Earlier today, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed the biennial budget bill, according to Carolina Journal’s Dan Way. Way cites a lack of Medicaid expansion appropriations as Cooper’s main issue with the budget:
“Many are dying because North Carolina has yet to say an important word — Yes,” Cooper said, surrounded by Democratic lawmakers, teachers, and health-care professionals during a news conference at the governor’s mansion. “Yes, we will accept Medicaid expansion.”
Cooper qualified his veto with additional objections he has with the budget. Way quotes Cooper:
“This budget is an astonishing failure of common sense and common decency,” Cooper said. “It values corporate tax breaks over classrooms, gimmicks over guaranteed school construction, and political ideology over people.”
Way reports that many legislators are not convinced the veto is about much more than Medicaid expansion. Way quotes Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham:
“This is and has always been about Medicaid expansion,” Berger said. “The governor is blocking funds for teacher and state employee raises, the rape kit backlog, the Human Trafficking Commission, and other crucial investments so he can can brag to his far-left base that he vetoed the budget over Medicaid expansion.”
Though Cooper stated he and his staff would submit a compromise proposal, Berger commented he and his colleagues are not getting their hopes up:
[Berger] said he wasn’t optimistic Cooper wanted to compromise based on the governor’s track record in negotiations. He said Republicans have met with Cooper since mid-June and repeatedly solicited his counter offer — without success.
The House is expected to hold an override vote; however, the override requires a three-fifths majority, and the Governor has stated “the Democrats are united and have the votes to sustain his veto.”
