards said that he was told that because the House had so many digital meetings taking place, the General Assembly’s technology infrastructure couldn’t handle many more. Edwards said instead the senators picked up the phone and talked about their ideas. “There was an incredible amount of collaboration among the senators.”

But the Democratic senators disagree. “I have no idea how the Republicans did things,” said Sen. Terry Van Duyn, D-Buncombe. “None of that was shared with us.”

The difference between groups and committees is an important element to what happened in the Senate. North Carolina’s open meetings laws require that when the majority of a public body meets, those meetings must be public. This includes committee meetings, but not party caucus meetings.

However, the open meetings law says that a caucus meeting can’t be used to get around the open meetings law.

Whether these groups met together, how many met at a time, and what was discussed gets a little hazy. Nickel and Krawiec, R-Forsyth, said each party’s groups held video and conference call meetings. Nickel said these meetings were “ad hoc” and not like those in the House.

Edwards said there weren’t formal meetings of Republicans. Rep. Jim Burgin, R-Harnett, said there were numerous conference calls and then, when the Senate returned to Raleigh, in-person private meetings. The public wasn’t privy to the discussions.

And that is what Van Duyn said frustrated her. She said the lack of public input left her constituents without a seat at the table, because she didn’t know who she needed to include in her discussions and they did not know to call her for help. “That is enormously frustrating, not to mention it would be illegal for my county or my city to do business in that way,” Van Duyn said.

Sen. Erica Smith, D-Northampton, agreed the public should be involved. “I definitely prefer public input. I prefer transparency and people need to know we’re working hard on their behalf,” she said.

Nickel conceded that he did feel the Republicans were more receptive to their suggestions than during previous sessions, and they made an effort to include some in the bill.

Smith said she was satisfied with the bill but also felt that more could have been done. “I don’t necessarily question the decisions Sen. Berger made, but I don’t think it hurts to have to defend them,” Smith said. “I think it actually leads to better decisions, but he created a system where he didn’t have to defend any decisions and I think that just reinforces the bubbles we’re in.”

Senate Republicans said they came away from the meetings with a feeling of consensus.

“It was a really wonderful experience to have such cooperation,” Krawiec said. “When you have a crisis, everybody works together and it was very cooperative, deliberative and I was very happy with it.”