NC lawmakers are taking a week off. Why now, and what it means for the budget
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- Most legislators will take the week of May 25 off, but some will keep working.
- Top appropriations chairs will continue detailed budget line-item work during the break.
- Most North Carolina lawmakers will spend the Memorial Day week back in their districts.
North Carolina lawmakers will spend the week of May 25 back home in their districts, a month after they returned to session and while budget negotiations are ongoing.
Memorial Day is a federal holiday of remembrance and honor for U.S. military service members who have died.
House Speaker Destin Hall and Senate leader Phil Berger announced earlier this month that they have a “framework” of a budget deal with agreements on tax policy and raises.
But that leaves the rest of the budget work still on the to-do list, which is being led by Appropriations committee chairs — four in the House and three in the Senate.
So the work continues for the top budget writers. while most of the 170 legislators have left.
The News & Observer asked the state’s top four lawmakers about the weeklong break with just one month of the legislative short session under their belts. While three support the break, Senate Minority Leader Sydney Batch objects to it when North Carolina still doesn’t have a comprehensive state budget.
Hall explained what the House budget chairs will be doing, and why their work moves faster when there aren’t voting sessions.
“Those chairs, some of them I imagine will be here ... because they’re now doing the hard work, which is sitting in a room for eight hours a day, going through every line item of state government,” Hall told The N&O when he spoke to reporters after Wednesday’s long voting session.
“When we’re here in session, it makes progress for those chairs difficult, because they’ve got to be in the chamber for four hours, like today,” Hall said. He added that even days when there aren’t votes, people are visiting their offices.
The General Assembly doesn’t have a set number of days they work each year in Raleigh, nor an adjournment date unless they set one. Session start dates are specific, but not any breaks or adjournments aside from year to year.
Hall said he chose the week of Memorial Day for the break, hoping that it lined up with budget progress, and he hopes that means budget work will be finished in June.
Hall and Berger expect votes on a final budget bill the week of June 15.
Time to spend with families, take break from Raleigh
House Minority Leader Robert Reives agrees with the break. He spoke to The News & Observer and other reporters after an hours-long House session with sometimes contentious debate over tax policy.
“Any time you can give folks a break up here is good, because it’s simply this: If we’re not going to be inside writing a budget, and we don’t have anything else to do, I don’t want folks up here,” Reives said.
“Because the problem is, especially on my side of the aisle, we have a lot of young people with children, with families, that are taking care of their parents — all kinds of things going on,” he said. “And I do appreciate, and I sincerely mean this: I appreciate the fact that Speaker Hall has made a lot of effort to make sure if we don’t have to be here, we’re not here.”
Hall has been speaker since January 2025. He released a calendar before the session began April 21, showing votes are expected through Thursday, July 2.
Representatives, including Reives, say they have appreciated a much more predictable schedule than under previous speakers, The N&O previously reported.
“The 10 years I served before (Hall was Speaker), if we had one bill that was some local bill that was just passing something real quick, we’d be up here, and I don’t want to do that,” he said.
When legislators work
Unlike the House, the Senate does not publish a calendar of voting days. The next day’s calendar is usually published the evening before a voting session.
“Legislative Friday” is a term meaning the end of the legislative work week for the General Assembly. Generally it is Thursday, or even Wednesday, if votes and committees wrap up early. Lawmakers return home to their districts to spend time with their families and their constituents.
They return to the capital city on Mondays, when voting sessions and committees are held occasionally, or at least by early Tuesday morning, when the action ramps up.
House votes were originally planned every day this past week, in anticipation of the week off, Hall said. But they finished Wednesday after a long voting session. The Senate’s last voting session was also Wednesday, though they held two committees Thursday morning.
Senators and representatives earn about $14,000 a year salary, plus expenses and mileage costs. Some use campaign funds on meals, rent and travel, too.
Senate decided to take off because of the House plan
Berger said the Senate decided to take the week off because of the House.
“Once the House decided they weren’t going to be here, we have not scheduled votes,” Berger told The N&O. “I have talked to the Appropriations chairs and told them that, to the extent that they need to work that week in order to make that schedule, as far as getting something ready by the middle of June, I would hope that they’d be working.”
With one chamber in the Legislative Building but not the other, bill movement would significantly slow down, Berger said.
“(The Senate) can’t do anything on this side of the building unless folks on that side of the building are doing something,” Berger said.
He also noted that the Senate has held committees and voting sessions more days a week than the House does.
Objections to a lengthy break
Batch was asked if a week off after working one month is considered “excessive.”
“What I would tell you is that North Carolinians sure as (expletive) ain’t getting a week off— they’re working every single day, and a lot of them two jobs, right? So they may not even get Memorial Day off.”
“So when people are on their boat and doing whatever the heck they’re doing this weekend, there are going to be people that are going to have to gas up their boat, there are going to be people working in the stores, there are going to be people at restaurants serving them,” she said.
“Those are the individuals that our caucus is actually fighting for and advocating for,” Batch said. “And it’s really unfortunate the Republicans have decided that, after ... an entire month of hard work that they’ve decided that they want to go home, despite the fact that we still don’t have a budget.”
