Limits on NC child marriage clear last hurdle before going to governor to become law
Ending some forms of child marriage in North Carolina is now up to Gov. Roy Cooper after the state Senate unanimously passed the final version of a child marriage bill that bans 14- and 15-year-olds from marrying.
North Carolina is one of two states that specifies children as young as 14 can marry if they become pregnant. Lawmakers in both the House and Senate made a bipartisan effort to end child marriage in North Carolina altogether but couldn’t get their colleagues to support it.
Instead, the senators found a compromise that allows 16- and 17-year-olds to continue marrying as long as their spouse is 4 years older or less.
Cooper is expected to sign the bill.
“While the legislation falls short of raising the age of marriage to 18, the Governor supports this step toward ending child marriage in North Carolina and more protections for children,” said Mary Scott Winstead, a spokeswoman for the governor.
Sen. Valerie Foushee, an Orange County Democrat, thanked Sen. Vickie Sawyer, an Iredell County Republican and Sen. Danny Britt, a Robeson County Republican, for their “tenacious work on the bill.”
Foushee said she, Sawyer and Sen. Toby Fitch began discussions on ending child marriages in 2019 and she was happy to see it come to fruition.
For a portion of the session, that seemed nearly impossible.
Senators filed the bill in February near the start of session. It gained little traction until April when it received favorable reports in committees.
But bill sponsors said in May that they couldn’t get enough votes to get the bill through because colleagues had either married teenagers, married as a teenager or knew someone who did.
That’s when Britt suggested the compromise bill.
“When we first filed this bill, one of the things we were looking at is the fact that North Carolina has become a destination place for marriage — for folks who are marrying children and for sex trafficking,” Britt said then. “What we wanted to do was come up with a bill that would take us off that list and protect these children.”
The bill then went to the House where it passed a judiciary committee. But the bill was referred on June 22 to the House committee on families, children and aging policy where it stalled completely until the death on Aug. 3, of the committee chairman, Rep. Jerry Carter, a Rockingham County Republican.
The bill was then picked up by the House Rules Committee and immediately sent to the House floor where it passed unanimously.
Because the judiciary committee had made a minor change to the bill the Senate needed to vote once more before it headed to the governor’s desk.
For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Under the Dome politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it at link.chtbl.com/underthedomenc or wherever you get your podcasts.
This story was originally published August 17, 2021 at 5:36 PM.
