NC lawmakers override Josh Stein’s vetoes on climate change, gun laws

With some Democratic support, legislators defied Gov. Josh Stein, weakened state climate change laws and made it legal for private school teachers to take guns to school.

The North Carolina General Assembly overrode Gov. Josh Stein’s vetoes of  eight bills on Tuesday, drawing enough Democratic support to end a key climate change protection and allow private school personnel to bring guns to campus. 

Since Democrats broke the Republican supermajority in the North Carolina House in last November’s elections, Republicans in that chamber needed at least one Democrat to join them to override the governor’s veto. On Tuesday, they got that bipartisan support. The NC Senate, which maintained its supermajority, passed those eight bills and four others that will have a harder time clearing the House.

A few of the overrides passed the House with just one Democratic vote.

Here is a look at some of the bills that passed both chambers and are now law.

SB 266: Undoing a key law to fight climate change

SB266 essentially repeals a bipartisan law passed in 2021 that gave Duke Energy until 2030 to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 70%. Greenhouse gases are the biggest driver of human-caused climate change and Duke is one of the country’s leading emitters of greenhouse gases. 

Republicans praised the bill as a means to immediately lower energy costs for consumers, but studies show that the bill will result in far higher long-term costs to the energy grid, the state economy, and the country’s climate change fight.

Democratic State Reps. Carla Cunningham (Mecklenburg Co.),  Nasif Majeed (Mecklenburg), and Shelley Willingham (Edgecombe, Bertie, and Martin counties) joined Republicans in voting for the override.

The 2030 emissions deadline helped spur huge investments in clean energy in North Carolina, establishing the state as a leader in solar and wind projects. This bill will pop that balloon, opponents say.

According to the BW Partnership group, a national market research firm, the bill will cost the state 50,700 jobs annually starting in 2030, lower revenue by over $1.4 billion, and result in $47.2 billion less in “power sector investments.”

It will also leave North Carolina with a weaker power grid, the study says. 

Arming private school teachers

HB 193, which passed on Tuesday, will allow private schools to let teachers, staff, or even volunteers to bring their guns to school and double as armed security guards. 

Rep. Jeffrey McNeely, an Iredell County Republican, said on the House floor that the bill offered “common sense” protections against school shootings for small private schools that could not afford to hire security.

The issue, he said, was personal, because there is evil in this world and his wife works at a private school.

“My wife could be one of these victims,” McNeely said. “I worry about all these kids.”

In his veto, Stein said the bill made schools less safe, not more. 

He cited the lack of requirements for any kind of training. 

“We cannot substitute the protection offered by well-trained law enforcement officers by asking teachers and school volunteers to step in and respond to crises while armed,” Stein wrote.

He also cited an incident last year in which a student at a Goldsboro private school found a gun that a teacher left in a school bathroom. 

Willingham is the only Democrat who voted for the bill. 

Cooperation with ICE

HB318 requires North Carolina sheriff departments to notify ICE about any people they detain who have federal immigration detention waivers filed against them, and to then hold those individuals until ICE comes to get them. 

The bill says this would apply only to people charged with violent crimes, but Democrats say that the language could also apply to those charged with misdemeanors. 

Stein said in his veto statement that he supports the violent crime provisions of the bill, but could not sign it because, in order to comply, sheriffs might have to keep detainees longer than temporary detention protections allow. 

“My oath of office requires that I uphold the Constitution of the United States,” Stein wrote. 

In remarks opposing the bill on the House floor, Rep. Marcia Morey, a Democrat from Durham, cited ICE’s record of wrongfully detaining American citizens and legal residents. 

Cunningham is the only Democrat who voted for the bill.

In remarks on the House floor, Cunningham said too many immigrants came to the United States refusing to speak English and refusing to assimilate. She said the United States needed to turn off the immigration “conveyor belt” and bristled at any suggestion that her views were bigoted.

“See, it was my ancestors who came over as slaves, built this country with a strain on their backs, sweat pouring from their bodies in the rice fields, the cotton fields, and the tobacco farms for this country,” she said. 

She added: “So today, if you ask me to line up behind another group of people to raise awareness about their plight, I unapologetically say no.”

“All cultures are not equal,” she said. 

Expanding powers of the state auditor

HB 549 continues the legislature’s mission of giving the Republican state auditor expansive powers. Republican leadership has already taken power from Stein and given to the auditor, Dave Boliek, including purview over the state board of elections. This new bill allows the auditor to demand the internal records of any private business or organization that gets state or federal money. 

Willingham was the only Democrat to vote for the bill. 

Sneaking anti-LGBTQ provisions into a bipartisan bill

In its initial form, HB805 protected women from revenge porn and children from sexual exploitation. Those provisions passed the House unanimously just a few months ago, 119-0. But then it went to the Senate. Republicans there added some things that had nothing to do with protecting women: a provision claiming that in North Carolina there are only two genders. 

In remarks on the House floor, Democrats said they supported the bill’s original intent and would pass it if the “culture war” additions were removed. They weren’t.

Democratic Rep. Nasif Majeed voted for the bill. If he hadn’t, the override would have failed. 

Secretive political donations

Senate Bill 416 bars any state agency from collecting or revealing the source of donations to nonprofit organizations. 

This, the majority of Democrats and voting rights groups say, will allow for a rush of “dark money” during elections. Groups tied to both parties will spend huge sums of money on the 2026 midterms, especially in the high-stakes Senate race between former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and Republican Michael Whatley.

This new law will allow donors to hide their donations to outside groups. 

Cunningham, Willingham, and Rep. Cecil Brockman, (Guilford Co.) were the only Democrats to vote for the bill.

Democratic Rep. Deb Butler (New Hanover Co) said the bill threatens free and transparent elections, noting that it was only because of transparency laws that voters knew that a fellow appeals court judge donated  Judge Jefferson Griffin’s legal fund as part of his effort this year to overturn his election loss to Justice Allison Riggs. 

“Y’all that’s not privacy, that’s secrecy,” Butler said. “And when secrecy sneaks into our politics, we know for a fact that corruption is not far behind.”

What’s next?

Several of the most contentious bills were overridden in the Senate, but did not get a vote in the House. They are on the schedule for Wednesday.

SB50, which would let 18 year olds carry concealed weapons without a permit or training, faces long odds in the House.

The House also did not vote on three anti-DEI bills and a bill that would require state agencies to work in tandem with ICE agents on some immigration raids.