Democrats split, but most vote for NC House GOP budget. What got their support.
For the first time in recent memory, a majority of North Carolina Democrats voted with Republicans on a state budget bill, including the Democratic leader.
Of the 47 House Democrats on the floor for the budget debate Wednesday night, 27 voted in favor of the Republican-written House budget bill, and 20 voted against it. Two were absent.
It’s a major shift in how lawmakers are governing. Republicans have a majority and are one vote short of total control of the chamber.
The News & Observer talked exclusively with several House Democrats in the moments after the vote, as they explained why they made their choice for, or against.
Here’s what they said:
Democrats who voted in favor of the House budget
▪ Most notably, House Democratic Leader Robert Reives, of Chatham County, voted for the budget.
His reasoning included opposition to the Senate’s budget bill, which would provide lower raises for teachers and state employees than the House version.
“Here’s the challenge that you have. We’re not in the majority, but what the Senate sent out was ridiculous, and at some point in time, somebody’s got to govern. All I kept hearing from debate today was we don’t have any money, and if we don’t have any money, then you’ve got to make some decisions,” Reives told The News & Observer.
“I’m not voting with (Republicans), I’m voting with North Carolina. And that is not political speak.”
“The question is, at some point in time, what do people want to do? Do you want us to turn into Washington, where we say, well, if a Republican puts up an idea, we’re going to vote against it, if it’s a Democrat, we’ll vote for it?”
“Or do you want to look and say, what are the things that we’ve got to do?”
Reives said that if some Democrats are frustrated with him and other supporters over their votes, “I am confident that the other 100 times I voted no, can, for all of us, can get our bona fides.”
But Reives cautioned that he would have voted against the plan if it was the final budget bill. He called the House budget a means of negotiation.
“I see us doing what the folks in North Carolina need to get a discussion started for the vote that we’re going to have in the future.”
▪ Rep. Cynthia Ball of Wake County:
“The bottom line is, like Leader Reives, said: What’s best for North Carolina?”
“I think what’s best for North Carolina is for there to be a better conference report out of this process,” Ball said, referring to the final version of the budget after negotiations between the Senate and House.
While not supporting everything in the plan, “We can stand behind some of the very important things that are in that budget, which are holding flat the tax cuts. That was big for me,” Ball told The N&O.
▪ Rep. Terry Brown of Mecklenburg County:
“When I look at what this budget is doing, it’s doing a lot of things that Democrats have been putting forward for years. We have been introducing bills to raise teacher pay for years and years and years. We’ve been introducing bills to put bring back the sales tax holiday for years and years and years, for master’s pay — for all these priorities,” Brown told The N&O after the vote.
Brown called it “just one first vote” with a summer of work ahead.
▪ Rep. Abe Jones of Wake County:
“I think in politics, in the real world, you have to recognize where you are. And I had to evaluate this thing, because I do not like school vouchers. I almost voted against it for that reason,” Jones said.
“But I had to hold that to one side and look at the rest of it. The teachers’ raises. The fact that we were still in the black, the fact that the Helene aid was there. ... I wanted our negotiators to be able to go over there with strength and negotiate with the Senate.”
Jones said that while “it was a little painful for me, I think I did the right thing.”
▪ Rep. Shelly Willingham of Edgecombe County:
Willingham, a retired educator, told The N&O he voted in favor of the budget because of teacher raises, and “because it has a lot of good stuff in it. A lot of things that I think is beneficial, and I don’t want to be willing to say that we’re against those. So I think overall, it’s the best thing to do.”
Democrats who voted against the House budget
▪ Rep. Carolyn Logan of Mecklenburg County:
Logan said she voted against the House budget because of the proposed cost of living adjustment bonus for retired state employees. She called the bonuses, which would be 1% the coming year, a “slap in the face.” She said retirees should receive a COLA that is recurring money, not a bonus.
▪ Rep. Amber Baker of Forsyth County:
Baker said the House budget fell short in “protecting our teachers and our state employees.”
“I think the bill lacked diversity — we have a plethora of issues that we need to be addressing to alleviate some of the suffering and some of the hardships that our everyday people are facing,” Baker told The N&O in an interview.
Baker, who has spent her career in education, didn’t like Republicans’ support for private school vouchers.
She said that House Democrats do not face pressure from Reives about how to vote or how to express their opinions on the bill, because they also need to listen to their constituents.
▪ Rep. Julie von Haefen of Wake County:
Von Haefen said that House Democrats think independently and had different reasons for their votes, and that Reives, as leader of the House Democratic Caucus, doesn’t tell anyone how to vote. For her, the dealbreaker was the House budget funding private school vouchers.
“I stand strong for our public schools, and this budget does not do that,” von Haefen said.
What’s next for the budget
Now that the House has passed its budget bill, negotiations will begin in June with the Senate, which passed its own version of the budget in April. The Senate budget also gained some Democratic support, but far less. Longtime Sen. Dan Blue, who served as minority leader until this session, and three other Democratic senators crossed the aisle to support the Senate plan.
The General Assembly is taking a break next week.
This story was originally published May 22, 2025 at 2:28 PM.
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